300: a big ol' floating head.
Hullo.
Sakhmeet
Power To Control Distribution Is The Real Fantasy
1990s Gen X band
I'm worried about the goth girl
Release
Bye
I was thinking of perhaps skipping this week, but realised there was no way I couldn't post this beauty.
As part of the Wicked + the Divine: the Covers Version Jamie and Matt took the opportunity to complete the set of god headshots (One could argue she already had her head shot, thanks to Minerva, but that would be insensitive.)
In all seriousness, it was great chance to do return to something which felt like unfinished business. The nature of publication meant that by the time the remaining Gods got headshots in year 4, Sakhmet was out the story, so skipped. This is just nice. It's good to see her, once last time.
The Second Printing of The Power Fantasy #1 arrived in the shops next week, with both of its covers. They look like this...
...so you should be able to get it. If your shop has none left, the third printing is out on September 25th. If that sells out, we're already thinking about what to do for the fourth. We want anyone who wants a a copy to be able to get one.
Also, the Comps for issue 2 arrived. They look great!
However, there's some bad news, so let's bold it.
Issue 2 was meant to be out next week, but there's been a printer problem so only a portion of the books will be in shops. By my rough math, approximately a third of the print run will be in shops next week (September 18th) with the remaining coming out the following week (25th).
That does mean you could pick up issue 1 and 2 on the same day and be fully aboard the Power Fantasy Train (which is significantly more powerful than a locomotive).
To be fair to retailers (who need to know an issues' sales before ordering the next) we'll be putting back the order cut off date a week, so they (and you) will have time to pre-order – meaning issue 3 will also be pushed back a week.
All desperately annoying, of course, but our printer has said the problem shouldn't happen again. We will strive to be worth the wait.
I'll save the preview for next week (giving it 2 weeks before a lot of you will be getting feels cruel) but here's some fine The Power Fantasy related content....
- Elana had me on Graphics Policy to talk about The Power Fantasy, the end of Krakoa and a whole bunch about our mutual love of A History of Rock Music In 500 songs. It's always good to talk to Elana, and this was a lot of fun, and I got to say things like ““The philosophy that leads to AI is the same philosophy as 19th Century imperialism and colonialism” in an attempt to justify turning Mr Sinister into a big ol' floating head.
- Matt reads comics starts a dialogue review series about the Power Fantasy. The dialogue between critics has become an increasingly popular mode in the last decade (it seems to be in conversation with the conversation of podcasts), but actual around art is just good full stop. I'm trying to work out if there's any way one could encourage this sort of stuff in a broader way. I was thinking of a back matter podcast earlier, which is probably just me making too much work for myself.
- Tiktok-hero Sir Superhero did a big interview for his channel – here's one, but here's all the raw material he put up on Youtube. This is me the day after Gencon, I believe.
We Called Them Giants gets closer, and reviews start coming out – here's Gonkbonk saying kind things about it. (To steal a quote: “a beautiful standalone story... In just over 100 pages, the killer duo delivers a touching tale about the power of human connection in the dreaded face of isolation and fear. With its gorgeous artwork and emotionally resonant storytelling, this Image Comics graphic novel is a must-read for fans of DIE and readers looking to immerse themselves in something new.”)
IGN also ran a new preview of a few pages, which shows a little of saying hello to the Giants.
Uh-oh.
We Called Them Giants is available at the end of October from Comic Shops, and the start of November in Bookshops.
This is my 300th newsletter. I wanted to find time to write you something special – something meaningful, lengthy, considered. However, as I say later, these two weeks are a lot and I'm quietly amazed I'm even writing a newsletter.
So I'm going to write you my tips for being good at Duolingo.
I stress – I don't mean being good at learning a language in Duolingo. In practise, me getting good at Duolingo has massively slowed me learning Italian. Unfortunately, I am a better at gaming than languages, and this is what happens.
You'd think the metric for success in Duolingo would be completing the course. Oh, you sweet summer child. It's about the XP you accumulate and the league that lets you climb to. This guide is about doing that, with the absolutely minimum effort required. In terms of foreign languages, you may learn nothing. You may even forget something.
I'll say one thing – I do pay for Duolingo (though not the AI stuff) but I don't play with infinite lives on. I'm aware if I lose the need to concentrate at all on the answers at all and spam answers randomly while staring out the window, I'm really wasting my life more than using an app for 5 years and still not really understanding future tense.
All that follows are within the spirit of playing Duolingo properly. Which makes it even worse, if you think about it.
1) Duolingo changes the XP for tasks relatively regularly. Some of this may be sub-optimum by the time you read it. Some of this may be sub-optimum now. It also varies between languages significant. Look at the principles of the below, and apply to whatever you're doing.
2) The best way to increase XP is using Duolingo when you have a multiplier active. This doubles your XP for nearly any task. There's several ways of getting a multiplier – gifted by your friends, completing stages, etc. The easiest one is doing a lesson before noon or after 6pm, which you can then cash in the following morning (or evening). Do this every night and morning, no matter what. You will inevitably avoid playing any time you don't have the 2x or in the afternoon – that's fine, we're here to earn XP, not learn a language.
3) You should concentrate on the lessons which reward the most XP for the least effort. The gold standard is Match Madness, accessible 5 days a week on the scoreboard. This is simply matching words, and every time you complete it, it amps up the score if you complete it again until it resets.
If you're doing any actual lessons, it's probably worth doing a Match Madness afterwards, just for the extra XP. It's significantly quicker than any actual lesson, and after the first level you'll be earning as much as more as actually doing a lesson (and doing a lesson risks you learning something).
4) Surely playing every morning and evening to get the multiplier sounds like hard work? And it is, a bit. Yet again, concentrate on the option of least effort. Match Madness, once more to the rescue. There's three sections in March Madness, completing each giving a portion of the full XP reward. You can reach the first one in 15 seconds. If you do that and quit, that still counts as a lesson. Do that when you're pressed for time and want to keep your muliplier going. This is also good for just keeping you streak going generally. I'be played Duolingo for 1656 days thanks to this. I'm still 50:50 on remembering the italian for “Pizza”.
5) As a side point to that, you'll eventually get a point on Match Madness where you can't complete it in the time limit. Now, you can grind to get (or spend real money) on time extenders, but I'm not going to do that. However, by the point the Match Madness is too long for you to complete, the stage-2 checkpoint will go up from 10XP to 15XP (or more). With the 2x Multiplier, that's as much as the actual lessons used to be. So rather than trying to beat it and get the big payout, just quit out at level 2, and start again. You'll likely get more than the full payment in the same time.
6) Oh – find matching hard? While most of you will already be using both thumbs, the extra trick is to wait until the random match puts a matching pair of words at the top or the bottom of the options. Then ignore the pairing, and just concentrate on the remaining four slots. It's much easier to match when you've looking at less things.
7) Match Madness is only 5 days a week. Don't play the game it offers instead. It's almost as long as a normal lesson, has no mid-game quit-payout option and the actual XP payout is crap (unless you really grind it). Instead, scroll down the syllabus and select one of the cartoon characters until you find another Match exercise. It works basically the same.
8) Not in the mood to speak or hear anything? Just press the “can't do this right now” button and skip these tasks. This is especially useful in any task which is against a time limit – listening to the app speak or (even worse) have to deal with it trying to understand your accent just makes the time tick away. It's not as if you'll have to speak or listen to anyone speaking this language.
9) Finally, the most important exception to the “keep your 2x multiplier rolling”? Monday. The leagues finish Sunday night, and then start up again. It fills in the leagues as people start playing. As such, the people who start in the morning are universally more driven than those who start at night. You'll need much more XP in a week to come near the top, or even stay in the league. Get the 2x multiplier for that evening by completing the friend quest the previous week, and saving it until then.
10) Most importantly: the best way to be good at Duolingo? It's just to do a shitload of duolingo. This sneaky stuff doesn't compare to my friends who are doing dozens of lessons a day, bless' em (though I dare say if you want to complete in the top leagues, all these cheats help). The only danger with doing that is, of course, learning a foreign language, which is the last thing I want to do when using an app about learning a foreign language.
If you want more, here's the bluesky thread where I said I was doing this and folks are chipping in.
- This is a huge article about the 9 hour Netflix Prince documentary that may not see the light of day. A big complicated piece about what sounds like a big complicated piece about a big complicated man. Lots of warnings in here for content, but it's a vivid portrait and a strong article.
- We talked about Comrade Rossignol and Marsh's Occult Piracy RPG Gold Teeth previously – but here they are talking about what they're hoping to achieve with the project. Sign up for the Kickstarter announcement here.
- I don't think I've linked to this yet – James D'Amato had me on to his Ultimate RPG Podcast where he runs through a worldbuilding exercise from his new book. In our one, it was creating a children's RPG. This was a lot of fun, and also the real proof of being a parent was me being so brain mashed that he kept on giving me picklists of 5 and I couldn't remember them all.
- Leigh Alexander's The Unreal World is her substack about game design in unscripted television. She's always been one of the sharpest people, and an expert in writing smartly about stuff no-one else is. This is good stuff.
- This was in my tab for weeks, so I may have linked it a while back, but search is showing nothing. This is Wandering GMs interviewing Jon Peterson about his Elusive Shift, a history of the emergence of RPG theory. I read the book and loved it, and this is a good taste of the sort of things he discovered. The arguments people have had forever? This is the first draft.
This is the hardest two weeks for a while, which makes me surprised that I've found time to write something as silly as the Duolingo tips article. That's because I'm so busy that I've had to get organised. Ugh.
I have 2 scripts to finish – one for TPF, one for something else. I have a big chunk of unexpected but time-critical work for this non-comics WFH project. I also have my scenario for RRD's Hollows.
But I've kept on schedule so far – it basically means getting my pages done first thing, then one ninth of the non-games project. That takes me to lunch, if I'm organised and don't let the Internet in the shed. Then the afternoon is everything else – I've got on top of e-mails, which seems a wonder. And cook, and all that stuff.
The two secret ingredients to this are basically the aforementioned No Internet In Shed and putting an old me-hack in action of only going on my main machine in the late afternoon, as I always waste time.
Coping mechanisms sometimes, miraculously, do let you cope.
I also hope my replacement keyboard arrives today, as this mechanical one is murder on my weak and useless hands.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London
11.9.2024