They added Fail Mode to Super Mario Odyssey — a set of ridiculously hard maps where you’re expected to fall down, but your gameplay is recorded, and in-game NPCs laugh at you. But, if you jump really far using boosters from Mario Kart, you can end up in rock climbing mode. When you reach the end, you get to a half-oasis, half-purgatory where there is a poker table, and other NPCs greet you.

There are a lot of chips, but they mean nothing — you got to invent your own rules.

Among those chips, I found a surf green-colored micro SD card. I put it into my Switch, and the whole new game opened: a hybrid of Mario and Subway Surfers where I’m being chased by half-Peach, half-Thomas the Tank Engine.

When we reached the end, we lost our furry friend. But he was hiding in a dresser drawer, with a sex doll. Not an inflatable one, mind you, and not a silicone one either: the material resembled that of Barbie dolls.

She was a human-size, pretty Caucasian girl. I talked to her. Yes, she could talk, and the voice wasn’t robotic — she was definitely alive. Despite being a completely empty shell, she was conscious, albeit very dumb.

Her name was Near. This is the joke she told me:

— Knock-knock.

— Who’s there?

— Andy.
— Andy who?
— Andy who was imprisoned for sexual assault five years ago, duh!