🎮 he’s too stoned

One ginormous change this week, which I’m thrilled to roll-out. We now have a Games vertical/section in The Media Guide. Even more exciting: it’s going to be written by someone else!

James York will be joining us once a month as our new gaming correspondent under the Sandbox Victory banner. He’ll cover what’s hitting the shelves, what’s on his radar, and what he’s actually playing that’s worth checking out—both old and new. Let us know what you think of the format.

James is a teacher and researcher at Meiji University in Tokyo (so cool!) where he teaches and researches the intersection of games and play in education. I’m stoked to have him join and bring some actual expertise to this little shindig.

New Shows

💰 Loot S2 (Apple) — 2 April

I feel like S1 really went under the radar, especially given it stars Maya Rudolph. Plus, it was actually super enjoyable. It’s not going to blow your socks off, but Rudolph is hilarious and she kills this part.

🃏 Ripley S1 (Netflix) — 4 April

I’ve intentionally avoided everything I can about this one. I don’t know what it is, but if you throw something in black and white and give Andrew Scott his first huge role since The Priest in Fleabag, you’ve got me.

🍭 Sugar S1 (Apple) — 5 April

Apple is truly taking huge swings this year and they are only getting huger. This one stars Colin Farrell in his first of two big shows being released this year. It looks to have a bit of a noir feel to it as Farrell plays a detective in LA in search of a missing heiress.

plus there’s the final season of 🚀 Star Trek: Discovery, which I am way too far behind to say anything about.

Tuesday

• Shōgun (Hulu) 1:7

Wednesday

• The New Look (Apple) 1:10 [Finale]
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney) 3:10-11
• Palm Royale (Apple) 1:5
• X-Men ’97 (Disney) 1:4
• Loot (Apple) 2:1-2

Thursday

• Invincible (Amazon) 2:8 [Finale]
• The Girls on the Bus (HBO) 1:5
• A Gentleman in Moscow (Showtime) 1:2
• Ripley (Netflix) S1

Friday

• Manhunt (Apple) 1:5
• Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show (HBO) 1:2
• Sugar (Apple) 1:1-2

Sunday

• Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) 12:10 [Finale]
• The Regime (HBO) 1:6 [Finale]
• Last Week Tonight (HBO) 11:7
• Parish (AMC) 1:2

Release of the Week

🥞 What’s For Breakfast by Dent May

In reality, this is actually the second best album of the week, but for the purposes of this newsletter, I wanted to highlight something that you might’ve missed.

Overall, this album is a super catchy, upbeat pop record. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite albums from 2022, Every Little Thing by Will Joseph Cook. It doesn’t quite hit those same highs for me, but it’s still damn good.

Favorite Track: One Call, That’s All

Runner-Ups

🐂 Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé

Like I already said, this is actually the best album of the week. I’m not even much of a Beyoncé fan, but this whole record is killer. I listened to it while walking around downtown Chicago while the weather was beautiful this past Saturday and it was a pure delight. It’s not only country, but there’s some pop, some rock, and some blues throughout that make it a truly standout album. I urge you to give this gigantic 27 track album a listen, even if you aren’t a Beyoncé fan.

Favorite Track: BLACKBIIRD

🌺 The Garden Dream by gglum

Since I absolutely love to compare things to Waxahatchee, I think gglum is a good mix of Waxahatchee with the girl in red. It’s a fuzzy alt-bedroom pop punk record that jams.

Favorite Track: SPLAT!

📓 Notebook Fantasy by Chicano Batman

While I wouldn’t call this a truly stand-out album, Chicano Batman is always a fun time. It’s psychedelic soul pop that helps set them apart from a lot of bands who circle some of those genres individually.

Favorite Track: Beautiful Daughter

🆕 On the Shelves

👸 Princess Peach Showtime

Like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Princess Peach: Showtime! appears to be packed with big, stage-changing moments.

I really enjoyed the latest Mario game, Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

It was perhaps the best 2D version of the game to date. Of particular praise was the multiplayer mode, making it feel like all players influenced how the level progressed and the team’s success or failure. (In other words, think back to Sonic 2 where the 2P joypad could be used to control Tails… though often useful, the character did not have much agency in the game.)

Mario Wonder gives each player agency AND each player can choose their character based on how difficult they want the experience to be. For example, some characters are essentially invincible.

Not sure what to expect of Princess Peach Showtime, but if Nintendo are putting as much work into this as they have in their last platformer, we’re in for a treat.

🎒 Battlepack Battles

A PvP inventory management auto battler! Buy and craft powerful items, then carefully arrange them in your backpack.

I played a demo of this recently, but it seems to be getting a full release on Steam this month. It’s a kind of roguelike puzzle game… thing—definitely a genre I enjoy.

📡 On the Radar

🐙 Palworld

Palworld came out in early access in January. It’s like Pokémon but if Pokémon really leaned into the “enslaving of animals” vibe that permeates the game.

🛒 Supermarket Simulator

In a world where people would rather be unemployed than work as a clerk in a supermarket, there is a wild irony that this game is blowing up on Steam…

🃏 Balatro

This game is making the rounds in all the big review sites and podcasts. A rogue-like deck-builder game (two of my favorite genres) with lots of replayability. Frank Lanz has likened it to being Elon Musk on ketamine, which is a good thing, maybe… Made with Love2D and LUA programming language! (PICO-8 uses the same language)

🎮 In Rotation

🧩 Flipart and the games on Puzzmo

I’ve been playing many puzzle games recently, mostly of the sokoban variant (more to come next month), so the term “puzzle” has been something I keep my eyes open for. The Puzzmo website is a wonderful collection of puzzles that might be familiar to the audience here. Specifically, the following two games, which were enormously successful mobile games by Zach Gage:

• SpellTower
• Really Bad Chess

Wait. I looked into the site more. The whole site is created by Zach Gage!

🪱 Can of wormholes

A sokoban like puzzle game where you have to get a worm into a hole. That’s the most basic overview I can give.

Without giving too much away, some verbs that also come up: cut, roll, grow, push, flip, devour (oh, and I’m only 50% through the game).

Another really ‘a ha’ moment is that the spaceship you find yourself in is also worm that can be controlled!! Meta!

👾 Oblivion Eve

This is an absolutely beautiful rogue-like action platformer.

The developer has squeezed some really interesting mechanics into this tiny game. Leveling up, directional air dodge, smash attacks (like Smash Bros.) and powering up like a Super Saiyan in Dragonball Z.

Ghost Machine books from Image Comics

The first books since the official launch of Ghost Machine are here. It’s a fully shared creator-owned universe and Image Comics imprint. They follow in the footsteps of the original Geiger and Geiger: Ground Zero from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Along with Johns and Frank come nine other creators who will be joining what looks to be a pretty exciting comic endeavor.

Geiger #1

Gary Frank is back on art duties with Geoff Johns as they launch the on-going follow-up to the aforementioned Geiger and Geiger: Ground Zero mini-series’.

Something about the original Geiger never appealed to me, but when I found out about Ghost Machine, I picked both up and absolutely devoured them.

Rook: Exodus #1

The second book has Jason Fabok joining Johns on art this time. This is the one I’m most excited for—I mean just look at the cover below!

Redcoat #1

And then the one I’m least excited for. Bryan Hitch is on art as Johns, once again is writing. I’m not a huge Hitch fan nor does the idea of an immortal British dude from the American Revolution period do anything for me.

Other No. 1’s

• Deadpool (Marvel) #1
• Minor Threats: The Fastest Way Down (Dark Horse) #1
• Usagi Yojimbo: The Crow (Dark Horse) #1

What Else?

• The Sacrificers #7
• The One Hand #3
• The Last Mermaid #2
• Kaya #17
• Grim #16
• Batman #146

🐒 Monkey Man

This movie just looks terrific. Since it’s coming from Netflix it should be super easy for most people to check out without having to add another streaming service or head to a theater.

It’s Dev Patel’s directorial debut, which he’s also starring in. I guess Jordan Peele popped on late as a producer too because of how great it was shaping up to be. I don’t know if that’s a typical thing in Hollywood, but it has me pumped.

I’m honestly not really sure what it’s about, but based on the trailer it seems like it’ll be a very intense action thriller.

Last week I left A Gentleman in Moscow off the new releases as it had a stale vibe to me… well now I’m hearing great things about it so I’ve added it to the schedule. I haven’t actually watched it yet myself, but aim to rectify that tonight and will report back.

Whew, that felt like a lot. Hopefully, if you made it this far, you got some value out of it. Let me know what you end up checking out or what else you are enjoying this week!

Stay sane,

—humdrum

foofaraw s3 playlist