I really like The Sims. Always have, ever since I started playing the original game seventeen-odd years ago. But because I am the way I am, I gotta ask myself why do I like this game? The premise of The Sims is wonderfully simple: it’s a simulation of life. You create and customize a Sim… Continue reading Simming It Up
Vacation
Hey. I’m on vacation this week, and, since I finally finished a script I’d been working on not too long ago, I’m trying to force myself to take some time off from writing. Part of that means, yes, no blog post this week. Because hey, I’m on vacation. In the meantime, here are three posts… Continue reading Vacation
Guns.
Let’s talk about guns. Particularly the way we relate to them in fiction, particularly how I relate to them through the fiction I consume. First, however, real life. I’ve handled guns before, fired shotguns and rifles with friends in the American South, and trained with an assault rifle on a range. I mention this to… Continue reading Guns.
Twenty-One Minutes
I’ve made no secret my anticipation for Death Stranding, the latest project from Hideo Kojima, the gaming industry’s undisputed resident auteur-genius-lunatic. This is the guy who brought us all the lunacy of the Metal Gear Solid series that somehow managed to merge questions of linguistic existentialism, mutually assured (nuclear) destruction, and giant robots into a… Continue reading Twenty-One Minutes
Zero Two
When I got my Game Boy Advance SP many years ago as a wee tween I was very excited about some of the games I could play. Obviously, there was Pokémon Ruby because, c’mon, you gotta catch ‘em all. Then there were the new slew of Mega Man games, like the Battle Network series, an… Continue reading Zero Two
Cinnamon Tography
We live in a time that I’ve seen described as Peak TV, where there are these major shows that edge into cultural phenomena. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Black Mirror. Those shows that you’ve definitely watched or you certainly know people who have watched. There’s an almost cultish fanaticism to the whole thing; half the… Continue reading Cinnamon Tography
Aegean Aexploration
Somehow, I’ve managed to clock in upwards of ninety hours in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey since I started playing it a couple months ago. I’m nowhere near done with the story; heck, I’m not even too sure I’m that far into it. This isn’t so much a case of my having lost the thread as it… Continue reading Aegean Aexploration
Delicious Stakes
There’s a common maxim in storytelling stating something to the effect of how you should always raise the stakes. Don’t make it just a friend at risk, make it a sibling. Instead of it just being the neighborhood affected, have it be the town. If you’re gonna have to save a city, it oughta be a… Continue reading Delicious Stakes
Menu-Assisted Narrative
Mega Man Zero ends with Zero facing down a hoard of Pantheons, his saber ready and his will resolved to fight every last enemy that crosses his path. The music swells and he charges off into battle. The sequel picks up a year later and the opening stage is you, as Zero, still fighting the… Continue reading Menu-Assisted Narrative
Shoes
My favorite part of Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe might just be a tiny beat that happens part way through the movie. It’s hardly a big moment, just a bit of table setting that, for someone like me, holds all the more import. There’s a party, and a couple kids are chasing each other. They… Continue reading Shoes
Essays, Not Rants! 