Mr. Palmer: You’re wondering if you can beat a 60-year-old man who hasn’t walked all that well since he got hit by a car while saving a cat with a projected laser of force that also has freezing properties. That’s what you’re doing here? Of course you can beat Mr. Palmer with the Ice Beam. Why are you trying? You’re such a monster.
Ms. Green: Are you insane? Ms. Green is so nice to everyone and her wife was cheating on her with some alpha-male business jerk. She just got divorced. She’s hurting. Don’t be like this to Ms. Green. Why are you fighting these people? There is no reason to get into a physical altercation with the science department whatsoever and if there was a need, the Ice Beam would not be required.
Mrs. Wagner: Having acquired the Varia Suit Mrs. Wagner is immune to extremes of temperature and will be unaffected by the Ice Beam.
Mr. Kazenzakis: This dude is a humanitarian hero and he is so good to the students. You want to know if he can be beaten by the Ice Beam. That’s what your life is. This is the question you have to ask yourself.
Mr. Plant: Oh heck yes, Ice Beam this dude, What Are You Playing readers. Mr. Plant is just mean and he grades way too hard.
Bonus question: What was the weirdest nightmare you can remember having?
​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Splatoon 3 has Splatfest this weekend, and I’ll do some exercise games too, but between all that, I’ll be doing the Super Mario RPG remake. First game in ages that I’ve been playing with 0% online/multiplayer options. Nostalgia can be strong sometimes!
Weird nightmares may as well be my middle name. Semi-related to MMOs, but I recall having one during COVID where everyone was stuck underground growing mushrooms for giant bugs. Weirder still was I wasn’t me, and we all had to use our… uh, “#2” to grow the mushrooms to the mushrooms would know if we were healthy. And I had it a few times as different people. Side tip for you dreaming weirdos out there, if you want weird dreams/nightmares, put on Beck’s album Mellow Gold when you go to sleep. My brother and I listened to it a few nights when we shared a room and realized we were both having weird dreams because of it.
Andy McAdams: Probably World of Warcraft, but there’s always a chance I might branch out. Fae Farm or Coral Island both look kinda fun…
Bonus Question: I have zombie nightmares about once a month. And not like Plants vs Zombies kinda zombies, like running through the woods, get bit and you’re dead dystopian nightmares. Good times. I also used to have a semi-lucid dream about being chased by a T-rex, and I would run and run until the T-rex almost got me, “pause” and restart the dream to try and get away again. Even though it was semi-lucid and I had a little control, it was still terrifying.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I seem to have fallen into a hole marked “Project Gorgon” and am in equal parts annoyed and tickled by it.
I used to dream all the time about a specific house out in the country. No idea where it was even supposed to be, and I doubt it’s a real place anyway. That isn’t very spooky, but I sure would like to know why my brain kept dredging up a house it invented without permission over and over.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): A bit more Summoner leveling in Final Fantasy XIV, perhaps a bit more time in Tarisland, and maybe even some more time in Project Gorgon. I think that about covers my weekend plans.
The weirdest and easily most vivid nightmare I have had involved me alone in some cabin in the woods at night. There was a knock at the front door, and as I moved to answer it, a twisted demonic figure’s shadow was cast across the front window, which quickly reverted to a normal humanoid shape. I opened the door to find nobody there, called out, “Who’s there?” and then immediately felt like something from beneath my bed had managed to grab a hold of me from inside the center of my body and try to pull me through my bed to somewhere below. It took me some time to wake up from that one, and a lot longer to go back to sleep after that.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): The usual FFXIV antics will be gotten as will some apartment rearrangement and family stuff. I honestly don’t think I’m going to have time for much else, but if I do I’m mostly planning for it to be single-player games.
A lot of my dreams are kind of horrifying, especially over the past few months, so I can really pick and choose. Today, though, I’d like to share the one where I dreamed my father was alive and beating me, savagely, to the point I couldn’t even stand. Every time I thought he was gone, I’d start getting up and he’d start in again, telling me how I let him down. (It’s worth noting that my father was intensely non-violent and never so much as grabbed me, so this has no bearing on his actual demeanor.)
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): Harry Potter Magic Awakened is still where I’m at. I just log in to knock out dailies and play through a bit of the story or possibly a duel or two and I’m satisfied. I did get an idea in my mind recently to try Smite after all these years, so I think I’ll pick that up this weekend. In the solo gaming department I recently started to play Immortals of Aveum. It came out a few months ago to very little fanfare but I was gifted it and never turn down a gift.
Bonus: I can’t really think of a particularly weird nightmare. Even if I could it’s likely be too embarrassing to share. Instead I’ll say I regularly have the “oh crap I have finals today and I’ve been totally skipping this class all year” nightmare every few months. Which always freaks me out until I wake because I took school things way too seriously… until I didn’t take them seriously at all.
Every Saturday, join the Massively OP community and staff for What Are You Playing, our roundup of what MMORPGs and other games we’re hoping to play this weekend (with a bonus question or two for our amusement). Tell us what you’re up to! Go off-topic! And don’t forget to have fun!
