I don't like goodbye posts, generally. I can't count how many obviously insincere farewell posts I've read on innumerable blogs, where people whine and cry about missing the community and the people and the fun while silently thanking their lucky stars that they never have to talk to any of those people again.

I won't blame you for fearing that this post will be no different.

To me, however, Destructoid has been everything. I'm leaving the site for a writing gig at Gearbox Software, but I would have never gotten that job, or any other I've held in the past three years (Blockbuster Video notwithstanding) without Destructoid.

Long story short: goodbye, and thank you.

Long story long can be found after the jump.

The end, for now.

Podtoid will be going on hiatus for a while. It'll definitely be back -- we're just not sure when, or how, or with whom.

In the meantime, not-download a copy of the Super Mario Bros movie and enjoy.

It will also be my and Aaron's last Podtoid as Host and Other Guy, respectively.

I don't know if we'll have enough time for listener questions at the end, but I thought I'd throw this up on the off chance that someone asks a spectacularly insightful question that serves as a really great swan song to my and Aaron's time on Podtoid.

Then I remembered that it's Podtoid, and "spectacularly insightful" is a lot to ask for.

Anyway, ask questions below and we'll maybe-possibly-I-dunno answer them after making fun of the Super Mario Bros. movie.

Will you look at that -- it's the very first machinima episode of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin.

It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, about Sleep is Death. It is a game that you should definitely consider getting if you and a friend each have (A) seven dollars to spare, and (B) a desire to experience something totally unique and awesome.

If you want to download the resources we used (Davis made the cool looking stuff, and I made the boring stuff by altering Rohrer's sprites), you can get them here.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the episode. Volume is a little wonky and I screwed up a line delivery, but I'm pretty proud of it overall.

Jason Rohrer's Sleep is Death is now available to the general public. You should seriously consider buying it.

I've talked it up before (twice), but now's as good a time as any to check out this improvisational two-player storytelling game. The game's v14 public release comes with a new set of resources by Shannon Galvin, as well as resource packs for three of Rohrer's favorite user-submitted stories.

If you're still unsure about whether or not to buy Sleep is Death, read this. It will change your goddamned life.

This episode of Podtoid includes a lot of discussion about games and stuff, but in reality it's mainly about Brad Nicholson's knowledge of Robocop (and, ironically, his complete lack of knowledge regarding Buckaroo Banzai).

Also, the Big Looming Changes to Podtoid are announced a few minutes in.

What will we talk about on tonight's Podtoid? I really have no clue. I know that certain secretz™ about the future of the podcast will be revealed, but I'm not 100% sure what news stories we'll be covering.

The return of X-COM, maybe? This article by Greg Kasavin, about how most videogame villains aren't really that interesting? I'm definitely going to spend my entire Games of the Week segment talking about how awesome Conviction's Face-Off mode is, and how good I am at it (spoiler: so good).

Anyway, we need listener questions. Ask them below.

My favorite thing about this week's episode of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is that more than a few commenters have championed it as the best example of HAWP's newer, fresher style, despite the fact that we filmed it about a year ago and just now got around to releasing it.

That said, maybe the fact that I didn't release it earlier showed that I didn't initially think it was funny enough to be released, which means my tastes in humor have changed...which means that this year-old episode actually does exemplify HAWP's new style. I just blew my own mind.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

We talk about games and stuff in this episode, but the conversation doesn't really pick up until the final ten minutes. After the proper, let's-talk-about-videogames show ends, Adam Dork starts linking us to pictures of crabs and giving his own unique commentary.

And that's pretty fun.

You can listen to the podcast here, and/or hit the jump for a chronological list of the pictures Adam linked us to during the post-episode discussion.

Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.

Our own Josh Tolentino came up with this month's theme. Thank him if you like it, blame it if you don't. I'm just going to copy and paste exactly what he suggested in an email, since he explains it better than I could:

"How about "Noble Failures", where people talk about games they hate but can totally respect? Stuff they're glad exist but simply can't bear to play. It's an easy way to bring up EVE, MMOs, JRPGs, turn-based combat, Heavy Rain, Deadly Premonition, artgames, etc. Almost anything, really.

It's more challenging than saying a game is a failure just because "it's not my thing" or "it isn't fun" since the writer has to justify their respect and think about what's positive about [x] title/genre/concept. They can bring up specific characters in a game. If the writers wanna get meta, they can even challenge why anything deserves to be respected if it fails, etc."

So, yes. That. Hit the jump for further instructions.

I don't want to even think about the sheer number of hours I've spent playing flash games. Still, at least twenty percent of that time has been spent at Armor Games. From This is the Only Level to Infectonator World Dominator,  Armor Games has eaten up literal weeks of my life.

When given the opportunity to interview Armor Games founder Daniel McNeely, I wasn't sure whether to thank him or grab him by the scruff of the neck and demand so many hours of my life back.

As it turns out, I ended up asking him a few questions about flash games. You can read the full interview after the jump.

Man rants about the App Store, complaining that iPhone versions of games like Street Fighter IV are just soulless brand-whoring like the old Tiger LCD games we played as kids.

Company takes offense at Man's rant, removes his ridiculously expensive game (so priced to prove the inanity of the App Store and its users) from its application service.

Man retaliates by making a Tiger LCD version of the game he is currently working on, and releasing it on the same App Store that spurned him.

Irony collapses into irony. The snake eats its own tail. Super Meat Boy becomes one with the universe.

The Super Meat Boy Tiger handheld app is pretty awful gameplay-wise, but that's kind of the point; for only 99 cents, you, too, can own the most mechanically uninteresting, comically inspired game on the entire App Store. At the very minimum, buying the app will still support Super Meat Boy's production.

Hit the jump for Team Meat's official press release.

Summary time! Jason Rohrer's Sleep is Death is a multiplayer storytelling game. A Controller creates and modifies a world that the Player interacts with.

I documented the Player experience in an earlier preview. It was a great deal of fun, but why wouldn't it be? I was playing a story authored and controlled by Jason Rohrer, the dude who created the game. Any game is fun when you're playing it with the person who created it.

No, the real test of Sleep is Death was whether or not it would remain fun once Rohrer was out of the equation. Whether or not it would be as intuitive and crazy and charming with me as the Controller, and some other poor bastard as the Player.

With that in mind, I tested the game with two different people: Ashly Burch (my sister, and star of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'), and Ashley Davis (my girlfriend, and star of Once Upon A Pixel).

Hit the jump to see how it went.

If you haven't played Jumper by Matt Thorson, I'd highly recommend it -- partially because it'll make you more excited about today's Super Meat Boy news, and partially because it's a spectacularly well-designed platformer.

Ogmo, Jumper's perpetually-perplexed protagonist, has joined the ranks of Commander Video, Flywrench, and Tim from Braid, according to an official SMB blog post. Of course, the post did go up on April Fool's Day, but this seems too believable and humdrum to be a hoax.

According to the Super Meat Boy blog, Ogmo comes equipped with a double-jump and his own Jumper-themed warp zone.

But none of that is relevant, really. What matters -- what really, truly matters -- is that I FRIGGIN' CALLED THIS LAST YEAR.

UPDATE: It may also be relevant that the SMB blog post mentions the game coming out on "all consoles."

_{Every once in a while, Destructoid features editor Anthony Burch discusses game design and gamer culture in his "Rev Rant" video series.}

Firstly, this week's rant is about the arrogance of games who think their own linear, often noninteractive story is more important than the experience I wish to have with the game mechanics. I make an "all games should do X" statement, which is kind of risky and presumptuous, but I stand by it.

Secondly, this is the Jon Blow lecture I reference in the video.

Thirdly, if you're interested in hearing me rant about the flipside of this argument -- namely, that linear, narrative games can be awesome and magical in their own way -- then you might enjoy the talk I gave at UC Berkeley earlier this month.

Jason Rohrer and I created a story together.

Sleep is Death is a game in certain senses, and a tool in others. One one hand, the act of playing is fraught with suspense and discovery, forcing a level of quick thinking and quicker reflexes that one normally doesn't see outside of, say, RTS games.

On the other hand, Sleep is Death is a medium, a set of constraints from which both players can create their own, unique stories. Each of the two participants has exactly thirty seconds to move the story forward in some way. The Player moves his or her avatar around and interacts with things, and the Controller makes sure the world reacts to the Player's actions through creating new sprites, changing music, or switching scenes altogether.

I previewed Sleep is Death with Jason Rohrer early Monday morning, with him as the Controller and me as the Player. I really didn't know what to expect. What sort of story would we create?

As it turned out: a comedy.

About child murder.

This is the Scarface video we're talking about:

It's pretty awesome.

This week, the regular cast minus Brad discussed PAX East, the 3DS, and a bunch of listener questions.

Hope you dig it.

_{[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware that it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

Last month, a group of Destructoid editors, myself included, looked back at Mass Effect 2 and discussed how we felt about the game a month after its release. We also managed to get through roughly 90% of the conversation without making any "this is my favorite store on the Citadel" jokes.

This month, we're having a similar discussion about BioShock 2 (minus the Citadel thing). Hamza Aziz, Chad Concelmo, Conrad Zimmerman and myself discussed BioShock 2's ups and downs with the benefit of a month's worth of hindsight.

You can read our conversation after the jump.