KANTO — The metallic balls thrown to capture Pokémon really hurt a lot to get hit with, a new study finds.

“They really are such fascinating creatures,” said Professor Oak, head of the Oak Pokémon Research Lab. “When you overhand toss one of these bad boys at them full speed in order to capture their essence inside, it hurts like a bitch! You’re probably wondering how I know this. One of the lab assistants heard that a Mr. Mime was sneaking in and out of one of the houses here in Pallet Town where a lonely housewife resides. One night he saw me rustling around one of the bushes and threw a Poké Ball at me so hard it nearly broke my hip—again! I’ll be taking no further questions on that, by the way.”

Not everyone was surprised by the admission.

“People are always protestin’ the Safari Zone for throwin’ rocks at Pokémon but have no idea the whole damn process is that cruel,” stated the warden of the Safari Zone. “Your average Poké Ball packs about just the same amount of wallop as a rock you pick up off the ground. What do they make those things with anyway? Titanium alloy? No wonder all my Pikachu got bruises on ‘em.”

The protests taking place throughout the region are said to be in search of a better solution.

“It’s time for things to change,” said one activist at a rally in Saffron City. “Silph Co. should know better by now than to make Poké Balls with such harmful material. We’re out here today protesting against the current manufacturing process and hope that Poké Balls, Great Balls, and more can be made with softer, safer alternatives moving forward. Perhaps the Pokémon themselves could give just their own consent to be captured and used for battle?”

At press time, a Ditto disguised as a human was reportedly helping nearby Pokémon stockpile resources and ammunition for what can only be assumed is a direct retaliation.

The post Poké Ball Actually Really Hurts, Like A Lot appeared first on Palette Swap.

REDMOND, Wash. — Emulation will be legal on all Nintendo games this Saturday, per news released via the Nintendo Today app.

“Fine. You want to complain about us selling a $20 ROM? You win,” Nintendo President Devon Pritchard said in a statement. “For the entirety of next Saturday, all bets are off. You can emulate all you want. Hell, host your own ROM site with all the ads you can cram in there. If you’re able to navigate that site to find the real download button, the game is all yours, free of charge. We won’t sue. We won’t send the Pinkertons. We won’t even take all of your wages for the foreseeable future. But again: only for 24 hours. After that, well… there will be consequences.”

Some longtime Nintendo fans were excited for the announcement.

“I’ve been waiting for all this stuff to come to Switch Online,” local gamer Steven Louis said. “But there’s just something about playing it on intended hardware that makes a game really hit. Fuck it—I’ve been eyeing Viewtiful Joe for a minute. We’ll see if it runs on my work computer and how much I can play through in a day. I’ve had worse Saturdays than that.”

Some gamers were pretty lukewarm on the announcement.

“Look, to be honest, I’ve been doing this for a while,” @Nintendude67 posted on Twitter. “Ever since I found emulation as a way to play Pokémon on the school laptop, I’ve just kept on doing it ever since. It’s cool that they’re letting people go wild with it, but it feels like there’s better things they could turn their attention towards. That thing at the end seems pretty ominous though… maybe I ought to enjoy my emulating while it lasts.”

At press time, sirens began to sound off signalling the event’s end as gamers everywhere scurried to drag ROM files into recycle bins.

The post Nintendo Announces All Emulation Will Be Legal for 24 Hours appeared first on Palette Swap.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — A flyer was slipped under doors at Glenbrook Health this week, reminding residents that the upcoming Firefly reunion would be properly broadcast on the big TV in the common room.

“Good morning, Friends of Glenbrook!” read the flyer, in large type. “We have been getting LOTS of questions (which is good!) about an upcoming voyage on the U.S.S. Firefly. So we will be having a P~A~R~T~Y! Please wear your best ‘Brown Coat’ (or ANYTHING brown!), and gather around the big TV Friday at 1PM. Be there, or be a Reaver!”  

The flyer, featuring a photo of the first search result for “Firefly classic TV show cast,” was confirmed to be authored by Wellness Director Gina Serrano, a thirteen-year employee who thinks of the show more as “her parents’ thing.” 

“We haven’t seen residents this excited since King of the Hill returned,” said Serrano, who will likely never earn enough to live at Glenbrook herself. “So we’re overcommunicating: flyers, texts, big reminders on the welcome screens…we’ve even ordered a Cameo from Alan Tudyk!”

Firefly, which ran on FOX from 2002 to 2002, is fondly remembered by America’s aging population—particularly former bloggers, video store clerks, and Realplayer web DJ’s. 

“Buh…blue hands, bad guys had…” said Glenbrook resident Arturo Fuente, excitedly explaining the classic show’s lore to a staff nurse. “The Alliance… rough customers, them. Not all bad… not all good. Complexity… hallmark of Whedon’s stuh …storytelling…” 

Experts were quick to offer explanations about the show’s special place in the hearts of “The Computer Generation.” 

“What can we say? Old people love westerns,” said Eric “Spooky” Simmons, pop-culture expert and former wraparound-segment host for Canada’s The Space Channel. “Guns, fistfights, pretty dames like Christina Hendricks and Gina Torres… you can see how it was a welcome escape from 9/11!”

At press time, loud cheers were heard around the big TV, unfortunately drowning out cries for help from several heart attack victims.

The post Nursing Home Assures Residents They’ll Put Firefly Reunion on the Big TV appeared first on Palette Swap.

LOS ANGELES — Hasbro Entertainment, the production company behind the upcoming HBO series based on Baldur’s Gate 3, has posted a casting call for actors with unshaven and uncircumcised penises, sources confirm.

“I’ve worked with HBO before, so I understand and appreciate their process,” said executive producer Craig Mazin. “They always start with the genitalia and work backwards. It may seem strange, but you can’t argue with the results. They make hits. Even on The Last of Us, where we had extensive source material to work with, they wanted us to diagram every P and V in the show. You wouldn’t believe the late night arguments Neil Druckmann and I got into about whether Joel leaned left or right, but it ultimately informed his character. I’m grateful that Baldur’s Gate has templates for us to use.”

Some actors said they were willing to take drastic measures to secure a part on the highly-anticipated series.

“I actually just scheduled my adult circumcision today,” said Cameron Steele, 26, an aspiring actor. “My family thinks I’m crazy, but this is a competitive industry. Besides, it isn’t the craziest thing I’ve done for a part. Hell, I had my ears surgically modified into points when I auditioned for The Legend of Zelda, and I still didn’t get that part. I’m desperate. If they said the role required castration, I’d consider it.”

Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of Larian Studios and director of the Baldur’s Gate 3 video game, said he was happy to have a development partner who was taking the project so seriously.

“It just tells me that they’re fans,” said Vincke. “They pay attention to the lore. Sure, everyone’s Tav is different. There is no canonical race or class. But whether Tav is a halfling rogue or a tiefling sorcerer, they one-hundred-percent have a bush. That was our vision for the character, and I’m thrilled that it’s being preserved for the show.”

At press time, Hasbro had altered certain details of the posting after discovering they had accidentally installed a “Big Penis” mod.

The post HBO’s ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Puts Out Casting Call for Actors With Penis B appeared first on Palette Swap.

CHICAGO — McDonald’s had unfortunate news for fans anticipating its Big Arch, with the company revealing this morning that the new product had failed to reach 5,000 concurrent eaters.

“I know our fans around the world were refreshing RestaurantDB over the weekend, but unfortunately, we’ve failed to reach our target,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said. “Even at its peak hours over the weekend, we failed to cross 5,000 CCEs, when we’re usually floating around 3,500 by lunchtime. We’re very sorry to the fans who, more than a good burger, wanted a popular one.”

Armchair analysts on social media were quick to pile on the fast food giant.

“What are they doing over there?” one Bluesky post said. “They didn’t even advertise this anywhere. There’s so many good burgers out there, and they’ve even made some of them. Yet they put this out there and expect us to flood the drive-thrus and make their stats look good? Yeah, right. They had less concurrent eaters than the Arby’s Meat Mountain, but I’ve heard it’s just a crypto scam affecting the numbers or something.”

At press time, an AI-generated LinkedIn post beginning with “Is McDonald’s Dying? Their Burger Lost The War To a Restaurant Made By A Guy in His Basement” was becoming the most viewed post on the platform for the day.

The post McDonald’s Big Arch Launches to Disappointing 5,000 Concurrent Eaters appeared first on Palette Swap.

As a busy person, and also as someone who frequently opens their Steam library and then spends most of their available game-playing time trying to decide what to play, I’m a fan of roguelikes. I love a game I can play whenever I have a free moment, without having to remember a plot or keep learning new mechanics. So I really enjoyed the Wanderburg demo, a game where you play as a mobile building battling it out against increasingly terrifying fortress foes.

You start off as a pretty simple castle, with some auto-attacks like archers who fire small volleys of arrows and some basic cannons. At first you just rampage around the game’s arena, crushing sheep and fields and tiny soldiers. As you do, you get gold that lets you upgrade your auto-abilities or choose special ones that you trigger with a button press. I was particularly fond of the ability to drop a cluster of mines, given my favored strategy of running away once the enemies started getting bigger and tougher. 

At a point during a run there’ll be a “swarm,” where a ton of enemies fill the screen, and there will also be a particularly nasty boss. Things start to get frantic, as your once-powerful building is now dwarfed by the even bigger, more powerful buildings coming to get you. Your building isn’t terribly fast, and your cannons and arrows fire from the side, so as a round ramped up in intensity I often found myself thinking most about my positioning, staying out of harm’s way while still getting some shots off, all while trying to roll over the smaller enemies to get the gold needed to get more abilities. 

If you beat the boss, you’re rewarded with your castle getting bigger and more powerful, but of course the enemies and bosses get bigger and more powerful too. You keep going like that until you’re bested; it’s all a pretty simple idea, but there’s plenty of strategy to dig into based on which upgrades and abilities you choose. 

What I like best about Wanderburg is how ridiculous the whole thing feels: rumbling around as a castle covered in tiny guys, fleeing from the gaping maw of an oncoming fortress while sucking up a flock of sheep that are just doing their sheep thing in the middle of the battlefield, as rolling houses and windmills amble around. The way a round shifted from me being the biggest thing in sight to the smallest always kept me on my toes, and gave the game a comedic undertone that meshes nicely with its cartoonish art style. Wanderburg is set to come out in 2026.

Look Out, I’m The Bus - Aftermath

The Bus Bound demo is pretty fun

AftermathRiley MacLeod