Continue? 9, 8, 7... what one more token is worth in life
The Continue screen gave you ten seconds to decide whether to push on. From SNK's Fantasy (1981) to the corner arcade: …
Barstool Philosophy 9 posts
Information security in plain English: scams, hardening and privacy — plus retrogaming, games and geek culture.
The grind: farming XP without knowing what for
Grinding is killing the same monster for hours in an RPG. In real life, we call it routine. What changes is knowing …
Save scumming: the art of never accepting consequences
Save scumming means saving before every risky decision and reloading when it goes wrong. If you do it in games, you …
Fast travel: why you want to skip life's boring parts
In games, fast travel is comfort — skip the journey, appear at the destination. In life, when you want to skip the …
Loading screen: what to do with the time nobody asked for
Before any big world, there's a loading screen. A barstool reflection on waiting, patience, and what changes while the …
If life had a difficulty setting, would you pick Easy?
Most people pick Hard in Dark Souls but would complain about the same thing in real life. What does that contradiction …
Protagonist or NPC: do you drive your life or just exist in it?
Every RPG world has heroes and NPCs. But in your own life — are you driving the story, or just running the script …
The infinite backlog: why you never finish what you start
You've got 80 games on Steam, 3 half-finished courses and dozens of open tabs. A barstool reflection on life's backlog …
New Game+: what if you could start everything over?
What if life had a New Game+ option? A philosophical think about fresh starts, regrets, and what games teach us about …