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Code Monger, cyclist, sim racer and driving enthusiast.
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Tyler Wilde / PC Gamer:
Tim Sweeney says Big Tech leaders, who used to pretend to be Democrats, are now pretending to be Republicans to skirt antitrust laws and “crush competitors” — The Trump administration is expected to be softer on antitrust cases, which as we know are one of Sweeney's major pursuits.
I had not seen anyone make the obvious thing, so I made the obvious thing:
For at least the last decade, video games have been offering profound emotional single-player experiences, yet the recent surge of solo tabletop role-playing games has shown that pen & paper RPGs can be just as heartbreaking — if not more.
Traditionally, tabletop role-playing games have been opportunities for players to come together at the table to crack jokes and slay monsters. While older hack and slash tabletop games could on occasion offer profound emotional moments (with a real uptick in narrative gaming during the 90s), the latest crop of tabletop designers has perfected the solitary, almost meditative experience of playing a single-player TTRPG.
Below are just a few games that will crack you open like an egg, leaving you to put your pieces together again.
Just one of many solo games from this award-winning game/graphic designer, architect, and musician, Midnight Melodies taps into his musical experience, having players embody a jazz pianist who discovers that the Grim Reaper cannot touch them. Rather than chase you eternally, Death takes you under its wing in the Department of Unauthorized Deaths. Each night, after your performance at the jazz bar, you unravel a mystery of someone’s untimely demise — performing a song to report your findings to the Grim Reaper.
Among Capacles other solo games are the ghost hunting Wraithhound, the 2023 CRiT Award winning Not A Demon, and Insurgent, a game for single or group play that tasks players with toppling a tyrannical government.
Galatea — named after the greek myth of a statue come to life — is about a piece of art made by a brilliant and celebrated, yet terribly lonely and tormented artist. You were his perfect creation come to life and now you must remain perfect at all costs. This game about codependency and helplessness hones in on how devastating it is to not live up to the expectations others have forced upon you. Based on the Wretched & Alone system, this solo RPG uses the growing instability of a wooden block tower to build tension as it progresses. Galatea is maybe the most literal interpretation of this article’s theme, with a cover that alludes to the Japanese practice of Kitsugi, repairing the cracks in a piece of pottery with gold.
Among S. Kaiya’s other solo games work includes the Untitled Moth Game, a card based game about making promises you can’t keep, and you, beyond the pale, a daily ritual game which has players take on the role of a singularly unique monster observing the mortals around them.
International award-winning designer momatoes makes games that feel like works of art before it even has the chance to dash your heart on the floor. A graphic designer by trade, momatoes’ singular perspective comes through both in their aesthetic and mechanical choices. For a free delve into their work, you can pick up Farewell, Goodnight, a game that uses die rolls to examine the inevitable cruelty of memory loss through the lens of electroshock therapy in a mid-century psychiatric hospital.
Offering a more mechanical experience, the second edition of The Magus has you act as a Wizard in search of arcane supremacy. Unlike other journaling games, The Magus is crunchy in its mechanics — having players roll dice as they lose control, gain power, and collect scars as they risk everything. Still, at the heart of this solo game is other people, bonds that ground you to your humanity along your doomed journey towards omnipotence. The first edition on sale, while the second edition is currently available for pre-orders.
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is widely considered to be a dry and unemotional document. Published by the Department of Transportation, it outlines the basic specifications of all the street signs you could expect to see out on roads and highways across the United States. Most are familiar, but if you dive deeper into its pages, you can find some unsettling relics from darker times.
Back in the mid-20th century, America was tangling with the realities of nuclear war. Top generals contemplated targeting strategies, while engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself.
Against this bleak backdrop, government administrators turned to the concept of Civil Defense. The idea was to do whatever could be done to protect the citizens of the nation from the horrors of nuclear war and its immediate aftermath. In turn, the Department of Transport worked up some rather depressing road signs to help people get where they needed to be in these bleak and trying times.
Flip open the 1961 edition of the MUTCD, and you’ll find an important section on Civil Defense. It featured a handful of designs for traffic management in a post-nuclear world. Perhaps most interesting was the “MAINTAIN TOP SAFE SPEED” sign, designated CD-4. It’s purpose was highly unique:
The “MAINTAIN TOP SAFE SPEED” sign may be used on highways where radiological contamination is such as to limit the permissable exposure time for occupants of vehicles passing through the area. Since any speed zoning would be impractical under such emergency conditions, no minimum speed limit can be prescribed by the sign in numerical terms. Where traffic is supervised by a traffic regulation post, official instructions will usually be given verbally, and the sign will serve as an occasional reminder of the urgent need for all reasonable speed.
Basically, if you saw this sign, you’re supposed to be gunning it as fast as you can while still staying on the road. The intention is to limit your exposure to radiation as much as possible while traveling through contaminated areas.
The 1971 edition of the MUTCD expanded further on the Civil Defense section. The DOT had by this time developed a standardized sign for marking directions to fallout shelters, where citizens could wait out radioactive contamination falling from the sky after a nuclear attack. The document also specified a sign for decontamination centers, where those suffering radiation exposure might be treated by experienced personnel.
Further signs in this series include the “AREA CLOSED” sign used to designate areas of high radiological or biological contamination that are too unsafe for travel. The DOT also specified a blue “Evacuation Route” sign marked with the Civil Defense logo. It was intended to guide citizens to safety along pre-planned routes.
Ultimately, the Department of Transport prepared these signs for when things really hit the fan. Thankfully, the worst fears of the Cold War never came to pass, and these signs weren’t needed in any major emergency situation.
And yet! Some of these signs persist in the MUTCD standard to the day. The most recent edition still includes some of these signs—like EM4-1b ‘FALLOUT SHELTER’—but now places them under the category of Emergency Management signs. The bleak term of “Civil Defense” is no longer very relevant in government administrative circles.
Us car enthusiasts do like driving fast. Still, when the government has put out a sign telling you to floor it, you know the situation has to be dire. In the end, most of these signs have never been put to use, and that’s something we can all be thankful for. Regardless, the Department of Transport stands ready with signage prepared to deal with whatever might happen down the line.
Image credits: Department of Transport, top shot logobom/depositphotos.com
The post If You Ever See This Speed Sign, You’re Probably Going To Die appeared first on The Autopian.
The dawn of the electric age is a time to rewrite paradigms, and Renault is absolutely crushing it. From bringing back the Renault 5 subcompact to announcing a 500-horsepower dual-motor rear-wheel-drive hyper-hatch, the brand is churning out some of the most exciting cars in Europe right now, and it’s not done yet. The Renault Twingo, a favorite European hatchback of extremely online car people, is getting an electric reboot that’s edging closer and closer to production. In fact, it’s expected to hit showrooms in 2026, which means it’s about time Renault dropped an update. Well, here it is, and not only is this the first time we get to see what the new Twingo’s interior will mostly look like, it only fuels the desire for this reborn ’90s icon.
If you aren’t familiar with the Twingo, don’t worry. The original version of this European city car dropped for 1993 and instantly became a cult classic thanks to its smiley appearance and upbeat vibe. Just one look at this hatchback gives you the impression that’s is absolutely overjoyed to be a car, and since humans will anthropomorphize anything, the Twingo hit home as an emotional vehicle with a certain zest for life. While the second-generation and third-generation models enjoyed minor success, they didn’t hit quite as hard as the original. Thankfully, Renault seems to be returning to the model’s roots.
First unveiled in concept form during the 2023 auto show season, Renault has just given everyone a better glimpse of what the incoming Twingo will actually look like thanks to this prototype version here. The brand told British outlet Autocar that not only is this iteration a running, driving car instead of just some non-functional concept model, but that it’s “90%-ready” for production. Obviously, there are still some outlandish things here in concept-car tradition, but the bones look solid.
Let’s start on the outside, where changes from the initial show car lead to a far more production-like appearance. A lot of fanciful concept car thinking like the illuminated door handles, vent-free front fascia, and lack of quarter windows in the doors has disappeared, giving us a better look at what’s actually to come. Thankfully, most of the exterior tweaks are fairly subtle. The taillights adopt a closed D-shaped form, the wheel arch trims have been slimmed down considerably, the side mirrors appear to be larger, and that’s about as far as tweaks go.
The big story with this prototype is on the inside, where the incoming Twingo actually gets an interior that looks surprisingly feasible. Sure, the cork floor probably won’t make it to showrooms, but not only does the dashboard seem to sport all the controls you could want, it actually looks fairly produceable. Right off the rip, functionality seems alright, with a classic three-knob layout for adjusting climate control functions, a hazard light switch that looks like a boiled candy, and Renault’s current touchscreen infotainment system displayed on a normal rectangular touchscreen. Add in the presence of an actual rearview mirror, and this cockpit looks quite plausible for production.
Of course, that’s good, because there are some seriously funky elements going on here. The big swath of exterior color-matched dashboard trim is a great way of brightening up the space without resorting to expensive textiles. It’s cheap and cheerful, exactly as a car in this segment should be. What’s more, the body color trim theme continues on the door cards, which seems like a nod to the spartan door trims of the original Twingo. Speaking of ’90s nostalgia, how about colorful seat fabrics? While the patterns seen in the Twingo prototype adopt a more Frutiger Aero look, the odd splatter of color is greatly appreciated. Oh, and just like in the original Twingo, the rear seat slides to balance rear seat space with cargo space. Nice.
While the last Twingo shared its architecture with the third-generation Smart Fortwo, this one’s all Renault, riding on a chopped version of the AmpR Small platform seen underneath the reborn Renault 5. As a result, don’t expect mind-blowing performance, but do expect a starting price of less than €20,000. That’s pretty damn cheap for an electric car developed and expected to be built in Europe, and the sort of car we could use here in America.
There’s still a place for retro design provided it’s done right, and the march of time combined with 20-year trend cycles means that it’s about time we saw more ’90s-inspired designs hitting showroom floors. Although the reborn Renault Twingo will likely never make it to America, we’re still stoked to see it unfold.
(Photo credits: Renault)
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The post The Electric Renault Twingo Is Almost Here And We’re Absolutely Stoked appeared first on The Autopian.
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