When I innocently went on holiday on Thursday evening, Palworld was that flagrant cash-in survival game where you can make Pokemon - sorry, Pals - shoot guns and work on an assembly line. As of this morning, it's among the most-played games in the world, one of just six to exceed one million concurrent players on Steam. Right now, it's doing almost twice the numbers of Steam's usual chart-topper Counter-Strike 2. We have entered the Pal Age, it seems - but how long will the feeding frenzy last? How much is owing to it releasing during the quiet time of year with a meme-ish premise, while capitalising on pent-up demand for a proper PC version of Nintendo's monster-catching series? Much will depend, I think, on how quickly developers Pocketpair can update it and stay ahead of the usual early access game avalanche of community requests and complaints.