June Update: The Engine Sputters But Does Not Die

Hey team!

Returning to Work

We again released two videos this month, respectively talking about the efficacy of political nonviolence and the experience of playing Kentucky Route Zero piecemeal over the last nine years. I have pledged to donate all the ad proceeds for these videos to Critical Resistance, though it's the first time I've had to fiddle with AdSense to actually get my money and so far I haven't pulled it off. I may have to pay some stuff out of pocket while I troubleshoot that.

I'm currently working on a heavily-revised version of that video on the semiotics of "cuck" I mentioned last month, and I like it but it's much longer and more involved than the CO-VIDs so far, so it's taking longer to produce. And I've got another thing cooking where I compare a couple of adventure games that approach the subject of Christianity very differently. That one's simpler but requires replaying both games!

So there isn't going to be a video on Monday, but should be some stuff soon. The nature of CO-VIDs, where I grab ideas and run with them, means sometimes I spew a bunch of words onto the page and, when I'm done, it's actually not exciting enough to make into a video. So I've got a bunch of whole or partial scripts that I'm probably not going to do anything with, or that I might have to wait for the enthusiasm to come back to. Still haven't managed the "video every Monday" plan I was shooting for, though, provided the world doesn't go to absolute shit again this month (which I wouldn't bet against), I think we could pull off three? We'll see. Gonna start treating "two videos a month" as a minimum until such time things change for the better or worse.

Media Recs!

There's not a lot of Big Picture stuff to talk about these days, since we're just plugging along with CO-VIDs for a while. I don't know how to plan for the future right now because I don't know what the future looks like. Like, this is the time of year I would normally be looking at airfare to California for Christmas, but I don't know if it will be safe to fly in 6 months.

So, in lieu of any big plans or new disasters, let's talk about media from the past few months that I've found compelling!

Mutazione - An adventure game about gardening on a little island full of mutants. Very calm and chill but also very emotionally affecting as you poke and prod into the lives of all the characters on this island.  Really well-written, almost wish I had made it. (In classic Danskin fashion, I just wrote the least about the game I liked the most.)

Eastshade - Another adventure game, this time about painting on an island nation of anthropomorphic animals. Writing and mini-quests are more generic, but the world is very pretty and making paintings is deeply satisfying (though the crafting mechanics kinda disincentivize you from painting when you see something beautiful as it will expend resources, which seems counterintuitive to what makes the game pleasurable). Just a lovely experience.

The Flower Collectors - Another adventure game, this one a bit more plot-driven. What if Rear Window but set in late-70's Spain shortly after the death of Franco, on the eve of the first election in 40 years which will help determine whether the country stays fascist or begins to de-totalize. You're a former cop who used to work for the fascists, peering down on the murder scene from your balcony while your anarchist friend runs around investigating. You can see where this would be up my alley. Writing is rather simplistic - a deep meditation into what it's like to live under fascism and suddenly have the chance to imagine a different future this is not - but very pretty and cleverly-designed.

Project Warlock - A shooter with as much brains as a bag of hammers, but, damn, of this mini-renaissance of throwback shooters we're having - from Dusk to Ion Fury to Amid Evil - Project Warlock is my favorite. And this is actually weird, because it's the most Doom-like of the bunch, and I was always more of a Quake kid, so by all rights I should have preferred Dusk. But I always get to a point about halfway through Dusk where I'm like, "yeah, I've had my fill," whereas I've played Warlock all the way through twice already. There's actually some really clever design and I might go on a mini-babble about it in a future CO-VID, haven't decided yet.

The Limey - A late 90's Steven Soderbergh movie that I finally got around to seeing! Soderbergh somewhat famously pissed off his screenwriter by being so experimental with the editing that plot is basically a mildly compelling scaffold for building neat montages. The elliptical, achronological style makes it feel like you're watching the first 5 minutes of Point Blank for an hour and a half, and you know how much I love Point Blank. In the end, it's an empty trifle, and there comes a point in showmanship where you have to either develop some kind of resonant theme or bring some incredible spectacle, and The Limey does neither. But, nevertheless, what showmanship!

Children of Doom - Chris Franklin of Errant Signal is always best when he's talking about shooters, so his new video essay series where he looks at one FPS for every year since the genre's beginnings has been deeply satisfying. These first three videos are all id properties, because they kind of have to be, but they're all delicious and I'm really looking forward to the next video where he gets to 1994 and tackled Marathon. In these difficult times where paying attention to politics is both necessary and exhausting, Errant Signal has been my comfort food when I need to think about something else.

Magic Mike XXL - The most important Fourth of July movie ever made.

Cheers,

-I