It’s eSports week here at the Wardcast. Wendy and Dylan just returned from exhibiting at Super Smash Con, and Alex has been keeping tabs on the lead up to the Overwatch World Cup and a For Honor tournament won by someone using an exploit. Also, I guess The International happened?

And we return to discussing Nick Robinson’s sexual harassment and removal from Polygon.

Games include King of the Hat, Super Clash Bros., Splatoon 2, Overwatch, Flippy Knife, Balloon Fight, Super Mario Bros., and Jackbox Party Pack 3.

We doubled up on Alexes this week. Joining Dylan and Alex Damrath is lost Wardcaster Alex Rice, making his triumphant return to the show, just in time to tell us that he’s leaving to go work for eBay, but not before he raided Nintendo World in New York City of their precious Switches.

We discuss getting our hands on a NES Classic, the disastrous Pokémon Go Fest, Geralt in a bathtub, and cancelled SNES Classic preorders.

Additionally, we talk about a member of the games press who is being investigated for sexual harassment and how sexual harassment and the mistreatment of women and other minority groups plagues the tech and gaming industries.

We’re also heading to Super Smash Con next weekend, so we’ll see you there!

Games include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Final Fantasy, Mega Man 2, Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, Prey, Splatoon 2, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Dylan “Two-Mics” Ilvento and Will Blanton collect together with game jammer and dungeon master extraordinaire David Byers to talk about his ongoing D&D campaign and what football will look like in the future.

A cornucopia of throwback console news happened this week, with Walmart letting SNES pre-orders out into the wild, more information about the Ataribox coming out, and a N64 Classic trademark being filed.

We also discuss Pac-Man Jr.: Act Zero, Cookie Clicker patch notes, the return of Skullomania, and traveling to distant stars.

Games include Downwell; The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild; Cave Story+; Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition; Jackbox Party Pack 3; Dark Souls; Rocksmith 2014; Rain World; Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; Splatoon 2 Splatfest World Premiere; and Snipperclips: Cut It Out, Together!

Jay Tholen, designer and developer on Dropsy the Clown, joins Dylan to talk about his experiences in indie game development.

He speaks to us about Dropsy’s evolution from a boss in an action platformer to a choose-your-own adventure on the Something Awful forums to eventually becoming the adventure game it is today, with the Kickstarter successes and failures he had along the way.

We also talk about working with indie publisher Devolver Digital, how to demo your games to game outlets as an indie, his aspirations for his new game – Hypnospace Outlaw, and what themes and ideas he tries to communicate with his games.

Games include Dropsy the Clown and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Dylan is joined by Justin Mitchell and Alex Damrath to talk Switch ownership, egg cup debates, and a multitude of minutes of the food, superhero, and tech variety.

Justin walks Dylan through all the Final Fantasies, we make a quick mention of Doomfist, but most importantly, we talk about Dunkey’s video critiquing game critics and its effect on the discussion of game reviews and criticism.

Games include Prey, Splatoon 2 Splatfest World Premiere, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, and Overwatch.

Welcomed back into the fold is our friend Dan Cotting, here to talk about game celebrity freak outs, VR projects, and the triumphant return of the Super Nintendo.

We’re strapping Game Boy Cameras to telescopes; we’re baking magnetic tapes in the oven; things are getting real crazy on this week’s episode of the Wardcast.

Games include The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Accounting, Dark Souls, Rocksmith 2014, Superhot VR, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League, NeiR: Automata, Dear Esther, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Special guest Mike Odum of Root 76 drops by to talk about a litany of topics with Dylan, Sam, and Will.

We discuss the Arcane Kids’ breadth of work, Summer Games Done Quick and the world of speedrunning, the SNES Classic announcement and the state of emulation, designing a PS Vita 2, and the mystery surrounding the new Braindeer Games Twitter account.

But a big topic for this week revolves around the postmortems about the lackluster releases of Tumbleseed and Scanner Sombre, spurring the op-eds “Your Indie Game Will Flop and You Will Lose Money” by Cliff Harris and “Lol we’re all poor” by Robert Yang.

Games include Life is Strange, Fire Emblem Heroes, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Super Bomberman R, Jackbox Party Pack 3, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Akinator the Genie.

This week, Dylan is rejoined by Will Blanton, Wendy Rivera, and our fourth member: the 19th century nautical map that adorns our apartment wall. Traveling from Fez to Sunken Rock, we talk about all the summer game sales going on – including 90% off Will’s game Redshift Blueshift.

RVA Game Jams has a new website and a Patreon up, we give our protips on bathroom etiquette, share pinball opinions, discuss illicit music downloading, and critique GameMaker Studio 2’s ridiculous pricing structure.

Games include Stardew Valley and Disney Crossy Road.

This week, Dylan is joined by RVA Game Jams co-conspirator Alex Damrath and fellow PAX East attendee and friend of the show Kenny Kim to talk about everything that happened at E3.

We’re excited about:

• Filling out our 1099s in Anthem
• Minecraft in 4K
• Drinking the water from our Xbox One X’s vapor chamber
• Trying to pronounce Strange Brigade
• Super “Lucky” Palmer’s Tale
• Terry Crews’ Crackdown 3
• The Legend of Zelda: Death of the Wild DLC

Games include Overwatch, Killing Floor 2, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Black Desert Online, Tokyo 42, Arms, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Poochy and Yoshi’s Wooly World demo, and Disney Crossy Road.

This week, Dylan and Mason are joined by Josiah Renaudin, former freelance games writer for outlets such as GameSpot, IGN, VideoGamer, and Paste and current member of game studio Tangentlemen; host of The 1099 Podcast; and son of Townville, Pennsylvania.

The gents talk a little about the lead up to E3, Josiah’s long list of revered guests he’s had on his podcast, destroying PS4 controllers, and their invention: the Cheeto Glove.

Games include Prey, The Surge, Dead Cells, Arms Global Testpunch, and MLB The Show 17.