There is an ever growing trend in the game industry at the moment of introducing micro-transactions into full priced retail releases. More often than not they are poorly implemented rubbish that only serve to make the overall game experience less enjoyable since often they impact the core design of the games. Continue reading
Games
Wonderland Blues
Just like Alice had to awaken from Wonderland
So too do we find ourselves torn from the pleasant fantasy
Of our dearest conventions.
We the weirdos and oddballs who find no peace in life
Who are beaten down and left alone in a sea of reality
Come together to indulge in the make-believe worlds
And form bonds of family that none outside can grasp.
For days we have laughed, loved and lived,
We have belonged.
The music and the voices and the costumes filled our souls
And we donned the masks of heroes and madmen
To patch the holes in our own personalities,
To set aside our own deficiencies and become something more.
The alcohol flowed and we sang together,
Dancing to the tunes of our youth with tears in our eyes
And friends surrounding us in the warm embrace of acceptance.
Our time came.
But,
Now our time has gone.
The halls where we cheered and laughed have closed their doors
They stand empty and grow smaller as we are drawn away from our Wonderland,
By the incessant call of life.
Now the costumes have gone, as have the beautiful bubbles of bliss
That we formed around ourselves to ward away the coldness of the outside world.
We shiver as we remember.
Back we return to being the outcasts.
Back to the judgement of those who do not understand.
Back to the jobs that drain our spirit
And to the all too normal streets.
We will catch glimpses for a while,
People in the corner of our eyes who spark hope.
We turn expecting No Face but instead it is a burkha clad mother.
A flash of colour and strangeness is a man in a sports uniform
And a funny hat and strange clothes is a jacked-up hipster.
Our colours seem to drain as our memories fade.
Another year to persevere,
Another year
Another year,
My dear, dear friends
Another year to keep ourselves alive to once more live again,
A year until these dying embers can once more rise like a phoenix
And blaze in all the colours of our perfect world.
Video games as Writing Inspirations.
Back at the dawn of literature people who could write books could only draw inspiration from their own lives or from the verbal tales and folk lore that had been told to them. As writing became more prevalent, authors could draw more and more upon the work of others. It is as the famous phrase goes: “To write you have to read”. This was the status-quo for many years until the advent of the moving picture. With movies and television came a new way to tell stories. With these new, popular narrative devices, the audience to began to change. Things needed to happen and they needed to happen fast to keep people’s attention. Continue reading