Diablo: Point, Click, Loot, Repeat!
Though others came before it, 1997’s Diablo redefined and became the exemplar of the Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) genre. ARPGs are notable in that they focus the gameplay around combat and character power while tending to downplay or deemphasize narrative...
SciFi contact lenses – the biggest monitor is the smallest
Early in Terminator 2 we are privy to a view from the terminator’s perspective. Cast in villainous shades of red, it shows an augmented reality overlay of the world, identifying objects and individuals and providing some analysis of what is on screen.New developments...
Year 10 of My 5-10 Year Overnight Success Plan
Well, it happened. Ten years ago January, we released Firehurler. It was the first book in my first series, with the second well into its draft, at the time. The Twinborn Trilogy never became a blockbuster hit, but the series did OK. The reception was reservedly...
Legion may just be the weirdest corner of the X-Men Universe
In 2017, a show called Legion premiered on FX. It was set in the X-Men universe, though you’d hardly know it unless someone warned you in advance (or you knew X-Men comics well). The main character is David Haller, a patient in a mental facility, struggling with...
Who remembers A Pilot’s Pilot? …this was the prologue…
I realize that most, if not all, of you are here because you’re Black Ocean readers (for those who aren’t yet, it’s never too late!). So most of you have read Salvage Trouble, either in ebook or audio format, as a standalone or part of the Galaxy Outlaws collection. A...
Whispers of a Machine – An inventive puzzle game with a “killer” plot…PLUS cyber tools
One of my guilty pleasures is the murder mystery. One or more people are dead. We don’t know who killed them. Catch them before they either get away or kill again. My preference leans toward the lone (or with just a sidekick) detective as opposed to police...
Inspector Gadget had nothing on the modern smart watch
Can we take a moment to appreciate the technological majesty of the smart watch? Dick Tracy was an American comic strip that debuted in newspapers in 1931. It starred a hard-nosed detective with a super-fancy piece of technology: a watch with a built-in radio. For...
District 9 – A dystopian future, or an uncomfortable past?
It never became a franchise, because it was never looking to become one. District 9 feels like a forgotten relic of an era that wasn’t even all that long ago. It wasn’t about superheroes. It wasn’t an adaptation of a famous book. It wasn’t a remake of an old classic....
Last Angel has Fallen – Why I scrapped my take on an unanticipated apocalyptic failure
Armageddon has come, the demons won…but the last humans are looking for a rematch OK, I talk a lot about stuff I decided not to write because it was too weird, too derivative, or too incomplete. But what about when the subject matter is so polarizing that it will be...
Check the Haul (a Black Ocean Christmas parody)
Holiday fun, reimagined by J.S. Morin for the Black Ocean fan group December 2021. Fa la la la la, la la la laFa la la la la, la la la la Check the haul, collect extortions Fa la la la la, la la la la (fa la la la la, la la la la) Tis the season to make fortunes Fa la...