How Is It Going

When you install a new game but forget that your gaming rig needs to compile shaders before you can actually play. That moment when you hit "Play" all excited, only to be stopped dead in your tracks by the dreaded "Compiling Shaders: 1 of 9378" progress bar. The betrayal! Your evening plans suddenly held hostage by the GPU equivalent of watching paint dry. And somehow it's always when you've only got a small window of free time to play. Those shaders might as well be compiling your disappointment in real-time.

The ultimate name bamboozle! Developers discovering that Godot (pronounced "go-DOH") game engine isn't written in Go is like finding out that JavaScript has nothing to do with Java. That shocked cat face perfectly captures the moment of realization when your brain short-circuits after assuming a connection that doesn't exist. The naming convention gods have struck again, leaving another victim questioning their entire reality.

Remember when games were actually games and not elaborate schemes to empty your wallet? The Vince McMahon reaction meme perfectly captures the unicorn that is a quality game in 2023. First, it's free? Mild interest. Could run on a potato from 2017? Now we're talking. No microtransactions? Holy crap, that's rare. But great replayability too?! That's like finding a bug-free production release – theoretically possible but I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, modern AAA studios are shipping 200GB games that require a NASA supercomputer and still ask you to pay $4.99 for a slightly different colored hat. The gaming industry really took "monetize everything" a bit too literally.

That moment when you're submitting your PR and frantically re-reading the contribution guidelines for the 17th time. "Did I format my commit messages correctly? Is my code style compliant? Will the maintainer publicly shame me in the comments?" Nothing quite like the cold sweat of wondering if your brilliant solution violates some obscure rule buried in paragraph 37, subsection C of the README. The code review Russian roulette begins!

That's just Journey's protagonist after the budget cuts hit. When your indie game funding runs out but you still need to ship something, you grab grandma's knitting project and call it "innovative character design." Half the Steam reviews will call it "a profound statement on isolation in the digital age" while the other half will complain that the hitbox is too big.

OH. MY. GOD. The absolute TRAGEDY of PC gaming in one devastating image! 💀 Young gamer hears "GTA 6 announced" and has his WHOLE LIFE ahead of him. Fast forward to the PC release and he's practically fossilized! Rockstar Games is out here aging gamers like fine wine—except nobody asked to become vintage! The PC port delay is so astronomical that entire GENERATIONS have come and gone! At this rate, we'll be playing GTA 6 with our arthritis-ridden hands while explaining to our great-grandchildren what "driving a car yourself" even means!