Happy New Year everyone! In this episode we are joined again by Antonia, who last joined us to talk about Stardew Valley. This time, the three of us discuss some of the video games we're most looking forward to in 2018.

• Sefran: Far Cry 5, Into the breach, and Wargroove.
• Antonia: Monster Hunter World, Ni No Kuni 2, Kingdom Hearts III, and Bayonetta 3.
• Jalada: Sea of Thieves, Last of Us Part 2, and Age of Empires 4.

[caption id="attachment_150" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Monster Hunter World[/caption] Intro & outro music: JACKS – Runaway Fashion

In this episode of Octal FM, the two of us catch up and talk about what games we’ve been playing. Jalada has been playing Horizon: Zero Dawn (affiliate link, proceeds go to Octal FM).

• Horizon is powered by Guerilla's own game engine, Decima.

Sefran has been playing Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.

In this episode of Octal FM we kick back and reminisce about all the MMOs we've played in the past.

• Earth & Beyond
  • Review from IGN in 2002
• Ragnarok Online
• EVE Online
  • EVE Online is F2P
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Aion
• Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

In this episode Jalada and Sefran sit back and chat about how gamers shape games through coming up with challenges, speedruns, or rewriting the games themselves through modding.

• Playtonic games announcing tweaks to Yooka Laylee for speedrunners.
• Super Mario 64 parallel universes.
• Nuzlocke Challenge.
• "Brendan "Playerunknown" Greene's whirlwind year" in which Brendan mentions he wants to give back to the modding community, where he came from.

In this episode we talk about early access games. Everything from their origins, where we think they're going, and some of our favourite and least favourite games we've backed or bought before release.

• "Early Access popularity growing, but only 25% have released as a full game" (2014)
• Jalada's favourites include:
  • Elite: Dangerous
  • Kerbal Space Program
  • Minecraft
• Sefran's favourites include:
  • Prison Architect
  • Shelter
  • Stardew Valley
• Some less-than-awesome examples of early access include:
  • Mighty No 9
  • Godus