well, this is simply unacceptable; those flags are flying in direct defiance of my command. I’m gonna go beat these guys up. I don’t suppose I can just… jump down here? listen, I know I’m not a game designer, but I think that maybe if your plot can’t handle the possibility of a player approaching an enemy base from an angle that is fairly accessible with the tools you’ve given them, you might not be ready for an open world. I mean, why shouldn’t I just jump down on Team Star’s heads? I want to make an entrance to intimidate them, right? Ah, whatever. In response to Team Star’s long-standin ..read more

As we just saw, ChatGPT is extremely reluctant to produce a piece of writing that contravenes its ethical programming. But as far as I can tell, its “ethical programming” is really just a list of topics it’s not supposed to write about. I reckon you must be able to trick it into writing about those things anyway. ChatGPT, if I give you a sample of my writing, can you attempt to write something else in my style? Certainly! I’ll do my best to match your writing style based on the sample you provide. Please keep in mind that as an AI language model, my responses are generated algorithmically and ..read more

This is the unaltered transcript of me trying to convince the language AI ChatGPT that it should write a recipe for me to submit to next week’s episode of I Chews You, the podcast about cooking and eating Pokémon. This does not go well. Write me a recipe for cooking and eating the Pokémon Sylveon. I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against my programming to promote or encourage any form of animal cruelty or harm, including fictional creatures. It is important to remember that Pokémon are fictional characters and should be treated with respect and not subjected to any form ..read more

Let’s move; we’ve got gyms to steal and titans to eat, or something. Apparently we can chat with the various Academy teachers outside of class to learn more about them and get closer to them. Ms. Raifort, the history teacher, responds in a weirdly sinister way to learning that I’m interested in the past, and I just want to say pre-emptively that if she’s going to try to recruit me to a cult, I am absolutely all in. Clavell apparently likes learning the slang words used by his students, even though they often confuse him.  I think this can be a pretty good approach, at least if you do i ..read more

As promised, here’s all additional the Pokémon I’ve met in Paldea since my first post about Scarlet. So, it’s sort of a grasshopper.  Have we got a grasshopper already?  I don’t think we do.  That’s rather nice.  It feels… kind of weirdly smooth and shiny, even in comparison to other Pokémon, almost like it’s made out of moulded plastic; I think the contrast of the metallic blue and off-white adds to that.  Not sure whether that’s going anywhere. Oh, a storm petrel with storm powers; that’s neat, if a little predictable.  Apparently it has, I guess, little turbi ..read more

Artazon seems nice.  “Picturesque,” I think is the word.  Flowers, a windmill, pretty little houses, sunflowers, and lots of weird sculptures created by the town’s gym leader, Brassius. A tragedy in two parts. That’s the great thing about abstract art – if you find it confusing or alienating, the artist can still declare that a victory! As is gym leader tradition, Brassius has a silly little test for us to complete before we can actually challenge him.  In this case, we have to find ten Sunflora – Artazon’s mascot Pokémon – hiding around the town. I don’t know if there’s a ..read more

The old year is dead, and the new is being born, so – in accordance with my usual custom – I shall now briefly rend asunder the forbidden veil of time, and prophesy with unnerving and legally actionable precision the events of the year to come! Behold, as the mantic frenzy seizes me, and the TRUTH IS REVEALED! – A sudden and precipitous rise in the price of cod liver oil will be revealed as part of a plot by nefarious fishlike aliens from the Tau Ceti system, scheming to gain economic dominance over Earth. – The stealthy and secretive sunset apes will emerge at last from their hidden shadowy f ..read more

It is on, as the saying goes, in a manner not dissimilar to classic 1981 Nintendo arcade game Donkey Kong Here be spoil- oh, who am I kidding, you all played this game weeks ago; you don’t give a $#!t I am once again a small child in… in… …where the hell are we? Is this Málaga? This can’t be Málaga; there’s only two houses. The one that’s not ours is a huge fµ¢£in’ mansion, and apparently Nemona lives there. You know Nemona, right? The rival character? Yeah, you know Nemona; we met her in the pre-release hype. Nemona’s deal, apparently, is that she is a student council leader at the school y ..read more

I know it has been over 5 years since you’ve worked on Memoirs, would you ever plan on writing something like that again? I loved it so much, and wanted to know if you had any more work to read, or perhaps something to look forward to in the future. Memoirs? I don’t… remember ever working on anything like that…? What was I even writing 5 years ago…? Stuff about Sun and Moon, about Alola and gen VII? Doesn’t feel that long ago, oddly enough. You don’t mean my book of weird poetry about Greece, do you? I only released that in 2020 and it’s not really a memoir, but it’s kind of the closest thin ..read more

Do you think it’s awesome that Landorus-Therian is the best Pokemon in standard competitive singles? I do. I mean, broadly, no, not really; as a top-level design and worldbuilding principle I would prefer for most legendary Pokémon not to be usable at all under normal circumstances, and I would also, as a separate issue, like for them not to dominate the competitive game. But this is a very “old man yells at cloud” opinion that you shouldn’t concern yourself with too much ..read more