Staining The Timbre

Let's get this out of the way right up front: It is both appropriate and inappropriate to say The Outer Worlds , the first-person scifi RPG developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Private Division, is Fallout in space. The core mechanics are largely similar, the dialogue system is very reminiscent of the Fallout series (save for Fallout 4 and the lifeless, emaciated husk that is Fallout 76 ), and the unique weaponry all smack of what we know and love as Fallout . HOWEVER, I think what many people don't realize is that those traits aren't unique to Fallout , they're unique to a designer who helped create Fallout. Leonard Boyarsky, as far as the average gamer goes, doesn't get the celebrity he deserves. He made his mark at Interplay (eons ago in the ancient 1990s) as Art Director of the first Fallout game, pulling double duty as well polishing dialogue, and cemented that notoriety with his broad stroke involvement in nearly every aspect of Fallout ...

I first encountered farming simulators at the tender age of seven. I was staying the night at a friend's house and he let me play Harvest Moon on his Gameboy. At the time it seemed like a boring concept (even as an adult the idea of simulating farm work sounds objectively lame) but I found myself enjoying the game far more than I expected. After we went to sleep I secretly pulled out the Gameboy and kept playing for hours under the cover of darkness. For a long time Harvest Moon was basically the only option you had if you wanted to virtually farm. Eventually you had cash grab imitators like Farmville pop up with the advent of social networking, but they never scratched the same itch. They had stripped the gameplay to its bones and forced you to wait an arbitrary amount of time just to progress, leaving them as poor facsimiles of a fondly remembered childhood. I was thus blindsided in 2016 when Steam recommended to me Stardew Valley. Harvest Moon hadn't had a publicly-no...