DanJW

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Posts posted by DanJW


  1. OK, that's annoying, but at least I don't feel like an idiot for missing something. Pages really do seem to be very awkward in some specifics things - wouldn't it be obvious that a page owner would like a nice big image next to an event link? Event posts just look small and horrible at the moment. I will try and figure out a compromise, I suspect by including the event URL in the image post. Crude but it seems to be the only way.

    Groups have their own problems too, like the loophole for spambots to block admins and hide their posts. Grr. This week I am figuring out the best strategy for running a Group and a Page in tandem, for the same organisation (the group for existing community and the page for press and new audiences). I have to decide whether to post the Page's events to the Group, or the Group's events to the Page... or duplicate the event on each? Sigh.


  2. Hi Mington, thanks for the advice. I've found it really useful as I run two Facebook Pages and a Group and I've been lookign for ways to improve them.

    One thing I have trouble with is events - events are the reason for these pages existence, but I am finding it difficult to combine a nice big photo in the timeline (starred or milestone) with a link to the event. Often the "@the event" protocol doesn't work. Any advice?


  3. Could you give some examples in cinema or gaming of good cosmic horror? That sounds intruiging. I assume it has Lovecraftian overtones, rather than a butchering monster doing the rounds. This might be one of the types of horror I am strangely comfortable with.

    Yeah Lovecraft is the poster boy for cosmic horror, but there are others. It's tough to answer your questions because so many games and movies borrow elements from cosmic horror without going the whole hog (making the player/viewer as well as the protagonist feel insignificant and unsafe in the face of the terrible reality of the universe). It's easier to pull off in literature than it is in other mediums.

    Cinema with strong cosmic horror elements - well Prometheus seems to be heavily based on Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness, but doesn't seem to have the conviction to go all the way. Event Horizon has some strong cosmic horror themes if you pay attention. 2001 Space Odyssey too, although it plays down the horror in favour of awe. Cabin in the Woods is a kind of post-modern cosmic horror played for laughs, as is the Evil Dead series. The Mist has a good crack at it (Stephen King's weirder stories about things from other dimensions are very Lovecraft-inspired), especially with the downer ending.

    Games are even harder to pick out because devs love Eldritch Abominations, but they also like you to kill them. System Shock 2 is like a microcosm of a CH story (microcosmic horror?) The Silent Hill Games likewise. The Reapers in Mass Effect borrow a lot from it as do the Markers in Dead Space but the games themselves are action-orientated .

    Games considered to be proper attempts at CH are Amnesia, Eternal Darkness and, of course, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth


  4. I love horror, but I find it more and more difficult to find horror movies that are actually good. Well, ones that I like at least. Most of them I find boring. I watch the first ten or twenty minutes and see the same boring stuff and I switch off.

    I have more success with horror games, most probably because of the intrinsic level of personal involvement that games have over films. There is a trend for big franchises to drift from horror into action, which is well noted, but games like Amnesia and Limbo show that indie and smaller developers are actually bringing new life (it's aliiiiive!) to the genre. I'm really keen to play Deadlight, which seems to be inspired by Limbo.

    Jump scares occasionally work on me but even when they do I don't always find them that interesting (the ones in Bioshock I liked, but mostly for amusement value). My favourite stuff is psychological horror and cosmic horror. A good cosmic horror I find... well, actually horrifying, not just terrifying or frightful - but at the exact same time it evokes curiosity and awe and a kind of creative satisfaction in me.


  5. Gosh, hello.

    I moved into a new flat, sharing with my girlfriend. So I've not logged in for over a month - ahhhg! Still, a broadband engineer drop-squad are being deployed in about a week to save us, so I hope to be back to usual activity then.

    Now carry on you gorgeous people!


  6. I hope you get some more help at the doctors. At the moment it does sound most likely to be anxiety related.

    One thing to remember is that stress and anxiety related somatic symptoms don't have to appear in the moment of stress. You say they happen when you are feeling fine, but this kind of thing can be delayed reaction, or it can be entirely unconscious - meaning that your conscious mind thinks you are totally relaxed while the triggers are still swirling around somewhere that you are unaware of.

    In any case good luck.


  7. That looks amazing. Nothing better than horror games set in space! I love how Amnesia popularized this whole genre of games where you cannot fight but still die while not being a sierra adventure. Which is probably not a good name for a genre.

    "Run & Hide" Horror?


  8. We've to keep believing. $100 say the next installment in the Half Life franchise will be out before the first human sets foot on Mars.

    About 30 minutes before. Trust Valve to steal the headlines.


  9. I quite enjoyed that. I liked the narrator - reminded me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - and each of the five endings I found had something different to say about games, narrative and player agency. Each one also said its piece in a slightly different way each time (sometimes with irony, sometimes with insight, sometimes with cruelty, and so on).

    Anyone going into this expecting a game might be disappointed; it's actually a treatise that uses its subject as its medium, much like McCloud's Understanding Comics.

    And yes, you can find out what happened to the other workers.

    Also great video above :tup:


  10. I have an adblocker; I just realised that I don't see those banners anyway. Even when I did, the site is well designed so that the ads aren't very distracting.

    I've still given a couple of dollars because I'd like to see the Automata comic. And out of... curiosity I guess, but I wouldn't give more than that.