I’m working my ass off on Lands of Dream stuff at the moment, but I intend to get this blog properly going again this year. It’s much better to actually write my thoughts down in a detailed way than to just throw them away as one-liners on Twitter. I also intend to get the Lands of Dream website going again properly, with regular updates and stuff. I’ve been intending to do that for a long time, and now that we have a ton of new Lands of Dream stories coming (at least two games this year, I swear, plus other stuff), it seems like the right moment.
While I figure out the remaining technical issues I need to solve, here are some links!
- Our friend Ivo Shmilev (you may remember him from Fear of Twine’s Abstract State-warp Machines) has released a book of poetry. It’s called Past the Layered Stones: The Collected Poetry of Jared Quieton Ilyief Vile. As the title suggests, it’s presented as a poetry collection of a fictional character, an obscure poet in the far future. It even comes with a deeply satirical (but sadly realistic) academic essay. Ivo is too close a friend for me to be able to say anything particularly objective, but if poetry’s your thing, and you like poetry that is unusual and unique, I suggest checking it out. In a sense, these poems – which are frequently personal, if to a fictional character – only represent a fraction of Ivo’s vision, a beginning or introduction to his larger themes, but I’d be quite happy if people who appreciate poetry supported this first step, which I hope will lead to even bigger projects.
- BoingBoing published a review of Austerity Ecology by Leigh Phillips. I’m going to write a review of my own as well, but I hope this book really catches on, because it’s fantastic and important.
- GameWorld.gr published an interview with me (in Greek). It was fun to do, though they probably make me sound more coherent than I actually am.
- Steven Brust is still writing about The Revolution Betrayed and it’s still worth reading, even if you haven’t read Trotsky’s book.
- There was an interesting article in GamesRadar about how The Talos Principle is mature. I believe very much in treating one’s audience like adults. And by that I don’t mean the kind of thing adolescents are prone to, which is to try and perform “adultness” through posturing, smoking, cursing, and so on, but through just assuming they’re smart people who shouldn’t be talked down to. Frankly, that’s also how we approached our children’s book, and children also seemed to appreciate not being treated like idiots.
- Have you played TOMBs of Reschette? It’s more than it seems to be.
- Into the Black: On Videogame Exploration is a new video by Electron Dance. I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s based on articles that I liked.
- Song of the indeterminate time period: Superman’s Song by the Crash Test Dummies. I always thought their album God Shuffled His Feet was an underrated masterpiece, but recently I’ve been exploring the rest of their discography, and they have some truly amazing songs. (I highly recommend the albums The Ghost That Haunt Me and I Don’t Care That You Don’t Mind.)
