juv3nal

Monument Valley is pretty sweet http://www.monumentvalleygame.com/ it's only a bit over an hour long, i think, so if that cost/duration ratio is a problem for you, well, ok, but totally worth it imo. plays like echochrome more or less? but amazing music and visuals.

An artist can certainly try to communicate something (not saying that is necessarily "the point" of all art) and be unsuccessful in doing so and that failure can sometimes be on them rather than the audience. The artist that says "why don't you get it" without examining their own responsibility in that is probably a worse artist than the one that does. But to be clear, I think it's totally ok for an artist to be selfish and to only create stuff that a few people are going to get. IMO this isn't necessarily any kind of snobby elitism. If an artist, for example, *cough*, deploys an obscure cultural reference, it may well be that such a reference signifies something that another, more accessible reference or generalized depiction would not be able to convey. edit: though I do think in this latter case the artist ought to be keenly aware of what they are doing and if they come out with "why don't you get it" they're just being a jerk.

the "archie bunker problem" in broad strokes is that something intended as satire/ironic bigotry gets taken by some people (presumably, as evidenced by the Colbert situation, possibly on both sides of the bigot/non-bigot line, though specifically with reference to Bunker I think I've only seen it referring those in sympathy with the expression of bigoted sentiment) as being sincere. God that parenthetical was awful, but I'm on a phone. Je ne regrette rien.

Knights of the old republic, x wing/tie fighter and dark forces/jedi knight were all ok or better for their time (though possibly most of them don't necessarily hold up). Sure there are more interesting ways to go, but it doesn't implicitly mean any game made in that setting is automatically going to suck.

I just felt the need to point out that Sarah Elmaleh (voice of Katie in Gone Home) reads the back of a box of junior mints in the latest GDC One Life Left (she shows up at around 40 minutes in) #juniormintcabal

Hennig has landed at Visceral, leading a star wars thing, apparently.

makes sense that I would have joined twitter to play a gaem. (it's a f2p game that gives you free actions if you spammed your twitter followers. still around though I don't play it anymore) edit: apparently the url has changed though. if anyone's interested, it's: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/

pretty sure i'm not interesting to follow, but SURPRISE I'm @juv3nal

so I'm pretty sure I love 'S. or The Ship of Theseus' http://www.amazon.com/S-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642 despite not being far into it at all. It's just such a lovely object, bursting with newspaper clippings, a decoder ring, all sorts of weird ancillary documents. caveat: I am totally a sucker for gimmicky things, and it is gimmicky as HECK. think a low grade mix of Pale Fire, A. S. Byatt's Possession, & Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine stuff. It even has weird ciphers that people are trying to solve online. edit: some more pics of the interior here edit2: holy carp there's full on weird ARG stuff going on with alternate versions of chapters being delivered to bloggers.

*cough* https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/9265-campo-santos-new-game-firewatch-announced/page-2#entry281431

I can't speak to the other list, but Emily Short specifically mentions in regard to hers: from here: http://www.metafilter.com/122250/My-looks-are-often-commented-on-long-before-the-work-Ive-done#4708128

here's a list by Emily Short another one by metafilter member subject_verb_remainder

that is totally nuts. it involves code written in brainfuck.

not reading so much, but what I saw of the talks in the recent critical proximity conference were pretty great. you'll find slides and transcripts of the talks there, and archived video (though not broken down by talk) in their twitch channel.

woah Johnnemann is kind of tiny or everyone else is giants

firewatch...is that something park rangers do? gone home spin off confirmed?

CONGRATZ

I backed the indiegogo, but didn't get around to playing it until it recently made its way to steam. it's short-ish if that kind of thing bothers you (took me maybe 70 mins?), but I really liked it.

I really like George Oppen, Lyn Hejinian, John Ashbery, and a lot of people loathe her, but I love Gertrude Stein as well. Anyone who comes up with "sugar is not a vegetable" gets bonus points in my book. I will also ditto T. S. Eliot. For a time, my own writing was my shoddy attempt to do my best Eliot impersonation, although I think Prufrock is better than The Waste Land. If you're only going to read one of those I mentioned, go for the Oppen though. He's under-appreciated I feel. In particular, Of Being Numerous is utterly fantastic. edit: here's a chunk from the beginning of Of Being Numerous

the bit where its ears pop back up

day one perch

I think that's overstating it, it's still maybe currently my favourite thing on tv. It's just that the more over the top it goes, the more it becomes Doctor Who minus the sci fi. And, again, don't get me wrong, I like Doctor Who as well, but I was hoping for more of a difference in tone between the two.

The problem with the long gaps is they feel they have to go with a cliffhanger to keep people on the hook, but with only 3 episodes, you're spending the beginning of ep 1 and end of ep 3 resolving and setting up cliffhangers respectively. It's hard to evoke a sense of "Holmes & Watson solving everyday mysteries" when they're obliged to spend so much time on events that are full of heightened drama/peril.

A reminder that Holy Motors is goddamn incredible and probably my favourite movie since it's been out, which google tells me is 2012?

VR is cool and all, but how practical, really is it if you need a room set up like this: http://www.alientrap.org/images/ValveVRRoom.png