Edge of Empowerment
Power is defined every bit as much by what it can’t achieve as what it can achieve. Even an indestructable man can’t save himself from drowning, even a walking god can’t reverse death. Omnipotence is a contradiction, a rock made…
Tag gaming
Attachments
It becomes necessary, after a certain point, to ask yourself: “What, exactly, am I getting from this?” It isn’t necessary to have a good answer, but it’s necessary to ask. Sometimes it’s terrifyingly easy to spend an hour, a day,…
Dark Souls
People in dreams are perceived in reverse order. When we are awake, we see a face, a body, a set of mannerisms, a manner of dress, and we recognize the familiar, and we put a name to the person. In…
Hunger
When we’re hungry, we can gain insights our overall physical and mental state by the foods we crave: Sugary and sweet stress salves or crunchy salty protein reinforcements, our hungers reveal our deficiencies, real or perceived. Our tastes in entertainment,…
As Luck Would Have It
Is luck fun? Games, and those who play them, have a somewhat tense and delicate relationship with luck and randomness. In the best case, adding some randomness to a game can create unexpected and delightful variations on the basic challenge…
Detraining
There is a process which repeats, a cycle with no end in sight. As my skill grows, my ability to recognize my own flaws grows with it, and thus, from my perspective, it appears that I’m not growing more skillful…
Passive
I spend a lot of my time in games. I work in games, I play in games. Sometimes I dream in games. When the energy it would require to actually play feels like too much, I’ll watch someone else play.…
Play
The names we give things can be so unexpectedly revealing sometimes. I saw a play a few days ago. It was a good play, but that’s not relevant. This was the last staging of this show, though, and as someone…
Starbound
I’m dropped on a planet with nothing but a few simple imperatives to point the way. The sensation is familiar, but the world is a stranger. Mushrooms grow maybe 30 feet tall here. Strange creatures wander around, and some of…
The Dark
I would almost say that fear of the unknown is the only real kind, but that seems difficult to defend. Certainly, the fear that the guy who told you he would cut your arm off at 3:15pm next Tuesday will…