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Writing

as if the hills and the valleys, the streams and the trees and the gasworks were all singing together

21/05/2012
Features, TV, Writing
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I’ve been somewhat neglecting this venue of late. I can’t claim I haven’t had the time – I have – but recently my creative energies have been sapped somewhat by a relentless barrage of assignments and coursework for my maths degree, and for the last few months, I’ve barely been able to keep up with my writing duties on the comic. On Friday, though, I handed in the last piece of coursework for this year. Exams start in a couple of weeks, but the pressing feeling that I ought to be doing something else is, at last, in abeyance, and I can write again.

There are many, many drafts of things sitting in this blog’s slushpile: there’s a review of Skyrim which is mostly about plates; discussions of House, The West Wing and Community and all the other TV shows and films that I’ve watched, books I’ve read, games I’ve played, but as yet, I’ve been unable to write anything of length or substance about any of them. Which is why I’m instead going to talk about Ivor the Engine.

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pies

30/07/2010
Writing
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After driving down a multitude of twisting country lanes, the car approached the factory, tyres digging into the mud. As they got out, their feet sank slightly into the soggy ground. They walked down the path and looked up at the building – a dismal edifice, faded red bricks and crumbling masonry, windows set high up on the walls, and an enormous pair of doors inclined inward hung on their hinges, creaking as the wind gusted. Emblazoned on the wall was a cartoonish pie, with the words “Percy’s Pies” written around it in faded red and blue paint.
“Are you sure it said pie factory?” Florence queried.
“What better place? Plenty of space, no disturbances, no-one around to hear the screams…”
Gerald cast his eyes over the doors.
“Looks like we can just… walk in.”
The factory was dark – the windows were nearly opaque as a result of the voluminous quantities of filth and grime that has evidently built up over the years of the factory’s disuse. Gerald tentatively pushed open the door, which creaked loudly.

I wrote this a few days ago, and I quite like it. Good description. I need to do more writing of the book, however. Tomorrow, probably, will be my Toy Story 3 review, but I have work in the morning, followed by a wedding which I’m helping at, so perhaps not. We’ll see. For now, goodnight

Singularity

12/07/2010
Features, Misc., One A Day, Writing
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Nearly done with my Singularity review – I’ll probably finish it tomorrow. I’ve been distracted by I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue – Jack Dee really is the heir to Lyttleton – comes across just as bitter and sarcastic. Here’s a preview of the review, because in all honesty I’m too tired to actually write anything.

If you’re trying to sell someone on a game, a good move is to compare it to a game they already like. Singularity can be described as ‘like Bioshock, with additional mechanics redolent of the conceptually fantastic but unfortunately awful Timeshift/the critically acclaimed, damn-near-perfect Half-Life 2, and comedy Russian accents’. The thing is, it isn’t just like these games, it pretty much is these games. Don’t worry, it’s the sincerest form of flattery here, and though it may be transparently aping these games it still works really well.

The game’s ‘unique’ selling point is the Time Manipulation Device, or TMD. Like the Plasmids in Bioshock, it’s something utilised by your left hand which supplements your guns in combat, often with much more amusing results. It has several different functions – reversing or accelerating the passage of time for certain objects (or enemies, for that matter), ‘impulse’, which knocks back enemies (kills them if they’re weak enough), ‘deadlock’, which creates a bubble of slowed time (of which more later) and the gravity gun. It’s got a different name, but to be honest, it does exactly the same thing. Even down to glowing blue and getting supercharged at the end.

I’m off to sleep now. See you tomorrow! Goodnight!

Three Awesome Blogs I’ve Discovered Recently

11/07/2010
Features, One A Day, Ramblings, Writing
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I’m afraid I’ve had a rather long, tiring day, so rather than bashing out some more rambling incoherence before I collapse into unconsciousness, I feel I should mention a few blogs I’ve recently discovered. Hold on. Three of them. Change the title…
1: Toby, Dave and Ian Explain xkcd
I’m sure you’re all familiar with xkcd, the very successful webcomic with stickmen and (sometimes) funny jokes. However, as a regular reader, I’ve felt that the quality has been declining slightly of late. Where else to turn but a sarcastic tumbleog which picks apart the jokes with clinical precision, and often insinuates that Randall Munroe (creator of xkcd) has Aspergers or autism. Or may become a serial killer. In all seriousness, it’s quite often funnier than the strip itself, and the psychological analysis of Munroe is jolly amusing.

2:Tales from the Roebuck Institute
As I mentioned yesterday, everyone’s favourite legal blogger Jack of Kent has begun an excercise in storytelling, about the fascinating goings-on at the Roebuck Institute, a ‘Royal Society for the Occult’, responsible for drip-feeding occult secrets to scientists (the idea being that conventional science trails behind the occult by about 300 years). There’s a catch-up page here which is worth reading for a primer about what’s happened so far. Well worth adding to your RSS feed. Mr Of Kent assures me that there is “a lot more interesting, startling stuff to come…”

3:Free App A Day
Not technically a blog, but if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, it highlights a great free app every day. Simple as that. Some really good apps can be found this way, but many of them are free only for a limited time (in conjunction with the site) so be sure and visit every day for that free app goodness!

Good heavens! Well, that’ll have to do for today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Over and out.

Perhaps you have met me twixt sleep and wake in the penumbra of uncertainty you call unconsciousness.

10/07/2010
Features, One A Day, Ramblings, Writing
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Click the image to embiggen
The above is a tag cloud for my book so far from the rather spiffing Wordle. I used another one over at my book’s blog – I have a reason to mention it this time. I’ve added a load more words (though I stress again that this is a rough first draft. The fact that there are almost no descriptions has not escaped my notice, believe me.) to the story, and also some character biographies. More stuff in that vein will be appearing soon.
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Violence in videogames

09/07/2010
Features, Misc., One A Day, Ramblings, Writing
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The above video (Since I can’t get the video to embed, just click the link and watch it – it’s worth it) is Jim Sterling responding* to an article by Leigh Alexander. Readers of this blog will probably be aware I’m a member of the games press (though as my friends Scott is very keen to remind me, it’s a little presumptuous of me to call myself a ‘games journalist’, though whether you buy into some of the connotations that term brings with is quite another matter. But that’s a post for another day. What I mean to say is that I have a strong opinion on, and a personal stake in the issues surrounding violence in videogames. My parents (by which I mean my mother – my dad wasn’t that bothered) was very keen that I was not to play violent videogames or watch violent movies as a child. I’m grateful for this (though I wasn’t at the time), as I am of the opinion that children shouldn’t play violent videogames**. Children (and adults, to a lesser extent) are very impressionable – this is easily observable if you see how a kid behaves after watching, say, an episode of Power Rangers. Despite the warnings at the beginning, they’ll be jumping all over the place, climbing on the sofa and trying to imitate the faux martial arts seen in the episode.
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Tom Watson Is My Kind Of Guy

08/07/2010
Features, One A Day, Writing
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You may have heard of Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East (confusing constituency name there). To those of you who follow the news, you might remember he once resigned a ministerial role when he refused to withdraw his signature on a letter calling for Tony Blair’s resignation, or that he was implicated (but subsequently found not to be) in the Damien McBride smear scandal*. Gamers are more likely to know him as the MP for being Our Kind of Guy – the one who stands up to the Keith Vaz (MP for being corrupt (probably) – his Wikipedia page is a litany of scandals of one sort or another) and calls him out on his shit. He often seems to be the only one talking sense whenever the Daily Fail-loving idiots act up. This is a good example, although if you get irascible when confronted with idiocy, I recommend you either skip the first 35 seconds, or use the hands vuvuzela Youtube has thoughtfully provided for situations such as these. He’s even gone so far as to set up Gamer’s Voice, a ‘reaction to one Daily Mail** article too many’ – as a pressure group for gamers.
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Why Nazis Are Great

06/07/2010
Features, Misc., One A Day, Writing
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Sorry, deliberately provocative title there. That should be why Nazis are great for writers. The primary villain of the book I’m writing at the moment is a Nazi scientist. This is good, as he’s fun to write – probably the most entertaining character – and I can give him some really good moustache-twirlingly evil monologues which I imagine being delivered in a comedy Allo Allo German accent. Beyond silly pronunciation, however, why are Nazis such a boon to authors? Hit the jump to find out!
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Help! Police!

04/06/2010
Features, Misc., One A Day, Ramblings, Writing
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Time seems to unravel as we come closer to the premiere of Exams 2: Crucify This. This morning, I had three days, now I have two. And what with work tomorrow morning, church and relatives on Sunday, that’s more like one. One day. I don’t know when the panic’s going to kick in, but I hope it’s soon. Sadly, that’s it for today. I haven’t done much – get up, walk around, sit down, revise, videogames, revise, food, revise, read, revise, food, revise, rest in that order. That looks like more revision than it is, actually – my revision time is mostly spent disconsolately perusing revision guides, willing the facts to stick. I spent a bit of time putting together a piece on why the Mail is just shit, but Conservapedia is terrifying. That was a bit of a non-starter. I was going to do some introspective stuff on my inability to copy-edit, pointing to my ‘quick, let’s cobble something together’-style Doctor Who Adventure Game review yesterday. I was going to do something on why friends, along with anonymous internet pricks, are often one’s harshest critics, although in retrospect that seems blindingly obvious. Then I remembered that being this introspective makes me sound like I’m moaning, and people only want to read me moaning when it’s about Doctor Who (seriously, you should see the traffic spikes!).
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Criticism and suchlike.

20/05/2010
Features, Misc., One A Day, Ramblings, Writing
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I was going to do something sarcastic and stupid about the popularity of the Twilight franchise, and all the really-honestly-not-trying-to-be-Twilight books with the cover art aping that of the Twilight books, etc etc etc. but I imagine you all appreciate that the Twilight books aren’t very good, and besides, the guy from The Oatmeal does a much better job of mocking them than I ever could. So. What to talk about?
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