Happy Wednesday, gaming lovelies! If you’re suffering from the midweek doldrums, take a gander at these amazing photos from this past weekend’s Vista Viking Festival. This annual event is part festival, part live action role play (LARP) and part <gasp> cultural education. Let it stoke the fire in your belly to finish off the week. Now, on to the news!

Telltale Games Lays Off Majority of Staff

Following reports of major layoffs last week, Telltale games confirmed the shuttering of the game-making studio. Once known for critically acclaimed story games like Tales from the Borderlands, the Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead, the studio has been plagued by toxic management since its crossover from an indie to large publisher.

Some of the developers who are now without jobs were hired only a week before the news. The reactions on social media are heartbreaking.

To clarify some questions people have been asking (and keep in mind I am NOT a company rep)
– Around 250 people are jobless, not 225
– We did not get any kind of severance
– Our healthcare only lasts for one more week
– Many former employees were contract & can’t get unemployment

— Emily Grace Buck plz hire TTG devs! (@emilybuckshot) September 22, 2018

– I got confirmation that at least one (and possibly more) former Telltale employee was a foreign national here on a work visa and now has to leave the country within days. This is a nightmare.

— Emily Grace Buck plz hire TTG devs! (@emilybuckshot) September 23, 2018

Re: I got laid off at Telltale

None of my sleepless nights or long hours on weekends trying to ship a game on time got me severance today. Don’t work overtime unless you’re paid for it, y’all. Protect your health. Companies don’t care about you.

— Brandon Cebenka (@Binkysaur) September 21, 2018

I’m so sad we won’t be able to show you all Wolf. It was the first game I played from TTG, it was the reason I applied and got a job there. It was going to be absolutely magnificent. And I’m sorry we won’t be able to share it with you.

— Jessica Krause (@kessjrause) September 21, 2018

Still in the midst of controversy is Telltale’s latest announcement is that they’re working with potential partners to bring closure to The Walking Dead. Do they owe it to fans or should they be working to provide a better severance safety net for their employees? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Bowsette Takes Social Media By Storm

On a much lighter note, the internet has found a creative way to react to a new feature in the New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe game. By using the Super Crown, players can change the character Toadette into a Princess Peach lookalike known as Peachette. A seemingly silly inclusion, imaginative artists of the internet have taken the changeover a step further using Bowser as a base to create, you guessed it, Bowsette. Often cute, sometimes sexy and frequently NSFW, the images have inspired quite a following. To find your favorites, use #Bowsette or #bowserette.

Other news you can use

• YouTube’s stand alone gaming app to close in March 2019
• Indiecade announces this year’s festival games nominees
• Steam users flood Total War: Rome 2‘s reviews over female characters

Games Bleat

Welcome to Games Bleat! I’m Kael, your local gaming mechanic, and I see you’ve got a lugnut problem in that there PlayStation. I don’t know why I chose this bit, knowing nothing about vehicle repair, but it’s where we are now. Oh, look, I found some sales while tightening up your sway bar!

PC

• CrossCode $16.99
• Highway Blossoms $7.79
• Lake Ridden $14.99
• 60 Parsecs! $13.49
• Borderlands 2 $4.99
• Borderlands 2 Season Pass $9.89
• Innerspace $9.99
• The King’s Bird $12.99
• Caves of Qud $8.99
• Hacker.exe $6.29
• OK/NORMAL $1.19

I ordered some extra radius rod bushings and instead they sent me these new games. If that ain’t the darndest. Well, hopefully y’all can make some use of them!

First is Luna and the Moonling, the debut game from Greyborn Studios. It’s a puzzle adventure game about a princess and her magical friend saving the king from a curse. It looks really cute and like a fun way to spend some time.

Next is Life is Strange 2, a hotly awaited release here at Sidequest. This entry takes us away from Arcadia Bay by following two brothers on the lam. I’m super interested in what DONTNOD will do with a tale of brothers, and I know I’m not alone in that. (Content warning for police violence in the trailer below.)

Finally there’s Wandersong! I’m so pumped for this game after I demoed it at PAX around two years ago now. It’s a super cute bardic adventure with puzzle solving elements, that’s all about helping people and saving the world.

Anyway, that’s it for this week’s bleat. I’ll catch you next time after I get this flywheel shoved into my Switch, because why not!