Uncharted
I’ve been having a hard time writing recently. Sometimes it feels like I’ve got nothing left to say – not necessarily there aren’t any ideas for topics, but that all of them seem thin or redundant, either something I could…
Tag Art
Incomplete
The monthly project thing didn’t work out. There’s a few reasons for that, but the biggest one is the issue of enthusiasm management, a skill which I’ve had to improve at over the past few years. I guess some people…
Individual
Is there a name for the deep hunger for evidence that we actually exist? “I think, therefore I am” is a pretty flimsy reassurance. Every character we write believes that they think; every character we write believes that they are.…
Gray Areas
In games, actions have consequences. This is broadly true in all cases: The game is defined by its reactions to the actions you take within its spaces. However, when we talk about games – and when games talk about themselves…
Problematic
Everyone who likes art inevitably has the experience of revisiting something that they loved many years ago and, with older and more experienced eyes, finding it deeply Problematic. ‘Problematic’ is a strange word, being essentially a shorthand for “has issues…
One-Track Minds
Everyone feels trapped. Helpless. We have a problem, and it’s a trolley problem. We are on rails, and the scope of our choices sharply constrained. There is no preventing the harm, only, perhaps, reducing it. In the face of impending…
Being Good
What is good art? We are constantly declaring various books and movies and games to be good or bad – we get in arguments about these classifications, have entire professions dedicated to evangelizing them. We go to great lengths to…
Unique
There’s a desire, when making something, to have the creation be somehow new and unprecedented, unique, unlike anything that has come before. This can create issues – while ideally every work should offer something new, it is not necessary or…
Grit
The way art happens, I think, is much the same way pearls are made: A tiny grit of something gets inside of our shells, grinds its way into us uncomfortably, and we have to weave some softer facade around it…
Normal Mapping
I always had trouble identifying with the parts of kids’ cartoons where the main character wishes they were normal. I think that this is partially an indication of privilege: I’ve never really had to suffer much for being a weirdo.…