How about some ОП? ;) (cheating, since they normally do rock )

Finally got around to playing To The Moon, and it is much much better than I expected, to the point where I am now recommending it to everyone. Interactive fiction very much in the spirit if not the mechanics of old point-and-click adventures, it is one of those satisfyingly well-told mysteries where with every reveal you realise all the pieces really were there for you to see whether you managed to put them together or not. Also it is something of a love song to 8-bit RPGs.

• I was honestly expecting Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun to run out of jokes an episode or two in, but actually it keeps getting better and better - shaping up to be my favourite comedy so far this year.
• I've been surprisingly taken with Barakamon, a heartwarming slice-of-life. I was expecting a sports-anime style coverage of calligraphy, but actually it's more reminiscent of Usagi Drop or Wolf Children.
• We've been watching Mahouka for the laughs. It starts out fairly unassuming but rapidly becomes one of those shows that is so dire it's actually comedy gold; the main character is the most blatant Gary Stu I have ever seen, and by ep.10 or so it is reminiscent of North Korean propaganda.

This. My biggest issue with Psycho Pass was precisely the frevny xvyyre oenva thing. The writers created an interesting world, posed a variety of interesting questions (fubhyq lbh qrsre gb na ragvgl gung pynvzf gb xabj orggre guna lbh jung jbhyq znkvzvfr lbhe hgvyvgl, jura lbhe orfg rfgvzngr bs gur pbeerpg pbhefr jvyqyl qvfnterrf jvgu vgf bja naq vg qbrf abg rkcynva vgf ernfbavat?), made clear their opinions on the subjects (flovy vf rivy! serrqbz vf n fnperq inyhr!), but justified them with trivial accidents of the setup (frevny xvyyre oenvaf, crbcyr sbeprq vagb boivbhfyl njshy yvsr pubvprf) - those things are not a necessary aspect of the system and it is imagine to consider a less convenient world in which the writers would have had to actually engage with the issues they raise. A pity, because the series is otherwise so good.

• There is a new Robin Hobb out as of today (in the UK, anyway), "Fool's Assassin". An automatic buy on the strength of the previous novels for me; will report further once I have finished it.

• Peeking in on Pact, the serial the author of Worm is currently writing, was arguably a mistake: compulsively catching up ate almost a week, I advise the reader to be prepared for that before venturing in. Pact feels more tightly paced and plotted than early Worm often was, is every bit as compelling and its punches are, if anything, harder.

Anime from the current season:

• Terror in Resonance is a kind of reverse Death Note without the magic
• Aldnoah Zero is shaping up to be a Code Geass-alike, although the timescales for the alternative history are implausible enough to jolt one out of suspending disbelief occasionally.

From the season just finished, Hitsugi no Chaika consistently overdelivers on what it promises, despite a weak first episode. The worldbuilding is pretty decent (I normally use Moribito as the touchstone for that, and it's not quite that good, but few things are), the plot - while not overly complex - seems quite fresh, and cliches are often avoided. On the downside, while they don't actually leave you on a cliffhanger, you get half a series - the other half to come in the autumn.

Also One Week Friends is pure tissuebox material, possibly one of the most emotion-inducing shows in the last year or two. That sort of thing is not everyone's cup of tea though, natch.

I've spent the last few months following the recommendations from these and (for the most part) loving them, so thought I'd contribute back:

• The Girl With All The Gifts, one of the few things I've read las month NOT recommended here, is a fresh, heartwrenching, intelligent and often rational take on the zombie apocalypse genre (not one I am normally fond of, either!)

• Thief's Magic reads almost like a Lawrence Watt-Evans book; it is unfortunately the first in a trilogy and makes no pretence otherwise, so you get more of an introduction than a complete story, but nevertheless a fantasy well worth starting.

As someone working on AAA games, generally what happens is the engine is written in C++ (and small performance-critical sections possibly hand-coded using intrinsics or assembly) and some portion of the game logic is written in a scripting language. Lua is quite popular.