A Druid's Duel: Surrender

Some things are over before they start, but most are just over before they end. It's dizzying to circle a drain, ever more the slower it flows, as we wonder what we could have done, should have done, might still do. Yet the die was cast in our first few moves, when all we saw was a world of possibility. So we flap and flail, douse and bail, because playing out the string seems the sporting thing, and eventually our only option. The hardest things to acknowledge are often the most obvious. But our capacity for reinvention is always vaster than it feels, just as our time in which to do it is always shorter than it seems. Try again?

Thanks to Voodoo32.dll for documenting the journey to defeat.

A Druid's Duel

Dust, an Elysian Tale: You speak to me. Please stop.

I don't tend to take much stock in things I hear from talking rabbits, and haven't been able or interested to follow the plot of a tale told in Japstrionics since Akira, but Dust was a rodent I could relate to.

For I, too, contain a rage capable of immolating all injustice with a thousand rapid blows.

For I, too, contain an empathy capable of effacing all efforts with duty and guilt.

And for I, too, am inseparable from a high-pitched chorus always buzzing in my ear.

Also we both wish we were Princess Gwendolyn.

thanks to Dosala1 for capturing the game's best moment so well.

Dust: an Elysian Tale

Thomas Was Alone: Tell me something pretty

I tell myself that the boxes I stare at all day matter. Everyone does it. We are what we do, after all, and who wants to be pointless? Telling stories is part of what of separates us from the beasts and bots. Or at least that's part of the story we tell ourselves. Our loyalty to these stories is limitless, which is what makes it so painful when they end, but our capacity to create new ones also knows no bounds, which is what keeps us going.  

Thanks to SMlt 117 for seeing what I couldn't, and to Mike Bithell and David Housden for this amazing experience. 

Thomas Was Alone

Risk of Rain: Be here now

The stimuli we surround ourselves with is easily turned off, but what about the thoughts in our heads? Some days it seems I can't stop replaying the same scenarios to their unsatisfactory end, always just a step behind where they began. I miss so much this way, mind astray from the pleasures of today. And it's not them- it's me. Standing still is death, but the crowd carried with you cannot be escaped. All we can change is ourselves. Get stronger, and hold tight to whatever helps you through. Because it really does just get more difficult.

Risk of Rain

And thanks to freakhunter for the screenshot. I'm dead long before this shit happens.

Resigned Gamer Returns?

There are a lot of reasons I stopped writing Resigned Gamer, but in hindsight I think the most important reason is that I stopped being resigned. In fact, over the past few years, I've become overwhelmed with optimism. Sure all the new console games still suck, and I can’t look at someone’s screen on the subway without seeing Candy Crush, but why does that have to be my problem?

I stopped playing PC games around the PS2 era. I never got into Steam, and completely missed the indie renaissance that was springing up everywhere, and is now in full bloom. Then, as a wedding present, Doomeru (bless his useless heart) built me my very own custom gaming compy. Oh yeah, I got married, too. And Doomeru and his Flower Girl now have two sons! The older one, who is 3, is learning his (ragdoll) physics from Trials Fusion and how to be a good big brother from “The Brothers Game” (just don’t tell him how it ends).   

But anyway, I feel like I’ve been living in The Saboteur all these years- the whole black & white world thing, not the whole inattentive Nazis everywhere thing- and suddenly I’m seeing what will be instead of what was. It started dawning on me with Osmos and SpaceChem, and I’ve been hooked on indie games ever since. Since this blog went dormant I’ve systematically devoured, in regrettably undocumented but roughly chronological order: Hotline Miami, Space Pirates and Zombies, Ring Runner, Shank, Bastion, Unity of Command, Frozen Synapse, Ironclad Tactics, Mark of the Ninja, Limbo, TheSwapper, Steamworld Dig, Papers Please, Hoplite, Halfway, Calculords, Shank 2, Gemini Rue, Mercenary Kings, Unepic, Super Motherload, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, Rogue Legacy, Guacamelee, Out There, Ittle Dew, Deadlight, Super Win The Game, Capsized, Ravenmark SOE, and The Banner Saga. They’ve all been absolutely amazing experiences that I wish I’d wrote about while playing, but I’m unaccustomed to saying anything that isn’t self-deprecatory or snark. I’ll try to change that moving forward.

Another reason I stopped pouring my frustrations into this bitter pothole of the internet is that I finally escaped the newspaper industry. I took an extended vacation earned an MBA at the University of Michigan (go blue…beat bama…or something…), and now I pretend to work in Corporate Finance! It’s not exactly exhilarating, but I don’t bring it home with me. It also leaves me unoccupied enough to ponder a question: Can Doomeru and I become indie game investors?

So we’ve started reaching out to indie developers who are working on games we’d love to play. We’re going to try to follow the example (and terms) of the amazing Indie Fund, and by working on a limited, per-project basis, hope to identify people we could form more meaningful, long-term relationships with. Hopefully we’ll find a way to participate in this world we've always been passionate about, but on the outside of. Hopefully we’ll learn something without losing our shirts. I’ll let you know how it goes...