My sixth and final column for Secure Immaturity is now up. This is more of a hands-on demonstration than an actual column, an evasive technique which has served me since grade school.
Archive for the ‘Creations’ Category
19
03/09
The Meme is Killing You
Have you seen this video? Of course you have. Doesn’t matter which one I’m talking about. You saw it in a tweet or on Facebook or in someone’s blog. Within days everyone we know has seen it. Then we’re all discussing it as though it were an event we saw on our way to work, only somehow we all live on the same street.
But what actually happened was we were all infected by a virus which we happily helped spread. The virus did not infect our computers. That’s just the delivery mechanism. It infected our brains. It ate up thought cycles we used to use for other things. The virus is smart. It softens the blow of the payload with some anesthetic amusement, tickling the proper receptors so that we feel like we’ve been thinking about something even though we’ve gained zero nutritional content. Plus its got celebrity endorsement. You saw it on a cool person’s Twitter, right?
We’ve gained nothing while giving up quite a bit. Read the rest of this entry »
24
02/09
That is Whack
Ah, here is an appropriate use of a blog: venting.
I received an email today that just sent me over the edge of bewilderment and anger. It was from someone I hadn’t heard from in over a year. The message simply said “Can you afford to begin paying for my contributions to our game yet?” And he’s talking about House of Whack. Read the rest of this entry »
New Retrogasmic column up at Secure Immaturity. This one’s on Dragon’s Lair and games with quick time events.
Visit the Secure Immaturity site to read my latest article on early Ameritrash board games and the geek who loved them.
As usual, please comment at the Secure Immaturity site.
My latest article is up at Secure Immaturity. It is on early, pre-graphic games and their modern descendants.
I’ve closed comments here to encourage responses at the Secure Immaturity site.
I’ve posted a new article for the Secure Immaturity podcast and website. This one is about life online pre-World Wide Web.
My first column for the Secure Immaturity podcast and website is now online
It is an honor to have House of Whack distributed alongside some of the most innovative and important independent role-playing games ever conceived. House of Whack really is a gateway drug to story games and other out of the box gaming experiments, so it really seems like a good fit.
23
08/08
Left to His Own Devices
Here is a flash fiction piece I wrote this morning and serialized on Twitter.
—-
Ever the precocious child, Anton used the teleporter in many ways other than its intended purpose.
Cleaning his room, for example, was a trivial task now that he had a save state for it.
Anton’s meticulously arranged ZOMG!icons vs. Blazaroids diorama could swiftly return to its pristine state after each invasion.
And, with the Doppler circuit he created, Anton no longer had just one Amazium-plated AnnihiLord shock trooper. He had twenty-seven.
Twenty-seven incrementally fragile Amazium-plated AnnihiLord shock troopers, but nevertheless many more than Paige McAllister, who had only three.
Saturday mornings weren’t as fun without his brother Dmitri.
Anton rode the train into the city every afternoon. He inserted the same token each time. Only plebs and precocious children still used the trains.
He sat next to Dmitri’s hospital bed and read his twin the latest manga. He held up the slate so Dmitri could see the explosions.
The hospital staff had seen his father’s movies. They never troubled Anton with questions. They assured him Dmitri would wake up one day.
It would be a few days before they noticed that Anton’s parents had stopped visiting.
His mothers were always in the lab and his father filled the weekends with chute-less skydiving and BASE jumping.
Anton wished they stayed home more often.
Although a bright child for his age, he often lacked common sense, particularly when it came to mass conservation vs. lossy molecular compression algorithms.
The nurse saw Anton showing Dmitri his three new Blazaroid pilot action figures. “How lifelike they are,” she remarked.
Unfortunately, for Anton’s parents, nothing was further from the truth.
The End.