CSB390: Sometimes New Thing Bad

"Sometimes new thing bad" is not just a joke on this episode of Castle Super Beast—it's the throughline that connects a sprawling conversation about game design, player investment, and the emotional weight of revisiting old favorites. The hosts, Pat and Woolie, spend the episode circling a central tension: when a new version of something familiar arrives, it often fails to capture what made the original special, and the industry's response is increasingly to just give people the old thing back, but with new stuff bolted on.

The Case Against Free Movement in Tactics Games

The episode opens with a deep dive into Star Wars: Zero Company, a tactical game that abandons the traditional grid for free movement. Both hosts are united in their frustration. "I don't like free movement in my strategy game," Woolie states flatly. Pat agrees, calling it "messy" and imprecise. The core problem is that cover, a fundamental tactical element, becomes a finicky pixel-hunt. "You have to like really fuck with getting into cover sometimes," Pat explains, describing the frustration of nudging a character around a corner to find the exact pixel that grants cover versus costing an extra action point. They contrast this with the clean, deterministic logic of a grid or hexagon system. "Squares are calm and clean and precise," Woolie says. The discussion highlights a design philosophy where abstra