Always exciting to see games I’ve worked on. Never gets old!
NatGeo Collection
An Incomplete List Of Things I Do Not Like At The Optometrist
- Pictures of eyes.
- What do you mean, look at the hot air balloon? This image is just some blurry colors.
- The color blindness test where you’re supposed to say you see red and green, even though it’s really more blood orange and evergreen.
- “Just fill out these papers while I take some measurements on your current lenses.” Um… I can’t possibly see paperwork without my glasses.
- I don’t see flashes, have trouble with night vision, have difficulty focusing, but after filling out pages of potential eye problems, now I’m thinking about all the dreadful things that could go wrong with eyes. Ugh.
- More pictures of eyes.
- Creepy 3D model of a giant eye.
- Yes, I really have worn glasses for 31 years. Not a typo. Not a joke.
- Yes, that means I got glasses when I was 2, and that I look freakishly young. I GET IT. It’s amazing! Maybe it’s genetics! Maybe I bathe in the blood of virgin sacrifices every night! Can we get on with the scary eye touching now?
- Scary eye touching.
- Optometrist letting me know that I shouldn’t expect to get to 20/20 vision.
- No, I really don’t want to try contacts. Yes, in the thirty-one years I’ve worn glasses, it has indeed occurred to me that supermodels, leading ladies and love-interest hotties never wear glasses, and that I, too, might be more attractive without glasses. It’s just that adding contacts to my morning routine is just too time consuming, what with all the blood of virgins I have to bathe in every day.
- More pictures of eyes.
- There are only a limited number of frames that will work with my lenses. These are not the cheap or the cute ones.
- Of course my lenses will take extra time. I wasn’t actually expecting that one-hour thing to apply to me, I mean, this isn’t my first time getting glasses.
- This entire experience cost me about a week’s salary.
Posted in Chapel Hill
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Book Review: Finished Business
Last summer, I posted about reading David Wishart’s latest Marcus Corvinus mystery, Solid Citizens. This summer, I received the newest one, Finished Business, which means more Roman mystery. YEAH!
Marcus Corvinus is aging a bit now, and becomes a grandfather when his adopted daughter and her husband have their first child. But he doesn’t quite have time to be the doting grandpa with all the mysteries, murder, and kidnapping going on around him.
Finished Business is another really great Marcus Corvinus mystery, set at the end of Caligula’s reign. The story’s on a larger Roman scale, a bit like Germanicus, because Marcus Corvinus stumbles upon a conspiracy against Caligula. This time period will be familiar to fans of Robert Graves and Suetonius. (Oh! Did I tell you that I tried to watch I, Claudius with Harold? He said he liked it, but then he wandered into the kitchen for a soda during “don’t touch the figs”, so I’m thinking he was just pretending to follow it.) Without revealing too much, Marcus Corvinus has to decide just how loyal he is to a notably unstable emperor.
The author’s note explains a couple minor deviations from history (although I expect the details around an assassinated emperor have been fudged many times before), but it’s still close enough for a Roman historian reading a novel. Wishart also explains that Messalina must have had a previous husband since she’s an aged spinster of at least 21 at the time of her marriage to Claudius. (I just remembered my 30th birthday, drinking margaritas and toasting my impending spinsterhood, with Tryon, Kate, and Roy. Which is preferable to a Roman woman of that age sacrificing to, I don’t know, Juno Lucina, probably, in thanks for not dying in childbirth in her twenties.) I really only get cranky about historical inaccuracy when it’s glaring, like when someone gets a message from Gaul that was written yesterday.
Overall, more adventures in ancient Rome, with plenty of household snark, and the ending makes it pretty clear that there will be another Marcus Corvinus tale under Claudius’ rule.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher for review. Opinions are my own, as always.
Posted in Books, Chapel Hill
Tagged Book review, classics, David Wishart, dead romans, Finished Business, Harold, Marcus Corvinus, Solid Citizens, teleportation
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Idyllic Hearts
I learned to play Hearts from Scep’s mom, who is a magical card-playing wizard. This is because when she lived abroad in Tanganyika, her expat circle involved many, many evenings of card parties. When I lived abroad in Yantai, my expat circle involved many many evenings of drinking and so I am extremely skilled at — well, anyway, she is an amazing Hearts player.
I spent some summers in high school and college at their island in Canada, playing a lot of Hearts by kerosene lamp. (Scep’s mom, after her expat adventures, considered electricity in the summer house to be a cute luxury item.) Scep and his whole family are pretty serious card sharks, actually. You play a perfectly good move, and someone giggles, and sure enough, you’re getting stuck with the queen next hand. Sometimes the entire table goes silent as everyone does the math to see if the player with 21 points is an unlucky idiot or a genius about to run.
Sounds like an idyllic way to spend summers, now that I am describing it. There was also that night when a bat flew in the window (screens are cute luxury items, too) and we all silently conspired to keep it secret from one guest who was desperately afraid of bats. Hearts is a pretty good game if you want to learn to read faces, is what I’m saying.
This is the beach that you have to drive to, but my dad likes it better than the ones you can walk to.
When I was visiting my parents last weekend, we had a game after dinner. The parsonage has a small breakfast nook, under a window like a triptych, which Google tells me is called a bay window. My mom challenged everyone to a game of Hearts, and then proceeded to ask repeatedly how many points the queen is worth, so I am a little suspicious that she just wanted us all to use her new tavern chairs and look out the cool window. I’m just saying.
I’m alright at Hearts. I can’t count cards so I mostly play by watching what suits other players have finished, while trying to eliminate a suit from my hand. And I throw myself on my sword by picking up a trick if I’m pretty sure someone’s going to run, but then I’m afraid that it looks like a mistake so I have to announce that I am doing this intentionally. But since my family all use the ol’ discard-hearts-as-fast-as-possible strategy (… and usually by discarding highest-to-lowest, by suit, making it super easy to tell what they’ve finished!), I pulled into the lead.
My family didn’t change up their strategies to beat me , but they did discover that they could hand me three bizarre card choices at the beginning of each round to make me wonder what kind of crazy strategy they were using… when of course they were really just messing with me.
Hearts is a good game, is what I’m saying.
Block, Block, and Block
I tweeted my link to my Depression Quest review the other day, and accidentally walked into the Zoe Quinn Twitter battle. I try to tweet my games journalism multiple times, because I’m a narcissistic attention whore, or working freelance writer, tick where applicable, but this is the first time I’ve had to immediately block Twitter burners saying awful things to me about it.
Game designer Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend has written a pretty scathing tell-all blog post, with dates and names and screenshots of chatlogs, accusing her of sleeping with several guys in the games industry. This would just be weird gossip about people I don’t really know, except for the disturbing number of people (gamers, male) who decide that a post from an angry ex is 100% true beyond all doubt, and proves that the female designer slept with reviewers for positive reviews of a clearly awful game. For large numbers of angry gamers, an ex’s blog post completely legitimatized the shadowy spectre of the talentless and immoral woman, sleeping her way to success, and so the angry hordes took to the internet to vilify Zoe Quinn, in the particularly terrible ways gamers are constantly awful to women on the internet, usually involving Photoshop and porn, or rape threats on burner accounts.
Info from an angry ex is often unreliable (source: Existing on earth), and social media screenshots can also “prove” that Aeneas was on Facebook. Not that I’m saying the ex made it up — I don’t actually know either of them, so for all I know, she cheated even more, with more guys in the industry, and he never found out. For all I know, his manifesto is the tiny tip of the cheating iceberg! She could have banged every man in the state while her boyfriend wasn’t looking! That doesn’t really have any bearing on the quality of her game design work, though.
For the record, I reviewed Depression Quest positively for Indie Game Mag, over a year ago, before any of this happened, and I chose to reshare the post during a wave of conversations about suicide and depression following Robin Williams’ suicide. Also, no one offered me sex or cash or kickbacks for it. Also if there really is a lot of money and prestige in reviewing indie games, I am definitely doing it all wrong.
Shaun at Discover Games has a really good take on it:
The difference in this case is that the developer is a woman, and the game she’s selling (as pay-what-you-want, I think it should be noted) is the exact kind of nontraditional game that makes myopic hateful nerdbros apoplectic with unrestrained rage. So, instead of people either ignoring it or reviewing the journalists’ writing and questioning their ethics as we do with every other case, all those angry nerdbros have turned this into the Scandal of the Century, and it’s all about the deceitful woman using her sexuality and feminine wiles to extract positive press for her terrible game that could not have gotten good press by any means other than her prostituting herself.
Ultimately, of the many accusations flying around, I have no idea which are true and which are not. And I mostly don’t care. I find it difficult to believe someone would sleep with people they didn’t want to sleep with just to get a few positive nods for a game they’re basically giving away for free. But even if it’s all true, I’m more interested in the way the story is being framed, and the way in which it is different from the numerous other instances of similar situations.
Anyway, Depression Quest is a good, thoughtful game, I hope you play it and I hope you get something out of it. Encountering angry dudebros on the internet is neither good or thoughtful, and I’m embarrassed that this kind of harassment and attack is (still, frequently) happening in my industry.
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Posted in Chapel Hill, Game Reviews, Gaming Culture
Tagged Depression Quest, discovergames, game design, games, Indie Game Mag, Zoe Quinn
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Jersey Girls Don’t Pump Gas
My parents moved to coastal Massachusetts this summer, and this weekend I came to visit them in their new house. My mom’s always lived in New Jersey, so this is her first time pumping gas. After making fun of her, of course, we started talking about driving firsts.
My first car was my dad’s old car, which still had my dad’s personalized NR1A license plates on it. NR1A means that my dad is, um, a certain class of operator that is good at, um, ham radio things. I forget the details, but if you are a ham radio operator, it means something good, so when I’d drive that car, other drivers would (not unreasonably) assume that I was a radio operator, and honk HI in Morse at me. And I would (not unreasonably) jump nervously every single time.
“Yeah, I can still hear it. It’s four quick and then two quick, right, Dad?”
“Yes, it has a wonderful rhythm, it almost sounds like laughing.” My dad said.
“No, Dad. It might sound like laughter to a ham radio guy, but to me, a string of honking just sounds like terror.”
(Also, of course I pumped the gas for my mom. Driving is stressful enough.)
Posted in Boston
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Padanaram
Visiting my parents in their new town. South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, August 2014
‘Rich Kids of Instagram’: Satyricon and the City
Rich Kids of Instagram is a Tumblr of, well, rich kids posing with their expensive stuff. Whether it’s yachts, sports cars, resorts or dropping $10,000 on cosmetics, the Tumblr recalls late-Roman excesses. It’s hard to tear my eyes away, and while I scrolled, I learned that some rich kids prefer humblebrag captions over their private jets and shopping sprees, while other prefer the more blatant #hatersgonnahate and middle fingers. Also, I learned that pools come in more styles than in-ground or above-ground. Who knew?
The upcoming novel Rich Kids of Instagram is written by the anonymous creator of the RKOI Tumblr and by Mara Sloan. Her previous novel is High Before Homeroom, just in case you’re wondering how curating a submission-based Tumblr will translate into writing a novel.
Rich Kids of Instagram is half Candace Bushnell’s Trading Up, half Petronius’ Dinner With Trimalchio. The characters are mostly unabashed social climbers, with a few old-money heirs and a tech wunderkind for frothy good measure. Their high-stakes, high-budget conflicts lead to a guilty-pleasure page-turner, with plenty of backstabbing, sex, and general excess.
All the characters are tropes, sure, but delightful ones. A tortured royal just wants to design his unique jewelry before heading home to his arranged marriage and more respectable hobbies. A sweet Southern belle deserves to get her way because she’s a good Christian girl — and definitely not because she backstabs her way to the top. Oh and a poor little rich girl wants Daddy’s attention, of course.
I once heard a certain style of New York City or Los Angeles dramatic fiction (Disclosure: I read the hell out of these novels.) as “lifestyle porn”, a tag that fits the almost loving descriptions of purchases and fashions in Rich Kids Of Instagram. One character has a particular strain of affluenza that requires her to touch and price luxury items to calm herself. It’s this unlikable excess that makes the novel impossible to put down.
Rich Kids of Instagram takes some wild turns and telenovela-style reverses of fortune, with loads of dark secrets. It’s difficult to find a relatable or likable character in the book, but that’s almost the point. Dinner With Trimalchio highlights excess, by pairing aspirational riches with classless freedmen, and goes on to describe truly pointless, hilarious waste. And RKOI takes a similar path by beginning with jealousy-inducing luxuries like champagne and jewelry, and then leading readers into a bizarre, over-the-top world of hostess kitty bars and Biblically themed launch parties.
Rich Kids of Instagram is a delightful romp through luxury brands, conspicuous consumption, and blatant social climbing.
I received an eARC of this book from the publisher to review. All opinions and references to chicklit and Roman history are, naturally, my own.
Posted in Chapel Hill, Massachusetts
Tagged Candace Bushnell, chicklit, Dinner With Trimalchio, eARC, fiction, Instagram, Los Angeles, Mara sloan, Netgalley, Petronius, Rich Kids of Instagram, RKOI, Satyricon, Trading Up, Tumblr
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#BBlogger Review: Whiplash Eyelash Curler
So, I tried it. I’ve often seen girls with perfect Disney princess eyelashes, and just assumed it was genetic. Turns out the secret is actually eyelash curling. It magically makes your eyelashes more noticeable and feminine, especially if you have long eyelashes (I do) and wear thick glasses (I do).
Also, it’s fast. Because of my extreme laziness and lack of caring, I am wearing a ponytail and a flannel in 99% of my photos. Fortunately for me, eyelash curling literally takes 1 minute. The package says 10 to 20 seconds, but that number doesn’t account for time spent lining up the eyelash curler so it really doesn’t come anywhere near the eyes. So, a minute. Plus another minute to put on mascara (see previous re: time spent making sure cosmetics don’t actually come anywhere near my eyes), and it’s film-star eyelashes.
Final verdict: I got my new glasses about a week before getting this eyelash curler, and naturally no one noticed that I had slightly different black plastic frames. Then I used this Whiplash eyelash curler, and more than one person at work told me I looked nice and asked me if I’d gotten new glasses.
If you would like to have Disney princess eyelashes too, you can get the 25% off the Whiplash Eyelash Curler
I received this product for review. All opinions and Disney princess lashes are my own
Posted in Chapel Hill
Tagged #bblogger, #bbloggers, Crave bloggers, CraveNaturals, Sponsored
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Is “Cookie Clicker” a Message Game?
Like Cow Clicker, Cookie Clicker is a parody of certain casual game mechanics. Players start by clicking a cookie to earn a couple points to spend on an upgrade to earn extra points. Eventually, you’re earning millions of points per second, and saving up to buy that billion-point upgrade that will increase cookie production even more. Whether it’s hiring your first cooking-baking Grandma or opening a portal to the cookie dimension, the mechanics don’t change. Points, upgrade, more points.
Everything else is window dressing on that mechanic. Players start out buying an extra cursor, for extra clicks, or hiring a grandma to bake more cookies. As the game goes on, all semblance of a consistent gameworld is gone. Grow a cookie farm. Mine for cookies. Open a portal to the cookie dimension. Whatever! Just keep clicking to bake cookies!
Actually, you don’t even have to click. Soon, your extra cursors and cookie farms and cookie mines will start producing click-free cookies. And Cookie Clicker evenrewards you for alt-tabbing over to your work. Finish that email, and you have enough cookies to build a Cookie Farm (Apparently cookies grow from cookie seeds.) Leave it running all night, and you’ll be able to buy a Cookie Lab (or 10) in the morning.
With a casual game like this pared down to its simplest form, the motivators in a lite builder become extra clear. Of course you receive achievements, with funny one-sentence flavortext. Scores are massive, so you can gaze happily on your bajillions of points. There’s no learning curve for new players, either, making it extremely accessible, while the ever-increasing points provide that feeling of improvement, even though the game doesn’t require more skill. Future upgrades are greyed out, and the need to find out what zany improvement will come next is a powerful motivator.
Cookie Clicker is a genius parody of exactly how casual builders work.
Other People Clicking Cookies
Posted in Boston, Chapel Hill, Game Reviews, Gaming Culture
Tagged Cookie Clicker, flavortext, serious games
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