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SU&SD IS GETTING EXPERIMENTAL!: SU&SD Newsletter #75

Added 2023-09-08 23:33:02 +0000 UTC

Tom: August is done and I’m tuckered out.

Our editorial policy for this month was very much to scrape by on our ‘front of house’ video offering so that we could cook a whole new batch of nice bits for our lovely donors - getting the wheels spinning on this new stage of SU&SD. I think we managed! Maybe even THRIVED?! Matt filmed a great little piece on Lacuna in a scrambled-together set in his new house, I bagged us some coverage of Five Three Five and Golem, and our fabulous new hire Emily did FIVE REVIEWS IN ONE in her solo roundup. Whew! We only made one heinous embargo error! A new record!

Matt: We’ll be chatting more in the next newsletter about behind-the-scenes stuff and how our BIG EXPERIMENTAL PLANS are all going, but this month I’m here to breathe a big sigh of satisfied exhaustion and get a little bit... extravagant...

I’m pretty proud of what we’ve managed in our first month of doing MORE, but one thing we should highlight is that the Top 100 series is… delayed. AGAIN. But not for long! A combination of train strikes and people being either unwell or abroad meant that our filming schedule got “nuffed in the nats”. Our glorious wave of new stuff is still coming, it just might be a little bit slower than we’d like. It turns out getting more than two people in the same room at the same time is hard?

Tom: This was so frustrating. We stress-tested the studio, picked out our first slate of games, sorted a weekend… and then Matt got ill and trains stopped moving. We’ve rescheduled so that we can get the pilot out as soon as everyone’s schedules align once more, but oof. Annoying.

Matt: But the wheels are in motion! We’re feeling supported and we’re feeling goooood - and I’d like to share with you a little pocket of brightness I’ve discovered for myself during the last few weeks…

Tom: Oh no.

Matt: OH YEAH!

For those who didn’t know, I’ve been moving house! We’ve been doing that now for a whole year, amazingly - but it’s meant that I’ve been going without all sorts of things that I’d previously taken for granted: A home computer! A bed! A sofa! Rooms that don’t smell quite strongly of piss! But the thing I didn’t realise I’d been missing the most? Having my own kitchen.

To be clear, my new kitchen is absolute garbage. Half of the walls are exposed wires and pink plaster, the cupboards are falling apart, my main food prep surface is an old Ikea table, and the floor might be partially rotted, I think? The oven I’m using is an old electric one we clean up that we literally got for free, on the street.

But after a whole year of not having my own space to cook in, I’ve started doing it again over the past few weeks - and it’s awakened a part of me that I’ve missed so very badly! The science, the flair, the methodical process - the craft of putting care into something delicious that you then sit and eat. It’s the best!

I’ve become giddy with the thrill of it, and today I harnessed this excitement - alongside my strong desire to not have to walk down the road to the shops - and made an unusual, excellent pasta dish: the recipe for which I will now share with YOU.

This recipe came about because I bought some nice Sicilian style sausages that are REALLY MEATY and REALLY SALTY. It’s a bit much! You could easily make this vegan by replacing these with something else that’s very salty and meaty, but that’s your funeral, don’t be mad if it’s terrible.

Boil and well-salt your water - enough to cover the pasta, but not much more: you want it to get really starchy so we can use it to make a sauce.

Thinly slice the sausages that are honestly way too salty, then peel and slice the apples into pieces roughly the same thickness. Put a large frying pan on a high heat, add a good glug of olive oil, and when hot - but not smoking! - chuck in the sausage and the apple, tossing or stirring them around. Season with lots of freshly ground black pepper, and a bit of chilli (don’t add salt, the sausages and the pasta water will be doing all that - and putting salt in the pan now will make the apple all mushy and floppy).

Once it was all looking pretty nicely golden and brown, I added in a good handful of sliced spring onions. If the pasta water isn’t already looking cloudy, take it off the heat for a moment so that nothing burns.

When the pasta is almost done, pour a decent glug of the starchy water into the pan that you’ve been frying stuff in: ideally this pan will still be really hot, and it’ll all bubble up and sizzle and be really exciting!!! Whoa!!!!

The magic starch in the water will turn all of this STUFF into a SAUCE, and then you just add the pasta to it and EAT it - it’s that easy, just try it. People will say you are evil and wrong for cooking a pasta dish that is 50% apples, but they are cowards. I ate it today it was really good.

If it isn’t really good when you make it don’t worry, just add absolutely loads of grated cheese and pretend that your life is completely fine. BONE APPERTITS

Tom: I’m never letting you do that into the newsletter again.

What are we video games! 🎮

Emily: It’s only my second contribution to the newsletter and I feel as though I’m already breaking the format with this. If you’re reading this, I got away with it! Not exactly what I have been playing, but something that I’m going to host for others to play! I like to make trivia games once every few months for my friends and I. It’s less of a standard trivia, and more of a series of trivia adjacent games that I come up with. If you’ve ever seen Richard Osman’s House of Games, that’s the vibe. They’re always a great time, even if not all my games are BANGERS. I’m excited for it.

Matt: Oohhh that sounds neat! I remain devoted to my idea of one day running a pub quiz that is entirely about unicode file extensions, but that’s less of a hobby and more of an act of terrorism.

Tom: Increasingly I feel like I’m just using the newsletter to talk about games that everyone is playing and are ‘just good’ - I’m unfortunately going to do it again.

Baldur's Gate 3 is absurdly good. It's fantastic. I'm taking it very slow - only about halfway (?) through Act 2 - treating myself to an hour of it per night like a delicious chocolate treat at the end of the workday. Every companion is a joy - so much so that I had intense analysis paralysis and three restarts before settling on my own character and his surrounding buddies. I also adore how the longest I was truly stuck in the game was a romance choice - and I think there's no shame in those being the most affecting and tricky turning points in games! Videogames are such an unhorny (or unromantic) form of media for so many, and it's nice seeing people care about the very real feelings they catch for these wonderfully drawn characters. I'm glad I'm investing so much of my game in Lae'zel - she's the secret best character that so many people completely overlook based on first impressions.

On top of all that: the scope creep gives me Elden Ring vibes, the combat is continually goofy as it is challenging, and the myriad approaches to problem solving have me slamming that F8 key just to glimpse the alternate timelines my party breezes by. It's a monster, and a deserved success for a cracking studio that rarely misses. I'm already thinking about a second playthrough.

Also, I’m so sorry but I’m going to talk about Destiny again - this season is just fabulous! Some really cracking seasonal activities and a story that's got me very excited to check back every Tuesday means I'm connecting with this season on a more personal level than the last. Trying to do a Day One Crota with the raid group was also a blast - what a cracking opening encounter! (we only really managed that one, and about half of the second before turning in for the night...)

Outside of that, I thoroughly enjoyed multiple spelunking sessions into the gorgeously weird Crypt Underworld! I've spent so many words already talking about the games that are more accessible recommends, but if you want something totally odd then you should absolutely seek that sucker out.

What are we music! 🎵

Pip: I know a lot of folk love to do their work to lo-fi beats, but I need ENERGY! And what better source of energy is there than the drumming of heavy metal? But I’ve listened to my current work albums so much the effect has worn off and I put out a call for new stuff. Twitter came though and I’ve been really enjoying Construct and We Are the Void by Dark Tranquility (Swedish melodic death metal), Volition from Protest the Hero (apparently this is more mathcore but what even are genres anymore), and Tekkno by Electric Callboy (newly renamed electro metalcore europop… etc).

Tom: Adding to Pip’s metal list - I very much recommend ‘EARTH REAPER’ - the 2023 record from Wallowing. It’s nasty and has soundtracked all the boomer shooters I’ve been chewing on this month (Turbo Overkill releasing into 1.0 had me replaying Dusk and Ultrakill). I also think that ‘We Cater to Cowards’ by Oozing Wound is proper good - featuring the superbly bleak lines “Remember the good times, I don’t miss em at all / I’ve already lived through this, once was enough”.

Matt: On a similar trajectory of intensity, I’ve been listening far too much to Cave World by Viagra Boys - a wonderful, horrifying mess of harsh beats and… jazz? My latest obsession, though, is S.P. by Dick Stusso - an album that I can only describe as “like being trapped in a karaoke bar with a maniac”. It’s not a vibe I knew I’d enjoy, but here we are!

Tom: I can confirm that this is the exact vibe - one I think is really under-explored? Alex Cameron hit on that vein, but only when he was quite sad. Now he’s happy and making music that’s more… hinged. Though, listening to Dick Stusso reminds me of the song I had on repeat at the start of this month - ‘Financial Times’ by The Motor Show. Nobody seems to dig this song as much as I do, so please tell me if it hits diff (as the kids say) for you too.

What are we watching? 📺

Matt: I’ve just finished watching Search Party - currently on the big british i-player - and it is… a real THING? Fantastic characters and writing right from the start, but in 2023 I think what I found most refreshing is that the shape of the whole thing feels alien as hell? At this point I’m completely used to shows either endlessly playing it safe and running for too long, or being exciting and cool and cancelled after one season. What’s amazing about Search Party is that the show has clearly run its course after maybe *two* seasons, but rather than just spinning wheels and dragging itself out with cyclical nonsense, it jumps the shark again and again and just becomes increasingly weird and silly. It is SO good!

Emily: I’ve just finished watching the second season of Good Omens. Absolutely wonderful show in every way. As much as I also adore the first season, the more subdued and character driven direction of the second was incredibly welcome. Beautiful and moving, it had me in tears multiple times. Though, that isn’t saying all that much. I could never have a title like Quinns’ Alice is Missing review. First game to make him cry?? I could cry at a bird laying an egg in Wingspan because the thought of motherhood is so beautiful! Hormones are wild. Where was I?

Oh yeah, Good Omens was a lovely watch :)