Last week saw Mario Kart World launch and then gyrate through some ups and downs… and we got more of that this week as well.

In addition, the long anticipated Dune: Awakening from Funcom landed, a title both picked and counter picked.  And there is more, a lot more.  It has been a busy week.  But before we get into all that, here is where the scoreboard stool last time around.

The Standings for Week 22

From there let’s just start with the ongoing race on Rainbow Road for Mario Kart World.  The Mario Kart series is one of the beloved staples of the Nintendo exclusives, and honestly the one title that makes me tempted to buy a Switch 2.  But Mario Kart 8 tempted me to buy a Wii U, and that never came to pass.

How did Mario Kart World do as more reviews started to pour in?  At first, good!

• Mario Kart World
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
  • Score has gone UP from 87.0 to 88.3

The good and bad of Mario Kart World however is that it is a single platform title, which means it gets fewer reviews.  PC Gamer, for example, isn’t going to review it because it isn’t a PC game.  They are stuck with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, a multi-platform competitor coming out later this year.  Fewer reviews means that each review has a larger impact on the score.  Enter the updates later in the week.

• Mario Kart World
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 89.8 to 87.9
• Mario Kart World
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 88.9 to 87.5
• Mario Kart World
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 87.5 to 85.8

You can see that the start and end scores don’t always align, meaning that there were smaller, unreported changes in between.  All of that was enough to drop Shintar from fourth to fifth position.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
    • Moved from 5th place to 4th place
  • Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 43.4 to 41.6
    • Moved from 4th place to 5th place

So that was Mario Kart World... and then Dune: Awakening showed up on the scene.

• Dune: Awakening has released!
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn), Counter Picked by Slightly Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)]
  • Now has a score of 81.7

That was both a pick and a counter pick, so it had double impact on the scores, boosting Shawn and bringing down Kluwes.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Score has gone UP from 39.2 to 50.9
    • Moved from 7th place to 3rd place
  • Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
    • Moved from 3rd place to 4th place
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
    • Moved from 4th place to 5th place
  • Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
    • Moved from 5th place to 6th place
  • Slightly Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 40.6 to 29.0
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place

And then it came back in for another hit.  Not enough to change any rankings, but the scores updated once more.

• Dune: Awakening
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn), Counter Picked by Slightly Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)]
  • Score has gone UP from 81.7 to 83.8

That is a decent score for a Funcom title with some issues.  On the other hand… it has all of nine reviews which means any additional reviews could weigh heavily on the scoring.

The there was The Alters, which started getting review days before its Friday launch date.

• The Alters
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Now has a score of 81.3
• The Alters
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone UP from 81.3 to 84.0
• The Alters
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone UP from 84.0 to 85.4

But scored do not affect the scoreboard until the game releases.  So when Friday finally rolled around and the game was for real, this happened.

The game also has a lot of reviews in, so it feels like it won’t suffer much in the way of score sag over time.

And then, in anticipation of next week, Date Everything started bringing in reviews as well, starting off strong.

• Date Everything!
  [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  Now has a score of 86.7
• Date Everything!
  [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  Score has gone DOWN from 86.7 to 85
• Date Everything!
  [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  Score has gone DOWN from 85.0 to 77.5

However the title, which is cross platform, sagged noticeably as more reviews came in.  We’ll see how it shapes up next week when it officially launches.

Then, as I thought we must surely be done for the week, we had a few more score updates large enough to warrant a message from the FCL bot.

• Lies of P: Overture
  • [Picked by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)]
  • Score has gone UP from 83.1 to 84.4

That didn’t change the rankings, but there were other, smaller changes that got 5th and 6th spot to swap.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
    • Score has gone UP from 50.2 to 51.5
  • Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
    • Moved from 6th place to 5th place
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
    • Moved from 5th place to 6th place

Then it looked like Cyanbane might be taking a hit from F1 25 as its score dropped by over two points.

• F1 25
  • [Picked by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 80.1 to 78.0

But then, twelve hours later, the score recovered.

• F1 25
  • [Picked by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)]
  • Score has gone UP from 78.0 to 80.3

All of which left the scoreboard looking like this at the end of the week.

The Standings for Week 23

Not only were the rankings changed, but the league projections for final scores changed quite a bit as well.

Bhagpuss, now with five titles released, is both in first place and projected to end up in first place, while Shawn, currently in third, is now projected for second, while Potshot, between the two, is slated for fourth, behind Cyanbane whom the league has pegged for third position now.

I, however, remain a lock for last place.

In addition, Summer Games Fest saw a bunch of titles get official launch dates.  So people’s picks were either firmed up and fell out of the season.

On the good side we had the following titles get firmed up dates.

• Ninja Gaiden 4
  • [Picked by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)]
  • Release date changed from ‘Fall 2025’ to ‘Tuesday, October 21, 2025’.
• The Outer Worlds 2
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar), Counter Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Release date changed from ‘2025’ to ‘Wednesday, October 29, 2025’.
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
  • Estimated release date changed from ‘2025’ to ‘Before Christmas 2025’.
  • Note added: ‘Developers confirmed the release window in their Discord.’.
• Anno 117: Pax Romana
  • [Picked by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)]
  • Release date changed from ‘2025’ to ‘Thursday, November 13, 2025’.

Meanwhile, out of the running for 2025 are the following.

• Mewgenics
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Release date changed from ‘October 2025 or Later’ to ‘Tuesday, February 10, 2026’.
  • Note removed: ‘Developers are considering an October release, but have not solidified anything yet.’.
• The Blood of Dawnwalker
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Estimated release date changed from ‘TBA’ to ‘2026’.

Both titles can be dropped as neither were counter picked.

All of which leaves these as the next ten releases on the calendar.

Coming up for week 24

The launch of Date Everything! will give Bhagpuss his sixth title release and put him even more solidly in first place until some of us start catching up.

Meanwhile, there were two bids an a drop that were resolved last night.

The bids were:

• Mina the Hollower
  • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $15
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
  • Won by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) with a bid of $10

While the drop was one of the titles I mentioned above.

• Mewgenics
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) – Drop Successful!

So that is my summary of week twenty-three… when a lot of stuff happened.

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