Okay, this week I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to try to update the Double Fine Action News EVERY DAY. Whether I have anything newsworthy to say or not. I guess that’s not really much of a change. Except that for this whole week, I’m going to do it even if I don’t feel like it. Even if I have an earache, or if my legs hurt, or I’m all itchy, or if I have absolutely nothing to say.

Why you may ask? After all, there has been no great demand for this service. No one has said, “please, more updates!” In fact, many people have said, “uh… what’s with all the updates? Don’t you have a job? Or some real news?”

I do have a job, but nothing is more horrible than the work you HAVE to do. I have a huge pile of writing I have to do for the game, but writing for the Action News is more fun right now because I do not HAVE to do it. See? So, my theory is that if I create a situation where I HAVE to write on the web page every day this week, it will become such an obligation and a chore that I won’t enjoy it anymore. Then, the allure will be gone and I’ll stop doing it and get back to the work I have to do, which is writing dialog for the excellent game Psychonauts.

Or, wait, how about this: I’ll write dialog for the excellent game Psychonauts and put it on the web page, thereby killing two birds with one ingenious stone. Okay here we go. Freestylin’ dialog. Right off the top of my head. Warning: spoilers below. Maybe.

RAZ: “Arrrrr.”
PRESIDENT CLINTON: “Whoa, dude. You are, like, totally reading my mind.”
RAZ: “Take that!”
PRESIDENT CLINTON: “Hey, I’m not president any more. Shouldn’t that be EX-president?”
RAZ: “I knew you were going to say that.”
EX-PRESIDENT CLINTON: “In fact, are you sure I’m even in this game? I’m going to check with my agent, but I don’t think I’m in this game Psychonauts, although it is an excellent game!”
RAZ: “Diabolique! Please enjoy the tasting of your head’s exploding!”
THE END
Brilliant! And that is just a taste—a swig, if you will—of the delicious dialog you will be enjoying when you play this very excellent game, Psychonauts.

The other point that I am making on accident is this:  With the increased frequency of postings, the quality is going to go WAY down. From the very low mark it already set for itself. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the sheer volume of it all.

Tomorrow, I promise, real actual news. Like, a ton of it.

Well, you’ve all been asking for it for so long, so here it is:

Today, the coffee at Double Fine is really, really bad. It tastes like cat food. Is that normal? And not the good, wet cat food that’s made of elegant and beautiful whales. This coffee tastes like the dry, crunchy cat food you give to icky cats. Betrayed again! Final score: 1.7

Just this week, I’ve received three emails asking how Roy Conrad was doing with his illness. Unfortunately, the news I have to report there is very sad. I’ve put up some details, and some pictures of the actor himself in this page about Roy.

We won another award! Check it out!

Okay, whatever. So we made it ourselves, so what? It’s been ten days since we won an award. What are we supposed to do? Sit here and stew in our shameful, awardless filth and do nothing?

Speaking of do-nothing filth, Penny Arcade has still not returned my yo-yo. I think it’s pretty obvious from this unsolicited fan art [which you can’t see anymore because the Internet ate it] that the spirit of right-thinking America is behind me, and not them, and I clearly have a national mandate do to them whatever I want. Luckily for those cartoons I am too busy today.

I have come down to the office, not for revenge, but to fix a light in the downstairs hallway. There is no one here but me, and the rat that lives in the ceiling over my desk. At least, I think he’s a rat. I hope he’s a rat. But really, he makes so much noise up there I think he might be a full-grown raccoon, or one of those miniaturized horses gone bad. Judging by his demonic scampering, I have to imagine that he’s wearing four tiny, Gene Simmons-style KISS boots, and that he’s dragging a two-foot long tail made of exposed bone, like a museum t-rex. Or that his tail was chopped off years ago, and he made a new one out of little wooden spools strung together, to help him cope with the phantom pain. Or maybe he has his long, rat hair braided with Bo Derek beads and they drag on the floor as he runs. Clackity-clack clack, CLACK! Hello from the attic! I am a filthy rat! Clack-clackity clack!

Okay, I really don’t want to fix this light, so I’m going to talk about the rat some more. Why must he run so much? Why can’t he be still and just ponder his easy life? If I were a rat, I think I would content to just lay around and think about chewing on stuff. That’s pretty much all I do now, except I manage to squeeze in a lot of TiVo-watching on top of that. But if I were a rat I wouldn’t have TiVo, so I think I would focus on the laying around. But our rat can only manage to do that for a few minutes, and then he’ll suffer an explosive burst of energy and gallop across his little crawlspace or live+work loft or whatever it is he has up there.

Actually I haven’t heard it for a hour or so. Man, I hope it’s dead. I hope it’s not just being quiet—like, TOO quiet—because it’s morphed into some sort of queen alien rat who’s hanging from the ceiling, squeezing a floorful of slime-covered eggs out of a long, translucent birthtube. Oh, wait. There it goes again. Scampering like there’s no tomorrow. Hold on. Let me get out my lute…

Scamper no longer, my little roof possum.
Your work day is done. Say, isn’t that awesome?
Be still! Be still!
Or you, I will kill.
My frisky-fun friend, my plague-bearing blossom.

P.S. Yo-yo card from Blaze “PBD” Marley-Flamestrike. Wicked E3 award by wicked animator Chris Schultz. Chris asked me to pass along this message to his fans: “Wicked!!!”

Drum roll please…

Holy moley, we won! The incredibly foxy and popular judges of the Game Critics Awards have named Psychonauts Best Original Game of E3! What an honor! And how incredibly terrifying. If we won this in 2002, then we are going to have to be totally, incredibly amazing at E3 2003! I was just going to spend most of the year napping, and then hack together something at the last minute, but I see now that people are watching. There goes my summer! Well, this is still very exciting. I’m so excited, I’m going to go down stairs and hug the team. I usually distribute free hugs around this time of day anyway, but as a special reward, today I’m going to wear a shirt. Go team!

New, awesome awards and lists and stuff from teamxbox and UGO on the products page!

Reading that UGO list, it occurs to me that there are a lot adventure games in production. Are they making a comeback? Or have we just widened the definition of the genre? I suggest you have some people over to your house tonight to discuss this issue. Snack suggestion: Grapes.

Good news and bad news:

The good:
We were nominated for best original game at E3!
And written up nicely on Xengamers.com.

The bad:
Dee Dee Ramone! *sniff*

New press hits are up on our products page. New items are marked with this
cheesy icon I just made with the paint program that comes with Windows. Fun fact: Windows and Psychonauts have the same publisher. Did you know that? You can see many similar themes and leitmotivs carried through both works if you look closely and are also high.

I am back from E3, where we announced our game, and it was awesome. Full of love and free bags and blah blah blah. Sadly, for me, it was marred by the fact that some hoodlums from Penny Arcade stole my yo-yo! I completely trusted them, because they are cartoon characters and I’ve grown up trusting cartoon characters, but these must be the bad kind—Drawn with ink that has been mixed with the blood of Satan, and the tears of unbaptized children. Can you see it now? Will I ever trust cartoons again?

We are out of paper towels.