Another Spiderweb RPG that looks like it was made in 1993 drops on Ki…

"Spiderweb Software's latest crappy-looking RPG is now live," I wrote about Queen's Wish: The Conqueror back in 2019. Rude? No, it was entirely affectionate: Spiderweb, a husband-and-wife team of Jeff Vogel and Mariann Krizsan, makes games that look like they come from the Gold Box era but have depth and flexibility that make most modern games green with envy. They're old fashioned, but also really good RPGs.

Which brings us to the point: Spiderweb is remaking its 2005 release Geneforge 3, as Geneforge 3: Detonation, and its Kickstarter campaign has crushed its goal in just 24 hours.

It's not really a surprise that the Geneforge 3 remake blew past its goal so quickly. Spiderweb games don't have a huge audience, but its fans are very reliable and committed, and have consistently demonstrated that they're willing to pay for what they like. Spiderweb, importantly, has also demonstrated an ability to deliver. Geneforge 3: Detonation is the studio's sixth Kickstarter campaign: All of them were successfully funded, released, and hold "very positive" ratings across a few hundred user reviews on Steam. asg-reflektory.pl

But that bedrock of support was established long before the days of Kickstarter. "From day one, we provided the player with a wide variety of races and sexes to choose from for player avatars," Vogel told me in a 2016 interview. "In 1994, this was pretty radical, and it got us a lot of very long-term fans who had never seen anything like it."

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The Geneforge games—there are five in total—are set in a world ruled by wizards called "Shapers" who have the power to create life: everything from cute pets to deadly fighters and living tools of all sorts. They've built a mostly prosperous and stable society, but they rule with an iron fist: Shapers guard their power jealously, and any of their creations who disobey are destroyed immediately. But some of those creations are intelligent, and you can probably guess where things are going from there.

Geneforge 3: Detonation "will be mostly the same" as the original release, but with more: Spiderweb says it will "add a modern UI and expand the world, adding new characters, storylines, abilities, game mechanics, and other ways to go crazy with your mutant monsters." New spells and systems, including a "fuser" system enabling character mutations, will give experienced Geneforge players even more toys and strategies to play with.

With the base goal achieved, Geneforge 3: Detonation is now into stretch goals. The first, a new endgame creation, has already been passed, and it seems likely that the second, a new faction at $60,000, will also be hit. The final stretch goal, at $80,000, will add a hidden storyline to the game, "full of exceptional weirdness, cool lore, and maybe even fun characters from the earlier games."

The Geneforge 3: Detonation Kickstarter runs until August 13, while the game itself is expected to be out in early 2027. For a closer look at what to expect, and why Spiderweb fans are so committed to its games, check out Kerry Brunskill's dive into Geneforge 2: Infestation—"not the old-fashioned CRPG it appears to be."

What am I even on this planet for, really? To play videogames? To partake in an unhealthy diet? To make awkward sexual passes at the consenting partner of my choice? All of the above.

I might as well dig my own grave and climb into it because there's a robot on the brink of accomplishing all of those important tasks in my place. As a human, I'm officially obsolete because the NEO Home Robot can use an Xbox controller, open a bag of Funyuns, and slowly, awkwardly remove someone's clothing. Well, I had a good run. Goodbye, everyone.

As you can see in the video, NEO, created by Palo Alto company 1X Technologies, has some pretty finely articulated hands that appear to be capable of (slowly) performing household chores, including:

• Swirling invisible wine in a glass
• Changing a lightbulb before the bulb is inexplicably smashed with a hammer
• Daintily picking up a screw
• Separating grapes
• Lifting a 20 pound weight for less than a second before a suspiciously quick edit
• Slowly, creepily, unzipping someone's hoodie
• Connecting non-Lego brand Legos
• Using an Xbox controller, sort of
• Opening a bag of Funyuns and removing one Funyun while (inexplicably, again) a human attacks it with a hammer
• Creepily plugging itself in so it can continue being creepy

A lot to unpack there. First, I can absolutely see the potential of a robot that can perform basic household chores, pick things up, and yes, even remove articles of clothing: for an elderly person or someone with a disability (who is also fabulously wealthy because these robots cost $20,000 or a require a $500 monthly subscription fee), a helper bot could be life-changing.

But this little robot is just… weird. Red flag number one: anyone, human or otherwise, that wears a white sweater with white gloves as it putters around the house is a serial killer. That's just science. NEO's face, which can be glimpsed briefly staring down at the lightbulb it just switched on, is also startling: pitch black eyes on an otherwise featureless head. Can't you imagine it bludgeoning you with that 20 pound weight while it silently tilts its head to one side, its button eyes wide and unblinking, as if attempting to comprehend death?

The video itself is weird. Why is NEO attacked with a hammer, twice? Wouldn't zipping up the hoodie be a far less creepy demonstration of its skills than slowly unzipping it? And I can't quite see the point of teaching NEO to use the Xbox controller. Are we so advanced we're outsourcing not just our chores but our hobbies to robots?

There is one bit of good news that may stave off my obsolescence for a year or so: I did a bit of digging into NEO and it appears that at the moment, most of its actions are accomplished not autonomously but via a human pilot operating it remotely with VR gear, as seen in this Wall Street Journal video.

Knowing there's a person slowly performing all those tasks behind the scenes sort of doubles the creepiness of the already creepy robot. Not only is NEO staring at you with its dead black eyes, there are living eyes behind those eyes—probably some 19-year-old intern in Palo Alto—peering at you as you issue commands like "distribute Funyuns" and "slowly undress me."

So, the $20,000 robot that will replace me requires a whole other person to run the robot replacing me. Makes more sense to just keep me around, doesn't it? I'm much cheaper: the only subscription I require is a month of HBO a couple times a year.

DK Rap composer Grant Kirkhope has revealed he has made less than a dollar off the song's 1.5 million plays on TikTok.

The DK Rap is widely considered the most influential piece of music ever composed. This triumphant song about a group of five iconic simians transcended the Nintendo 64 game it was an intro to and made musical history. Without Lanky Kong, you probably wouldn't have had The Beatles debut about 40 years earlier.

At the very least – whether through meme remixes (see below), ironic enjoyment, or just appreciation for art – the DK Rap has become a staple of the series, arguably being more popular than Donkey Kong 64 itself with appearances in Super Smash Bros., The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and most recently, Donkey Kong Bananza. DK Rap composer Kirkhope has embraced the fandom around the song with a remake of the song for it's 25th anniversary, and by making the "Yooka-Laylee Rap" for the titular game.

Over on Twitter, Kirkhope comments on the song's enduring popularity, saying: "In other news the DK Rap had 1.5 million plays on Tik Tok." But there's a caveat: "I got paid 56 cents."

While the amount artists make off their music in the streaming era is a hot topic as of late, having the numbers laid out in front of you like that is somewhat wild. Kirkhope follows up the tweet, saying: "It shouldn't surprise me that most people don't know how music royalties work. Most composers don't either…"

Unfortunately, Kirkhope hasn't had too much luck with the DK Rap as of late, as famously the song's appearance in the Mario Movie didn't result in him getting a credit in the film, with a generic "Nintendo" credit shown. Kirkhope admitted last year: "I still haven't watched the movie yet. I've seen that bit with the rap. But I was so pissed I haven't watched it."

Donkey Kong Bananza devs admit the blatantly OP elephant transformation "probably went too far," but "it's fun" and "that's what matters most."