Hearthstone: A Mobile/PC Powerhouse of a Game
Hearthstone isn’t news. It’s an offshoot of the world’s most famous MMORPG and it’s been around in its own right since 2014. But it’s notable for a few factors that distinguish it among computer games. First off, there is a tonal shift from its core material. At the...
Off-brand gods: When an Idea is So Bad That It’s…Bad
So, sometimes a funny idea pops into your head. That’s fine. It’s ok to laugh at it, maybe share it with whoever is closest, and simply move on. Less helpful is writing it down in a list of potential story ideas where it will mock you every time to scan past it, a...
The End of Backbreaking Labor
Job posting from 2040: Entry level construction job Will be supervising 20 employees No physical limitations You’ll be building bridges and skyscrapers, paving roads and digging canals. In your grandparents’ day, a hundred men would be out there, sweating and...
Honor Among Thieves: THIS is how you make a D&D movie
Fantasy movies have had a rough history in Hollywood. Cheesy special effects, ren faire level costumes, and dialogue that sounds like a high-school dropout’s take on Shakespeare plagues these offerings. Plots tended to be very basic, but that’s never really hurt a...
Encodya: Just a girl and her robot
Point-and-click puzzle games are a mainstay of PC gaming dating back to the 80s. Due to the limited scope, they can be reliably produced by indie game companies, leading to something of a resurgence in the genre. One of the more recent offerings in this vein, made...
Google Maps Timeline: The Argument-Killing Machine
"We haven’t been to X in ages." "What was the name of that little Italian place we stopped at the day we went to Y?" "Yes, we went to Z on our anniversary. I remember buying the tickets!" Little conjectures, quibbles, and memory lapses like these are the grout between...
Altered Carbon: What Happens When Tech Makes Life Cheap?
Altered Carbon begins with a futuristic twist on the noir whodunnit. The victim commissions the detective’s help himself. Thanks to an alien technology that is poorly understood (yet nonetheless replicated and mass-produced), human consciousness can be stored...
Chess: Good Game, Bad Plot
Chess is having something of a minor resurgence these days (all things being relative, it’s probably still less popular than the average pay-to-win mobile game). I’ve been playing at a half-assed level since I was a kid, so my books have often used chess as a metaphor...
Mobius wimmelbilder – behind the scenes
Before I share the exciting project we spent 8 months working with an amazing wimmelbilder artist to complete, if you missed either my overview of what "wimmelbilder" means, or my introduction to the amazing Nigel Sussman, take a minute to catch up....
Wimmelbilder – Greatest German word ever?
Language is funny stuff. Often absurd. Especially English. I certainly make that point often enough in my writing by having my characters misinterpret even the most common of sentiments in amusing ways. As a professional language-wrangler, I probably torture it more...