Week wrap-up: Jan 19
LA isn't on fire anymore so I've emerged from my hole in the ground, like a pale cave creature, to paw blindly at things in the sun. And just in time to see the country get even more deranged than it's ever been! Wonderful.
Games that came out
Some of my friends have games out now!
- Airborne Empire is now in early access. Writing by Dante!
- Check out break.up, a twist on breakout with some great music. By prophet goddess
Kid Pix - The Early Years
An amazing history of Kid Pix written by its creator, Craig Hickman. This toylike art program was so important to me as a child, and I loved reading about Hickman's process and goals.
This Glorious Machine - Robin Rendle
Really liked this essay about the kind of bone deep Life Realizations you start to have once you start using an e-bike. E-bikes are not exactly brand new technology, but their adoption has exploded over the last few years thanks to sudden affordability (and thanks, honestly, to the financial pressure that makes so many more people consider e-bikes over cars). They're unbelievably useful, and it's fun to see someone write about their experience discovering that.
A Pivot to Indie Won't Save Us - Aura Triolo
Aura's piece on why indie dev is not an "escape" from wider industry suffering is a good one. I've had a lot of arguments with people in my life who believe that indie is somehow opposed to or philosophically any different from "mainstream" game dev... it really is all part of the same ecosystem. The people I know who have "survived" in indie have sometimes gone back and forth between indie and AAA dev in order to survive. And working 40 hours a week outside the industry to do hobbyist or freelance game dev isn't a way out, either - it might give you creative fulfillment, but you trade a huge amount of flexibility and freedom in your life when you're sinking so many idle hours into a second job. And I know, because I've done that! We're all in the same bucket together, and shit that ruins larger studios is the same shit that's ruining smaller studios' chances right now.
Sated and Tumescent - Nicky Flowers
I liked Nicky's log of some early Caves of Qud adventures. I actually finished my first playthrough 2 weeks ago and am finishing a second playthrough before I write up my thoughts. I love to learn about how people are feeling about playing the game for the first time this year... a lot of my experience with Qud recently has been in the light of the years I've spent playing it previously, so seeing it through fresh eyes is fun.
Levon Biss’s Phasmid Egg Photography - Shel Kahn
Loved this example of inspirational photography that artists might use to cook up "speculative designs" that could bring art a sense of real novelty. It's wild to hear Shel write about what images are "overdone" or too-often referenced by artists looking for a new visual idea. I didn't even know about crabeater seals at all, much less that they are now yesterday's seals and yesterday's teeth!
LA Fire photo galleries
I understand that looking at photos of burned down houses is not exactly something I can "recommend," but there are people out there taking the photos, and a lot of the pictures are extremely affecting.
- LA Taco - a local web magazine which covers tacos and also the news. If you live locally, I super recommend this site. Their Altadena photo gallery is full of extremely depressing stuff. LA Taco has been good about not overly focusing on the celebrity home angle and instead focusing on the broad impact this disaster is having on regular people and the city at large.
- The Getty Images search results for "LA Fire" - I know, Getty sucks, but this is at the very least a place you can go to see hundreds of photos of the LA fire aftermath. Here's a photo of a burned middle school auditorium in Altadena. Here's a vista with two fires burning simultaneously. Nuts. The scale of this disaster is so tremendous.
These sign makers are restoring LA to its neon glory, one display at a time - Fiona Ng
An interview of vintage neon sign restorers based here in LA, with some fun photographs to boot. There's a neon sign museum in Glendale, and I've attended it, but it's a tad bit small. Honestly, the photographs of the sign restoration studio look a lot like the museum interior does, haha.