Not Finished, Just Done

Posted on July 29, 2018 by Meg

So, I have one more session before I can graduate — Did you think I was finished? ME TOO! Turns out my adviser was mistaken! Turns out I have one more class to take!

You guys, I can’t describe how done I am with the whole program. I was already burning out on spending every weekend working for a Sunday deadline, and I was already tired of not writing anything for myself. Being told I had completed everything and then discovering my advisor gave me incorrect information has deeply changed how I feel about my program and my school. But let’s save that conversation for some place with beer. Let’s just talk about how done I am with my last class.

In every previous session, there’s been an obligatory student intro, where students are asked about their favorite book. This seems to be a gross misunderstanding of readers and the reading life — just ONE favorite book? — but pretty much every professor has opened their class this way, so probably I’m the weirdo.

So, the first assignment of every single class has been to write about your favorite book. The second week is usually to react to an essay about The Craft of Writing (I discovered, during this MFA, that I’m not particularly interested reading navel-gazing essays about one’s  writing process, and when assigned to talk about my own, I bore myself). The final week of class writing a reflection on what one has learned over the course. So, 3 of the 12 weeks are the repetitive performance of learning that makes people hate formal education. But the other 9 weeks are usually pretty good.

There’s an annoying subtext on the obligatory intros: Sometimes there’s a contest to see who can claim the most obscure or famously difficult authors as their favorites, and while I’ve read plenty of showoff titles, I always say I like to read Candace Bushnell and Maeve Binchy. Because I do, and also, because that’s a stupid contest.

This favorite-book intro has been due on the first Thursday of the first week, every session.  This final class is no exception.  Except, the obligatory student intro was due yesterday, not tomorrow. Having it due earlier is definitely a better system for grading and attendance, but at the same time, seriously?!?!?  There was probably a mention of this change in the avalanche of student spam that I skipped because I wasn’t expecting to be enrolled this session. Because I was specifically told I was graduating. 

I’m very done with everything.

 

 

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Essential Chinese: No Cilantro 不要香菜

Posted on June 30, 2018 by Meg

I’ve been confusing 香菜 and 香草 since 2007, so I’m always worried that I’m asking for a cilantro latte or extra vanilla on my cool noodles.

The other day, a Chinese student asked me in Mandarin how to say No Cilantro because he keeps screwing up the English.

Posted in Boston, China | Tagged | 2 Comments

All Roads Lead To Yangzhou

Posted on May 24, 2018 by Meg

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We’re now selling enough Takeout that we’re moving from print-on-demand to a traditional printer. (Don’t get too excited, we’re still using our living room as the shipping and distribution center.) Harold found a print shop that could do small, high-quality print runs, and it happens to be in Yangzhou, China, right in the neighborhood where I taught in 2015. So my new game decks are being printed just a couple blocks away from an expat bar where I spent quite a few nights drinking and telling the Yangzhou lone wolves why I was giving up on game design.

I’m really glad I didn’t.

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The Kids Are Alright

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Meg

My 9-year-old student, after telling me all the things she’s read about Christopher Columbus and native Americans: Miss Meg, did you learn that Columbus was a good guy or a bad guy?

Me: When I was your age, we learned that he was a brave adventurer, but now most people know his actions were theft.

9-year-old: People didn’t know that when you were little?

Me: I think some people did, but school kids like me didn’t.

9-year-old, thinking carefully: That means you’re part of the older generation.

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Takeout Review

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Meg

Today we’re looking at Takeout, a fun little gem by Meg Stivison of Small Monster Games. In Takeout, players take on the role of foreigners visiting China. You and your companions are hungry for some local eats, but none of you know the language. You decide to try your luck anyways, and piece together a tasty meal with nothing but your Chinese phrase book and your appetite.

Takeout is packaged in a clever card box that looks suspiciously like Chinese take out. Aside from instructions, the box contains “food cards” and “action cards”. Food cards will display one (or two) of the five flavors of Chinese cuisine – Bitter, Sweet, Sour, Spicy, and Salty, or Cold, for a drink. Action cards will let players perform a variety of actions, most of which involve stealing food from other people. The goal of the game is to get all five flavors and a cold drink into your meal before anybody else manages to do the same.

via bestdadna

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Consider Revising

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Meg

This semester, I submitted a short story that is so “inspired” by the end of of a certain game company startup that it barely qualifies as fiction. The main workshop feedback I got on it was:

  • Makes no sense for a tech founder to just give up and walk away like that, with no warning. His lack of concern really doesn’t match the beginning where he’s been such a kind mentor to the protagonist.
  • This should end on a high note when she demands and receives her last check. Why is your protagonist still worried about being a waitress? It’s an unreasonable concern at this point in her career.
Posted in Boston, Brooklyn, My Other Writing | Tagged | 1 Comment

Did You Mean:

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Meg

I usually check the interlibrary loan for my textbooks before I buy them. This time, I feel like the local public library knows me just a little too well.

No, I didn’t. But, now that you mention it…

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Keep Calm and Brew Up

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Meg

I’m really enjoying this book overall, and of the most interesting parts of The Taste of Empire is about tea. The book explains that in  the mid to late 1700s, poor British workers often spent a tenth of their annual income on tea and on sugar for that tea. Upperclass would-be reformers were shocked to discover this.  Surely the uneducated poor just needed to be told that wasting money on luxuries like tea and sugar was the reason they stay poor! If only some well-meaning reformer could teach those uneducated masses about health and budgeting!

It’s the same conversation we keep hearing now. Surely, the uneducated rural poor just need to be told that they’re wasting money on soda. If only some well-meaning reformer could teach these uneducated poor about health and budgeting!  Surely, the young, working poor need to be told that buying coffee or avocado toast is the reason they stay poor. (Never mind that the fresh veg and whole grains of avocado toast are exactly what the rural poor are supposed to be buying.) Now, as then, certain reformers are sure that poor people just make bad spending decisions and would immediately change their habits if only they knew better.

Shocked reformers of 1767 failed to realize that poor British workers no longer had access to common grazing land after the Enclosures, so they could no longer keep cows or sheep. City life meant little to no space for a  vegetable garden or chickens, especially for those who’d come to the city seeking work and stayed in temporary lodgings. No woods meant no foraging for firewood, which meant a hit meal was more expensive. With no access to meat, eggs, dairy, or vegetables, many workers lived on bread. Even that was difficult to get, as the price of grain rose much faster than wages. The warmth, sweetness and calorie boost from a cup of tea was a great addition to an unvaried, not particularly nutritious diet.

Drinking tea reflected working long hours on a poor diet, with little access to nourishing meals or other comforts. This was a sign of the extreme poverty in the working classes, not a sign of the reckless spending.

Anyway, just something to think about when the next thinkpiece about those wasteful poors buying soda and coffee comes out.

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Sim Builders

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Meg

One of my favorite sim builder games was Nat Geo’s Doomsday Preppers. Sure, it was based on the show about survivalists preparing for an inevitable apocalypse, but this game is super cute. Even the underground bunkers of survivalist supplies are adorable. Like most of these sim games, players will start by building the basics. Build more housing, and more preppers will come, and then you’ll have a workforce for the subterranean workshops and hydroponic gardens.

I know the game’s meant to be about survivalism, but the animations of little preppers doing their tasks are cheerful and cute. Although your preppers can take on any task, they each have skills that’ll help them produce more in one of the different tasks. Specialities won’t mean much in the beginning, but later on, preppers can produce better by being assigned to their preferred tasks, and they’ll even show up and request a certain specialty.

This is a social game, which means the heavy suggestions to invite friends and the ubiquitous premium currency (What exactly are my little preppers going to do with diamonds in their bunker? Use them as very fancy drillbits?).  There are also funny achievements, for the number of preppers, gold earned, or goods built.

That might be my favorite, but I think these sim building/management games like Prison Architect, Game Dev Tycoon Doomsday Preppers, Startup Company, Oxygen Not Included, and others will always be popular.

Indie game dev Greenheart Games’ Game Dev Tycoon puts players in charge of an indie game dev studio. Players will try to manage staff and resources to design and sell successful indie games, reinvesting any profits into the company for the next big game. Then, hire more staff and more equipment for the next project.

Game Dev Tycoon also has one of the greatest anti-piracy systems imaginable: pirated copies of the game can be traced back to a build of Game Dev Tycoon with one very clear flaw. In-game pirates routinely steal copies of any in-game indie games, preventing real-life pirates from earning any money in-game. Greenheart Games’ forum complaints from real-life pirates about in-game pirates are hilarious.

Hovgaard Games’ Startup Company is a resource management / building sim, a bit like the app development version of Game Dev Tycoon. Decorate your startup office with the typical houseplants, vending machines and Ikea-ish furniture, and start hiring employees. Then bring in some contracts, to start making apps and earning some money. If your employees are starting to complain about overwork, you can boost their mood with office decor or vacation days.

This game emulates client work, so you need to keep looking for new projects and  employees need to be assigned their next task. Or you can hire a project manager to keep them at work. This is an early-access game, so more Silicon Valley paraphernalia may be added.

Klei’s Oxygen Not Included is another appealing builder sim, also in early-access, but so far, it looks like a charming sci-fi builder. Like Doomsday Preppers, your characters will need to tunnel and build underground housing. But, in Oxygen Not Included, characters need to either find underground caches of oxygen or build technology to create oxygen for survival.  

 

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London Demands Spices

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Meg

London demands spices. I think that’s a pretty solid summary of the British Empire, actually.

Also, it’s my winter break, and I’m playing Civ with Eric, just like when we were in college a few years ago, I mean several years ago, no, I mean, a decade ago, er, sometime in the past. Just for a change, this time I played England and he played Rome.

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