I’m playing BitMonster’s Lili, and just discovered a cute reference to another favorite, Hemisphere Games’ Osmos. Here’s Lili in Shoppington’s, noticing it too.
Osmos in Lili
Posted in Gaming Culture, North Carolina
Tagged BitMonster, games, Hemisphere Games, indie games, Lili, North Carolina, Osmos
1 Comment
Elsewhere
New piece up on thalo about Elsewhere in Greensboro. Still seems weird seeing a North Carolina dateline on my pieces…
GREENSBORO, NC — At first glance, Elsewhere looks like another Greensboro, NC, antique shop or gallery, open late in the evening for a First Friday festival. But this living museum is piled with toys, textiles, and unusual installation work from resident artists, students and visitors.
Historically, the building on South Elm Street was once Joe and Sylvia Gray’s army surplus shop, with a boarding house upstairs. After her husband’s death, Sylvia began to purchase other goods, like textile remnants, that she could sell in the shop. She began to visit the local secondhand and thrift shops, adding clothing, dolls, books and housewares to what was becoming a collection of collections. By the end of her life, the shop was more like a hoard, with a thin path allowing a few shoppers to make their careful way inside.
Still Life With Engagement Ring and Chinese MMO Text
Engagement Ring and Chinese MMO Text
This past year, Harold and I got engaged! I still can’t really believe it, and saying “my fiance” and “after we’re married…” makes me laugh hysterically.
In 2012, I contributed to three shipped games, Grumpy Goats, Next Island and Empire Online Lakoo. I started writing for Thalo, TapScape, and Hardcore Droid, kept writing for Indie Game Magazine and I Heart Chaos. Also, I was heartbroken when I abruptly lost a job I loved, and I got tons and tons of rejection letters.
In 2013, I resolve to find excuses to drink more, to read more books, to write more everything, to watch more Harry Potter, to receive more rejection letters, and GET MARRIED.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
Posted in New York City
Tagged Empire Online, games, Grumpy Goats, Hardcore Droid, Harold, Harry Potter, I heart chaos, Indie Game Mag, Lakoo, New York City, Next Island, still life with, Tapscape, thalo
1 Comment
Currier & Ives
There are a lot of upsetting things happening right now. The school shooting in Connecticut seems like part of a terrifying trend, that it’s not safe to do normal things, like go to a superhero movie, or go to school, or commute in midtown Manhattan, or walk back from the bodega. It’s upsetting on a massive scale.
And I’m upset over things on a smaller scale, like work worries. I hurt my stupid back and even though it’s healing almost exactly as the doctor described, I spend an annoyingly long time moving around trying to get comfortable before I can sleep, and then I wake up uncomfortable a couple hours later and do it again. It’s not very pleasant. And I’m either in North Carolina, missing my Brooklyn friends and New Jersey family, or I’m in Brooklyn, missing Harold. Either way, it can be pretty lonely.
I stumbled onto a wonderful antidepressant in writing a stack of Christmas cards for people I like. There are so many people that I need two boxes of cards, and both are lovely, wintry and festive, without a cross or a Santa. I even liked the process of looking up and asking for addresses, checking in with the people I love across the country. I’ve not been a real big fan of the Christmas letter, but writing messages made me see the appeal. I so enjoyed seeing a stack of tangible good wishes going to distant friends, that I left the finished cards on the coffeetable for a couple of days to smile at.
Harold began putting the stamps on them. I don’t think I’ve had occasion to mention this before, but Harold likes to stick stamps upside-down. This is pretty funny and charming, but I suddenly channelled my mom while decorating asked if he’d noticed how nice the envelopes look with the red cardinal return address labels, and did he really think it would be improved with a silly upside-down flag stamp? Did we have to? Harold shrugged (perhaps more interested in a happy fiance than in the artistic integrity of envelopes) and agreed to use stamps in a more conventional way.
Anyway, I got a card from Jared and Paula today, which was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Harold Simpson at my house. Then I realized that the joke wasn’t the Mr. and Mrs. part because I am actually going to be married in real life! Then I laughed hysterically, and hoped that their card was one of the ones Harold stamped upside-down.
Career Advice
Roy: you should write for ***publication***
they are really one of the top level outlets for general audience/enthusiast tech reporting and they are looking for columnists ***link***
Meg: Oh, nice!
Roy: i’m sure you have a solid application package on hand to send them
Meg: well… I have some good clips
but I hate writing up cover letters
Roy: haha
Meg: No, seriously, if I could just send my clips with a “click here if interested” button, I’d be so happy
Roy: you should have a couple of standard cover letters on file that you can customize quickly
Meg: I have a skeleton one that I tailor for each application, but I am so uncomfortable telling people why I’m awesome
Roy: haha
well you better practice!
Meg: I really don’t know what to say besides that other people hired me
and they thought I was pretty good
so maybe you should too
you know, if you want to
no pressure
Roy: you might want to reconsider that part
Posted in Brooklyn, New York City
Tagged job hunting, looking for a job, New York City, Roy, tech blogging
4 Comments
Prepping for Doomsday is Surprisingly Cute
When I got the Doomsday Preppers press release, I quickly scanned it for the name of a friend who works in National Geographic’s game department, then dropped it in my GMail folder of press releases that I might get around to covering after I finish my pressing deadlines, and after topics I could turn into a piece that would be a good fit for a particular editor, after really interesting pieces I plan do on spec and after the deadlines when have somehow become pressing while I was doing other things. (This particular folder is different from press releases I glance at and immediately bin, but only academically.)
Then Jess and Owen started talking on Tumblr about how much they love Doomsday Preppers, and I thought something that household considers a guilty pleasure was probably worth checking out. And in my review, Doomsday Preppers, a cute and engaging survivalist builder, gets a 9 out of 10.
In G5 and National Geographic’s new iOS game Doomsday Preppers, players take on the role of a prepper, ready to build an underground bunker that’s surprisingly adorable. Players can’t directly customize their avatar besides gender, but after randomizing a few times, I got a purple-haired avatar in a demin skirt and surgical mask for contaminated air, probably close enough to what I would have made anyway.
Players then begin building their adorable underground bunker, beginning with housing for five prepper friends. Arriving preppers are then assigned work preparing for the apocalypse in different capacities. My first preppers grew algae in a hydroponic garden and produced duct tape in a workshop, making my doomsday bunker kind of, well, cute. The basic mechanics of Doomsday Preppers are resource management, as your preppers work in assigned stations to make products, prepare for doom, and earn gold, which is then spend on expanding your bunker deeper into the earth, providing more housing and more production for more preppers.
Deliveries of crates containing gold start to arrive as soon as production gets going. (For some reason, I allowed the UPS guy into my underground bunker, and he went cheerily into my homemade elevator. I’m… not entirely sure about that.)
“After All This Time?”
I’ve written lots of times about reading and watching Harry Potter, sometimes as Harry Potter therapy for different things happening in my life. In college, my roommate Kristine and I would lie on the couches, watch Harry Potter, and escape to Hogwarts when we were worried about finals. In Yantai, I bought Chinese copies of the movies, and watched them when I was lonely and missed hearing English. I read Harry Potter on a night train to Beijing, and on a flight from Seattle to New York. I stayed up all night reading Harry Potter 2, when I was a college student and should probably have been writing a paper, and stayed up all night reading Harry Potter 7, when I was teaching at the community college and should probably have been marking papers. Last winter, Harold took me to Hogsmeade at Universal in Orlando, which was really nice of him, especially considering that he hasn’t read a single one of the books and has only seen segments of the movies when I happen to be watching it. I tried to watch Harry Potter a few weeks ago when I was in Brooklyn and missing Harold. Whenever I’m stressed or unhappy, I put on Harry Potter, and fall asleep thinking about Hogwarts.
With my stupid hurt back, I’ve been having trouble getting comfortable enough to fall sleep. (Other things I can’t do right now include yoga, drinking, following simple plots, sitting still to play games, focusing long enough to write, and pretty much anything else I like doing.) So I do what I do when under stress, and turn to Harry Potter. I arranged the blankets and pillows into a special shape for me to sleep on (This is a stupid back-injury sleeping position, which is different from my usual awesome sleeping position, curled up in a little tiny ball under a big stack of blankets.) and opened HP7 on my Kindle.
The Kindle allows readers to share passages and notes with others. Of course, a certain percentage of these notes are the expected This book is sooooo boring y do we have 2 read this?????? SUX. But the notes for Harry Potter 7 show over a hundred readers have publicly highlighted and shared “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape, a reassuring reminder that people aren’t always terrible. I’ve shared a couple notes from HP myself but I love it all so much that I’d probably have to highlight and share every single non-Quiddich page of the book. Plus I’d have to restrain myself from putting little hearts and smiley faces in the notes section.
While I was reading Harry Potter, for about the millionth time, and trying not to move because of my stupid back, I realized that someone else was reading HP7 at the same time on their Kindle, because they were sharing passages. Once I noticed this, I kept flipping to the notes and highlights section to see if my invisible friend had liked anything else. I didn’t know that there were any new ways left for me to enjoy Harry Potter.
I’m pretty sure technology’s catching up to magic, and I’m just waiting for my Hogwarts holodeck now.
Posted in New York City
Tagged Brooklyn, games, Harold, Harry Potter, New York City, Seattle
10 Comments
Phoenix Wright’s Nemesis
New review of Devil’s Attorney for Android is live on Hardcore Droid:
In Senri AB’s Devil’s Attorney, players take on the role of Max McMann, an ethically flexible defense attorney, tasked with keeping his unfortunate and misunderstood clients out of jail. Players aren’t solving the case — Max doesn’t ferret out evidence or pounce on contradictions to prove his clients are innocent. Instead, wily Max uses a collection of lawyerly tricks, like Patronizing witnesses or Tampering with evidence, that players use in a points-based strategy battle against a prosecutor. Each successful case earns money for Max with bonuses for proving the defendant’s innocence quickly.
Max’s clients each have a little story explaining the charges against them and why they are innocent. One explains that he totally wasn’t smuggling rare animals, not at all, in fact he has no idea how those lizards got in his underpants! Another one explains that he wasn’t running an illegal betting operation; instead some friends had gathered to watch sports programs and just happened to be counting their pocket change when police arrived. And smooth Max defends them all! For a fee of course.
Via Devil’s Attorney Review | Hardcore Droid
Also added a segment on the new patch to my Knights of Pen & Paper review.
Posted in Brooklyn, Game Reviews, North Carolina
Tagged Android, Game Reviews, Hardcore Droid, North Carolina
1 Comment
In Which I Am Very Old
A few days ago, I slipped on the stairs outside Harold’s apartment, and fell about half a flight, hitting my back on every step on the way down. It was…. not my finest moment. I tried to handle it with some ice and some Advil, but by that evening, it was pretty clear that I was becoming less mobile, so Harold finally made me go to an urgent care. (Also Harold would like you all to know that he demanded I see a doctor, and that left to my own devices, I probably wouldn’t have gone, and then all hell would have broken loose, and also that he was right and I was wrong.)
Not too much damage, at least. I’ve got some bruising on my lower back, and apparently that means when I sit down, stand up, cross my legs, or, um, BREATHE, it sends spasms up my whole back. That is a serious design flaw. The doctor gave me an assortment of muscle relaxants and pain meds, took some X-rays, and told me I wouldn’t be going to the gym for a while and that I probably shouldn’t drive, either. (At least something is going my way.)
About the painkillers: I can not believe people take these recreationally… I’ve been slow-witted and dull since I started taking them. Harold and I were watching The Shield, and I spent the whole time asking him what was going on. Who’s that guy? Why’s he stealing money? Is he a cop? What’s in the gym bag? What’s going on now? I imagine I was a delightful companion in every way.
If there is anything that makes one feel as old as having a hurt back, I don’t know what it is. And I don’t really want to know.
Castaway Paradise
Wrote about the upcoming Castaway Paradise on IGM, as I pursue my life goal of playing every single island sim game ever.
Stolen Couch, the indie studio behind Ichi and Kids Vs. Goblins, plan to release Castaway Paradise, a new free-to-play island sim for iOs, Android, PC and Mac.
Stolen Couch had me at “island sim”, I think the survival genre lends itself very well to crafting, farming and exploration game mechanics, and the island narrative is a perfect escapist fantasy. We don’t need to discuss how many hours of my life I’ve spent playing Lost in Blue, Stranded Without A Phone, Sims Castaway… Even titles like Youda Survivor and MyTribe, which are essentially time-management games with island art and basic survival narrative, kept me playing.
Via Stolen Couch’s Upcoming ‘Castaway Paradise’ | Meg Stivison | The Indie Game Magazine
Other island sims games not mentioned in this post: Pixonic’s Robinson, Monkey Island, that other version of MyTribe,
Posted in North Carolina
Tagged Android, Castaway Paradise, games, Indie Game Mag, my other writing, North Carolina, Robinson, Stolen Couch
2 Comments
