What can I say, November is classically the month where I get my (usually only) one sale of the year. Adding to my amusement is that this sale is for the time-loop anthology Opportunity Window, everything’d by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (I don’t think there’s An Official website for the antho yet, scheduled for release April 2027).

As one can assume from being in a time-loop anthology, I will indeed have a time-loop story in it, the eyewateringly titled “Co-Op 100% NG+.” (I may have been watching a lot of Games Done Quick at the time.)

(Games Done Quick is a speedrunning event.)

(Speedrunning is when you play a video game as fast at you can to a desired end.)

(There are various categories, like finishing the game as fast as you can while also playing in co-op mode, or completing 100% of the goals, or in New Game+.)

(…co-op is playing the game, co-operatively, with another person.)

(……new game+ is beginning a new game with the completed save data carried over from the previously completed run.)

(…………a run is a single time you play the entire game in one go.)

(……………….)

(I would try to explain the story as an example of Dudes Rock but I fear that would also involve its own set of parentheses.)

Anyway it’s a time-loop story and if you like intricately plotted time loops with rational outcomes, you will be sorely disappointed. BUT if you like dudes being bros and the emotional trauma of being middle-aged with no clear means of building a future, WELL WON’T YOU BE PLEASED AS PICKLES.