Recently in our household, we had been revisiting Skyrim, which we do periodically. Because we're not in a position to afford the most recent consoles right now (which is a post in itself), my brother and I have been going back to games we haven't touched in a while. As I write this, actually, the age of Skyrim has passed and Matt's been replaying Dead Space while I've been playing the 360 version of Tales of Vesperia. These returns to and unceremonious abandonments of Skyrim happen with some frequency and if you ask us why, we'd frankly have some trouble explaining.
Personally, I don't even enjoy Skyrim that much. I don't get a lot out of its writing and I tend to ignore the main quest, let alone the myriad side stuff. If I'm in Tamriel, chances are that I'm picking alchemical ingredients and killing dragons. That's really my jam in Skyrim. I have a frankly excessive amount of blue mountain flowers and a bug that means every time I return to my Hearthfire expansion home, I'm greeted by the corpse of a dragon I killed ages ago and accidentally fast-traveled with in tow. I like to imagine my in-game child uses it as a playground climber.
So why do I play, when even by my own admission, I'm not particularly doing much?
For me, playing Skyrim is a kind of a reflex action, when I don't feel like researching and I feel like playing something I don't particularly have to pay attention to. Play itself has a value, but it feels wasteful to have all that programmed possibility in a game and all I really want to do with it is wander and kill anything that looks at me funny. For me, playing Skyrim is a lot about virtual body memory and relying on that to keep my character moving. It's almost meditative - I have danced this dance before, I know the steps.
So, when I return to Skyrim, I find I have the same problem I did the very first time I picked up the game. Quests pile up, both the major and the grocery list of to-dos in my miscellaneous file. There's absolutely tons to do, but none of it feels particularly pressing or even important. Contrast this to Dark Souls, another game that evokes the use of virtual body memory, particularly on re-runs through areas where knowing the steps keeps your character alive. In the early levels of the game, it doesn't list your tasks in stark relief, but the game feels desperate and even your wandering feels like part of a struggle. There's an obvious difference between the two games in terms of difficulty and yet that isn't the only reason why I find that playing Dark Souls feels essential (if frequently unpleasant and frustrating) and Skyrim feels bloated.
Perhaps there's such a thing as too much content and I say this as an RPG fanatic. I love sinking hours into games. But I find myself irked by having too much content with too little sense of any of it mattering. If I'm not just playing for the sake of playing, I want a sense that my efforts have import. I don't find that in Skyrim. I just feel glutted with options I'm not invested in, like someone getting to the end of their Halloween hoard and eyeing the crappy caramels because the mini Kit Kats are long gone, if indeed they were ever there.
A video-gaming blog and the online home of Meghan Blythe Adams
Wednesday, 20 November 2013
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Scholars Have Joined Your Party!: Why Academics Should Join Project Play
Last Monday, I wrote about my personal experience of London, Ontario's Project Play with the promise of writing a critical consideration of the event as a follow-up. My key point is this: events like Project Play are a great opportunity for games studies scholars to connect with the playing community. Exhibitors at Project Play included vendors, local game creators, community organizations and representatives from Fanshawe. Notably and lamentably absent were representatives from local Western University, game studies associations like DiGRA and CGSA, and middle-state publishers in the field like First-Person Scholar. I'll address each in turn.
Because Project Play brings together disparate elements of the playing community, the absence of representation from the local university was disappointing. PP is a great opportunity for gaming-minded departments like Computer Science and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies as well as organizations like the Digital Recreation, Entertainment, Art and Media (DREAM) Group operating out of the university to make community connections. It's important for any university to make local connections, but given that gaming scholars are so often also players and creators, gaming studies needs to be particularly welcoming to the community members who also often play multiple roles in the production, release, use and critique of games. Finally, showing an openness to gaming as a field of interest highlights Western University as potentially welcoming to PP attendees - it's just good marketing. I hope that next year representatives from Western and particularly its game studies-friendly departments and research groups, like those from Fanshawe, step up to support and attend PP in an official capacity.
Independent games studies organizations like DiGRA and CGSA should also consider getting a table at PP and events like it. While these organizations continue to grow, they still need grassroots connections in order to thrive. As said previously, it's often the case that gaming enthusiasts don't just play - they often create and critique as well. Game studies organizations should actively make connections with community events like PP in order to not only raise their own profile among attendees, but also to scout for potential presenters at our own events, particularly for academic attendees not yet applying their professional talents to their personal interest in gaming. The presence of game studies organizations at events like these (particularly in a university town like London) would show that game studies is increasingly a viable research area that can intersect with a wide range of fields.Making connections at events like PP increases the pool of DiGRa's and CGSA's potential attendees and contributors.
Finally, another category of game studies group that should attend events like PP is that of game studies publishers like First Person Scholar (Note: I should dislose that I'm a member of the editing team of FPS and that I'm emailing them about this forthwith). Websites, particularly those that occupy a place between academic blogging and academic journals shoulod use events like PP to court both readers and contributors. While sites like FPS publish the work of game studies scholars specifically, our readership can and should extend beyond the ranks of graduate students and faculty. Connecting with play enthusiasts would raise the profile of middle-state publishers in game studies as well as make connections with academics in other fields not currently connecting their professional work to the games they love.
If I had my way, this year, PP and other events like it would hear requests for tables from university departments and research groups, national and international game studies associations and publishers in the field. The presence of enthusiastic scholars at PP would forge key connections between the academy and the play communiy as part of an event raising funds to help children access play - that's a lot of awesome in one place. As PP demonstrates, everyone deserves a chance to play and academics should be getting in on the fun - for their own good as well as others'.
Because Project Play brings together disparate elements of the playing community, the absence of representation from the local university was disappointing. PP is a great opportunity for gaming-minded departments like Computer Science and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies as well as organizations like the Digital Recreation, Entertainment, Art and Media (DREAM) Group operating out of the university to make community connections. It's important for any university to make local connections, but given that gaming scholars are so often also players and creators, gaming studies needs to be particularly welcoming to the community members who also often play multiple roles in the production, release, use and critique of games. Finally, showing an openness to gaming as a field of interest highlights Western University as potentially welcoming to PP attendees - it's just good marketing. I hope that next year representatives from Western and particularly its game studies-friendly departments and research groups, like those from Fanshawe, step up to support and attend PP in an official capacity.
Independent games studies organizations like DiGRA and CGSA should also consider getting a table at PP and events like it. While these organizations continue to grow, they still need grassroots connections in order to thrive. As said previously, it's often the case that gaming enthusiasts don't just play - they often create and critique as well. Game studies organizations should actively make connections with community events like PP in order to not only raise their own profile among attendees, but also to scout for potential presenters at our own events, particularly for academic attendees not yet applying their professional talents to their personal interest in gaming. The presence of game studies organizations at events like these (particularly in a university town like London) would show that game studies is increasingly a viable research area that can intersect with a wide range of fields.Making connections at events like PP increases the pool of DiGRa's and CGSA's potential attendees and contributors.
Finally, another category of game studies group that should attend events like PP is that of game studies publishers like First Person Scholar (Note: I should dislose that I'm a member of the editing team of FPS and that I'm emailing them about this forthwith). Websites, particularly those that occupy a place between academic blogging and academic journals shoulod use events like PP to court both readers and contributors. While sites like FPS publish the work of game studies scholars specifically, our readership can and should extend beyond the ranks of graduate students and faculty. Connecting with play enthusiasts would raise the profile of middle-state publishers in game studies as well as make connections with academics in other fields not currently connecting their professional work to the games they love.
If I had my way, this year, PP and other events like it would hear requests for tables from university departments and research groups, national and international game studies associations and publishers in the field. The presence of enthusiastic scholars at PP would forge key connections between the academy and the play communiy as part of an event raising funds to help children access play - that's a lot of awesome in one place. As PP demonstrates, everyone deserves a chance to play and academics should be getting in on the fun - for their own good as well as others'.
Monday, 23 September 2013
Project Funway: London, Ontario's Project Play
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| Copyright Project Play |
This is the first of two posts on the second annual edition of Project Play, billed as "southwestern Ontario's biggest hands-on play event." While this post will be more about my personal experience at the event, the follow-up will be a more critical engagement with the event and its potential in general.
I've been eagerly waiting for Project Play since I missed out on it last year. The event aims to combine geek-friendly vendors and organizations and play opportunities ranging from cosplay contests to tabletop demos, to board games, video games and a small sea of MegaBloks. Part of the event's appeal is that on top of being so play-focused, it also raises money to donate games to organizations that help children and families. Last year, they raised over $5000 for gaming bundles donated to local organizations Merrymount Family Support Crisis Centre, Women's Community House and Women's Rural Resource Centre Strathroy and Area. Both as a play enthusiast and a game studies nerd, I was committed to making it this year, come hell or Titans.
Overall, I had a wonderful experience at this year's Project Play. Volunteers and exhibitors were friendly and the range of activities was both impressive and heart-warming to watch. I also came home with a sweet bag full of loot, mostly posters, and a mitt-ful of cards from geek-oriented vendors. The urge to splurge was a big part of my attendance - my brother and I went in looking mostly to observe and shop for decorations for our apartment. Both being a bit shy, we were interested in but a bit circumspect of the group play opportunities, so I can't speak to the experience of the event by folks more inclined to jump in without being invited / coaxed.
While I came home full of geek love and I thank the organizers and volunteers for putting on a great event, I do have three suggestions for next year. These suggestions mostly run on volunteers and organization and I fully intend to volunteer next year. Contact Project Play to do so yourself.
Previous to the event, announcements of cosplay contests and King of Tokyo tournaments were exciting, but the lack of a publicly posted schedule was frustrating. While I recognize the difficulty of organizing events like this, having a schedule to reference would help next year's attendees plan their day at the event.While posting prior to the event would be ideal, even a day-of schedule posted at the welcoming tables would be very helpful.
Another resource for attendees would be additional support navigating the campus. While the map on the event's web site was clear, the signage on the campus led us to park far from the right building. My ankle is still healing from being sprained, so the walk to and the wrong turn-induced journey through the wastes of Fanshawe's parking lots from the event led to a slight re-injury I'm nursing today. Next year, the event could use volunteers at the main entry to campus, directing attendees to the right parking lot so anyone with energy or mobility issues didn't re-enact the Journey to
A final suggestion for next year's event would be that play events consistently have signage or volunteers stationed there to inform and, let's be frank, coax attendees as needed. I suspect that no few of the attendees are as socially gun-shy as myself and having a friendly face to say, "Hey, this is the board game area. Are you looking to try a game or for more players to join one?" would make a big difference. Had there been more attendee outreach, I think Matt and I would have tried a turn at D&D or a board game, but instead, we mostly observed.
These observations were, though, possibly the best part of Project Play for Matt and me. We saw attendees and exhibitors in costume - many Finn hats were in evidence - we saw fruitful, relaxed interaction between people coming together to play. The event was colourful and welcoming and both of us felt very much among our geeky kind. Simply attending was really the biggest treat of the day and we both look forward to next year.
If you think you'd like to join in next year, contact Project Play by their website, Facebook profile, or Twitter. Tell them how much you love play (and large, clear maps).
Sunday, 1 September 2013
Lego Heads and Gamer Tales: CGSA 2013
My envy of those attending this year's DiGRA has me thinking back on my first attendance of the Canadian Game Studies Association's conference at the 2013 Congress of the Humanities in Victoria, B.C. CGSA was my first game studies conference and it remains a high point in my time as a game studies nerd.
Because I operate out of an English department, my area of interest sometimes leaves me feeling like a cuckoo in a nest of some other, much less annoying bird. After presenting on Mass Effect at ACCUTE in 2012, even though it was an excellent conference and I was treated very well, I was hungry for a conference in my field.
Going into the CGSA, I was nervous. Presenting on games at an English conference or being the only presenter on games at a multimedia conference is in some ways an easy job. You may feel like the responsibility of representing game studies as a vibrant and, above all, legitimate field rests solely on the shoulders of some chump who happens to be you, but you're also relatively unlikely to get called out by someone who knows game studies better than you do.
A conference in your field, however, has a whole different set of anxieties, embodied by the large number of brilliant peers you suddenly have. I imagine that every specialized conference has this effect to a certain extent, but when game studies is still being debated in some universities, when the legitimacy of the field itself is still part of the argument that has to be made in dissertation proposals, game studies conferences will continue to be more of a haven (or cabal) than ones on Shakespearean Studies, for example. The presenter swag bag in the form of a Lego figurine whose parts you could swap with other attendees certainly helped this feeling.
Blame the trading of Lego heads or the open bar after the AGM if you must, but for me, attending CGSA was like coming home. Being presented with the sheer mass of brain-power present was like being punched in the neck. But gobsmacked or not, being among scholars who assumed the importance of game studies as a base for other thinking was pretty heady stuff.
They key things I took away from this year's CGSA were three: the dual poles of Toronto and Montreal, the many hats of the presenters, and correspondingly, the exciting range of presentations. While we had scholars from all over, there were substantial camps working in Toronto and Montreal. I'm hoping to make connections in both places, likely thanks to my close friendship with the Greyhound company. I also want to know about game communities in other cities: what's going on in Edmonton and Waterloo?
Presenters ranged from game designers to game studies professors and starry-eyed graduate students in a wide range of fields. Even beyond the interdisciplinarity that typifies game studies, part of what's so attractive about the field is that creators, players and critics so often wear all three hats. It means that conversations aren't limited to the academic perspective and increasingly, it encourages scholastically-inclined game nerds like myself to learn how to create as well as critique (note: my efforts have not yet proved fruitful).
Part of those conversations include presentations like the ones at CGSA this year, which ranged from deeply personal discussions of the relationship between gaming and anxiety (@Forestghost_), MMOs in Russia (Cat Goodfellow, who has the best name in game studies), and the problems presented by gamification (Mark Chen). On a purely selfish level, hearing about such different topics was really invigorating for my own research.
And that, I think, is the most important part of conferences like CGSA. Yes, they make important connections, they encourage cross-pollination and they keep people informed. But they send participants home excited and it's passion and the grim commitment that follows that gets the work done.
After coming home from the CGSA, I finished my dissertation proposal. Coincidence? Mostly not.
Because I operate out of an English department, my area of interest sometimes leaves me feeling like a cuckoo in a nest of some other, much less annoying bird. After presenting on Mass Effect at ACCUTE in 2012, even though it was an excellent conference and I was treated very well, I was hungry for a conference in my field.
Going into the CGSA, I was nervous. Presenting on games at an English conference or being the only presenter on games at a multimedia conference is in some ways an easy job. You may feel like the responsibility of representing game studies as a vibrant and, above all, legitimate field rests solely on the shoulders of some chump who happens to be you, but you're also relatively unlikely to get called out by someone who knows game studies better than you do.
A conference in your field, however, has a whole different set of anxieties, embodied by the large number of brilliant peers you suddenly have. I imagine that every specialized conference has this effect to a certain extent, but when game studies is still being debated in some universities, when the legitimacy of the field itself is still part of the argument that has to be made in dissertation proposals, game studies conferences will continue to be more of a haven (or cabal) than ones on Shakespearean Studies, for example. The presenter swag bag in the form of a Lego figurine whose parts you could swap with other attendees certainly helped this feeling.
Blame the trading of Lego heads or the open bar after the AGM if you must, but for me, attending CGSA was like coming home. Being presented with the sheer mass of brain-power present was like being punched in the neck. But gobsmacked or not, being among scholars who assumed the importance of game studies as a base for other thinking was pretty heady stuff.
They key things I took away from this year's CGSA were three: the dual poles of Toronto and Montreal, the many hats of the presenters, and correspondingly, the exciting range of presentations. While we had scholars from all over, there were substantial camps working in Toronto and Montreal. I'm hoping to make connections in both places, likely thanks to my close friendship with the Greyhound company. I also want to know about game communities in other cities: what's going on in Edmonton and Waterloo?
Presenters ranged from game designers to game studies professors and starry-eyed graduate students in a wide range of fields. Even beyond the interdisciplinarity that typifies game studies, part of what's so attractive about the field is that creators, players and critics so often wear all three hats. It means that conversations aren't limited to the academic perspective and increasingly, it encourages scholastically-inclined game nerds like myself to learn how to create as well as critique (note: my efforts have not yet proved fruitful).
Part of those conversations include presentations like the ones at CGSA this year, which ranged from deeply personal discussions of the relationship between gaming and anxiety (@Forestghost_), MMOs in Russia (Cat Goodfellow, who has the best name in game studies), and the problems presented by gamification (Mark Chen). On a purely selfish level, hearing about such different topics was really invigorating for my own research.
And that, I think, is the most important part of conferences like CGSA. Yes, they make important connections, they encourage cross-pollination and they keep people informed. But they send participants home excited and it's passion and the grim commitment that follows that gets the work done.
After coming home from the CGSA, I finished my dissertation proposal. Coincidence? Mostly not.
Friday, 30 August 2013
Cake and Lies: Christine Love's Hate Plus
Spoilers for Analogue: A Hate Story and Hate Plus below.
This past week, I played through Christine Love's Hate Plus, the sequel to 2012's Analogue: A Hate Story. Like its predecessor, Hate Plus is a visual novel with several potential outcomes that deals with issues of misogyny, love, and transhumanism. In both cases, I decided to take the bait and follow a romantic plot with the AI *Hyun-ae. Love deliberately makes this romantic element a troubling one - the player is the first friendly point of contact that the severely traumatized *Hyun-ae has had in hundreds of years and the relationship has potentially unhealthy notes.
And what, I ask, is unhealthier than cake? Well, radiation, for one thing that pops up in the first game. But the biggest danger in my initial (and so far, only) run-through of Hate Plus was my lack of chocolate chips in my real-life kitchen with which to make a cake for *Hyun-ae. Seriously.
If you're following the *Hyun-ae path in the game, she eventually requests a cake so you can celebrate the Lunar New Year Festival together. Used to making promises to the character (I was her dashing rescuer, after all), I glibly tapped the Yes button, even as she asked me to check the kitchen. To my shock, she pointed out that I hadn't taken enough time to check. Additional attempts to lie and cautious resets piled up, until the character directly addressed me - the player, not the player-character - and accused me of treating the game like a tacky erotic visual novel and asked me to consider the sad girl I could make happy just by making her cake.
Reader, I made the cake. Love wisely suggests a five minute (give or take fifteen) cake that can be made in the microwave (by "any otaku", as *Hyun-ae says) and satisfies both *Hyun-ae's sensibilities and timer. After making the cake and sharing it with the AI on my computer screen, I took a photo of my mug full of cake and emailed it to the developer to get a particular achievement for the game on Steam. Like you do. To my knowledge, this is the first time I have left my game to go do its bidding in my regular life.
Now that the last crumbs have long since been scraped from the mug, I'm interested in the strange sense of vulnerability I had when the game called me out. Often when gaming we're ensconced (if not entirely safely) in identities - Master Chief, Commander Shepard, Mario, etc - but Hate Plus called me out, clearly disregarding my in-game persona in order to get the attention of the person sitting at the computer.
Let's consider two ways of looking at how this strategy differs from standard game-play. One focuses on spatial incorporation. Analogue incorporated the keyboard as a playing tool directly when progressing through the game demanded use of the in-game computer terminal. This extra-game typing of in-game terminal commands gave a one-to-one representation of player action that puts the Kinect to shame. In contrast, Hate Plus bypasses the computer as sole means of interface in favour of expanding the space of the game to include a place in which real cakes get made. Alternately, we can read this as less of a touch of the alternate-reality-game in which technology augments real-world space and more of a modification of the scope of player behaviour - an expansion of player ability instead of game-space.
Both of these readings have failings, but what's clear is that *Hyun-ae's cake is one of the ways that Love's game aims to destabilize comfortable ideas held and boundaries relied on by the player - even ones leaned on by its previous instalment. Just as Hate Plus further complicates the history of the misogyny presented in the first game through the revelations of the second, it also disrupts the player identity and the scope of play explicitly brought along from Analogue.
What does this tell us? Christine Love remains a game designer to watch and cake is only as far away as your microwave, otaku scum.
This past week, I played through Christine Love's Hate Plus, the sequel to 2012's Analogue: A Hate Story. Like its predecessor, Hate Plus is a visual novel with several potential outcomes that deals with issues of misogyny, love, and transhumanism. In both cases, I decided to take the bait and follow a romantic plot with the AI *Hyun-ae. Love deliberately makes this romantic element a troubling one - the player is the first friendly point of contact that the severely traumatized *Hyun-ae has had in hundreds of years and the relationship has potentially unhealthy notes.
And what, I ask, is unhealthier than cake? Well, radiation, for one thing that pops up in the first game. But the biggest danger in my initial (and so far, only) run-through of Hate Plus was my lack of chocolate chips in my real-life kitchen with which to make a cake for *Hyun-ae. Seriously.
If you're following the *Hyun-ae path in the game, she eventually requests a cake so you can celebrate the Lunar New Year Festival together. Used to making promises to the character (I was her dashing rescuer, after all), I glibly tapped the Yes button, even as she asked me to check the kitchen. To my shock, she pointed out that I hadn't taken enough time to check. Additional attempts to lie and cautious resets piled up, until the character directly addressed me - the player, not the player-character - and accused me of treating the game like a tacky erotic visual novel and asked me to consider the sad girl I could make happy just by making her cake.
Reader, I made the cake. Love wisely suggests a five minute (give or take fifteen) cake that can be made in the microwave (by "any otaku", as *Hyun-ae says) and satisfies both *Hyun-ae's sensibilities and timer. After making the cake and sharing it with the AI on my computer screen, I took a photo of my mug full of cake and emailed it to the developer to get a particular achievement for the game on Steam. Like you do. To my knowledge, this is the first time I have left my game to go do its bidding in my regular life.
Now that the last crumbs have long since been scraped from the mug, I'm interested in the strange sense of vulnerability I had when the game called me out. Often when gaming we're ensconced (if not entirely safely) in identities - Master Chief, Commander Shepard, Mario, etc - but Hate Plus called me out, clearly disregarding my in-game persona in order to get the attention of the person sitting at the computer.
Let's consider two ways of looking at how this strategy differs from standard game-play. One focuses on spatial incorporation. Analogue incorporated the keyboard as a playing tool directly when progressing through the game demanded use of the in-game computer terminal. This extra-game typing of in-game terminal commands gave a one-to-one representation of player action that puts the Kinect to shame. In contrast, Hate Plus bypasses the computer as sole means of interface in favour of expanding the space of the game to include a place in which real cakes get made. Alternately, we can read this as less of a touch of the alternate-reality-game in which technology augments real-world space and more of a modification of the scope of player behaviour - an expansion of player ability instead of game-space.
Both of these readings have failings, but what's clear is that *Hyun-ae's cake is one of the ways that Love's game aims to destabilize comfortable ideas held and boundaries relied on by the player - even ones leaned on by its previous instalment. Just as Hate Plus further complicates the history of the misogyny presented in the first game through the revelations of the second, it also disrupts the player identity and the scope of play explicitly brought along from Analogue.
What does this tell us? Christine Love remains a game designer to watch and cake is only as far away as your microwave, otaku scum.
Monday, 19 August 2013
Introducing Myself and The Bagatelle(s)
My name is Meghan Blythe Adams and I'm a third-year PhD candidate at The University of Western Ontario. Although I'm pursuing my work in the English Department, my main area of interest is video game studies, particularly death in gaming. Other game-related interests of mine include difficulty, sexuality, and play more generally.
At the time of this writing, I have just started my primary research for my dissertation. The dissertation proposal is still so fresh, it continues to steam. What forlorn internet explorers will find when they come to this blog are short, (very) informal essays on topics related to game studies, the games industry, and what's taking over my computer at the moment (currently: My Little Pony wallpapers and Christine Love, who just released Hate Plus).
I've tweeted sporadically before, but the aim of this blog is develop and share field notes from what will ideally amount to a PhD in game studies. Previous efforts from my non-academic (and now mostly on hiatus) roller derby blog can give potential readers a sense of my tone, but I think I can assure readers that this blog will feature less swearing. The feminism and unironic enjoyment of puns will continue unabated.
On the more personal side of things, I live with an adolescent dog who politely tolerates my sedentary habit of staring at televisions and monitors most of the time and signals this toleration by not yet eating my power cords. I love games where I don't have to aim, because it makes me anxious, but I also think anxiety is one of the best parts of gaming. It's that kind of fragmented thinking you can expect from further posts here.
At the time of this writing, I have just started my primary research for my dissertation. The dissertation proposal is still so fresh, it continues to steam. What forlorn internet explorers will find when they come to this blog are short, (very) informal essays on topics related to game studies, the games industry, and what's taking over my computer at the moment (currently: My Little Pony wallpapers and Christine Love, who just released Hate Plus).
I've tweeted sporadically before, but the aim of this blog is develop and share field notes from what will ideally amount to a PhD in game studies. Previous efforts from my non-academic (and now mostly on hiatus) roller derby blog can give potential readers a sense of my tone, but I think I can assure readers that this blog will feature less swearing. The feminism and unironic enjoyment of puns will continue unabated.
On the more personal side of things, I live with an adolescent dog who politely tolerates my sedentary habit of staring at televisions and monitors most of the time and signals this toleration by not yet eating my power cords. I love games where I don't have to aim, because it makes me anxious, but I also think anxiety is one of the best parts of gaming. It's that kind of fragmented thinking you can expect from further posts here.
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