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Wednesday 29 December 2010

Little Big Planet Awesomeness

Probably my last post for a couple of days now, I'm heading up to the frozen norths for New Years Eve. My friend's parents bought a hotel up there a couple of years back, its a gigantic 20s style boutique hotel, lots and lots of creepy looking rooms, perfect for hide and seek... of course you can play hide and seek when you're 23! What do you mean I'm a grown man with facial hair? That doesn't proclude my participation in espionage based children's games! Regardless, last year myself and a bunch of friends headed up there, through wind, hail and dense snow and partied the night away.

So, tomorrow my friends are coming to pick my car-less ass up and we are going to brave the M6, all the way up to the lakes for more drunken revelry. So I shan't be back until the 1st, don't miss me too much!

In other news, my brother got me a sweet sackboy figure for Christmas:

 
And he reliably informed me that LBP2 is out early in the new year! Ooooh yeah!



This trailer gives me the tickles down in my belly, I LOVE this game, its so... childish, carefree and most of all its simple. Its just a sidescrolling platformer, but its such a damn good sidescrolling platformer that there is so much more you can do with it!

I have to admit, in my LBP level making career I only made one level of any note (and thats because the girl went on holiday for 3 weeks to Korea and, well, what else am I supposed to do except spend 6 hours a day constructing a masterpiece?) but, if you're interested in checking it out, my PS3 gamer tag is: "DistilledWill" - look me up!

Tuesday 28 December 2010

Hayward Incorporated - Following the Trail

Well, its been an interesting morning - I've received a trailhead email (or at least I expect its a trailhead, if it isn't then I must be party to some pretty sensitive real life information!) from the mysterious Hayward Incorporated:



For those of you with squinty-bad-eyes, it reads:
Hayward Incorperated to will.r.knight@gmail.com
11:08am

This E-Mail is to inform all investors of Hayward Incorporated that the vote to declare Brent Hayward, our CEO and Founder, legally dead is officially suspended.
 
Mr. Hayward has been found and is currently doing just fine! We here at Hayward Inc. are sure that this news is seen as truly wonderful to all those who were concerened about Mr. Haywards safety.
 
 
Listen I've included you in this mailing list subroutine and made sure that you're one of the only ones who gets this message. You need to open the door. Hayward is no more 'fine' than he was when he left. You need to open the briefcase as soon as possible and make sure that he can't use it's contents against all of us. I hope the message finds you well. Remember : E9F19D23M1P9U20H9M14D7U14G15E23.
 
As for the update: Bruce remains in waiting, still pulling that "Mysteriou" bit every once and a while. Still the best asset we have for containment though.
I love being included in the trailhead of a new game, so I'm going to follow this through to the end, I think every couple of days I'll post up where the game is at and the new puzzles/riddles we encounter. Should be midly interestings, at least enough to take my mind off my hugely bloated turkey filled stomach!


UnFiction thread for the trailhead is HERE. Go go go!

Sunday 26 December 2010

Activate my Starpower!

Post Christmas malaise. I knew Guitar Hero was a good idea, she'll be distracted for the next few months anyway:

*Hears the agonised cry of a girl who just lost her multiplier trying to activate star power from the next room*

Gotta go...

Also, just for those Marble Hornets fans out there:



Have a good one.

Friday 24 December 2010

A Sincere Christmas Message

I doubt I'll have a chance to post later today or tomorrow so I'm going to take this opportunity to say something before the year is out:

To those of you who've just stumbled upon my humble little patch of the 'net and to those regular viewers (do I have regular viewers?) I hope you all have an amazing Christmas and a brilliant New Year. I have to admit I will be glad to leave this year behind - as a family I know this has been the single most trying year of our lives, and my blood boils when I think about those we have lost and how pointless it all had seemed at the time. Since June I think we've had to learn to drag ourselves along, even if it means by sheer force of will. But, I hope, we've emerged the other side of what happened in Africa now and I think we are beginning to get on with our lives and, with any luck, 2011 will pass without incident.

Thankyou for taking the time to come here over the past two months and listen to my ramblings. So, there's no sarcasm or veiled wit in this post. Its just a pure and simple wish for, above all, a Happy New Year.


Merry Christmas.



Will
xx

Thursday 23 December 2010

Put the Epsom in the Irrigation!

Phew, last night was exhausting. It was the finale of Fifteen Days of Darkness and boy was it tense! For those of you not familiar with the game, there are a number of great player made wikias set up for each "act" or "round" or whatever in the series (Vanessa Atalanta - Act 1, Ministry of Argon - Act 2 and Fifteen Days of Darkness - Act 3) and the unFiction thread can be found here. I've said it a billion times and I'll say it again, the best place to get involved with games like this is unFiction and the whole VA/MoA/15DD saga can be followed there aswell.

I'm going to describe to you how it all went down, and hopefully I can convey some of the tension and urgency which I felt playing it. Quick synopsis of the story, in fact I'll start with the summary the PM gave me when I joined the game late:

"very quick praisee - order of oborot have proven to be the 'bad guys' building up towards something at winter solstice.
Vladimir Sirin [from last game] has remembered everything, was kidnapped by them [possibly] and is now trying o 'hack' the leader [Jayden Doyle]'s mind.
This is via chess and riddles done by Internet pages where people have to work out the answer to each page before moving onto the next..."
 
After we fully hacked Jayden's mind we discovered the Order's final plan - they were growing Erigeron Breviscapus - also known as the Flower of Life - using some power provided by the eclipse and the winter solstice to achieve eternal life. We didn't know where they were growing the plants, and we weren't 100% on what they were going to do with them - but we knew they were bad and must be stopped!
 
The Chess Master's Final Move

So, Tuesday evening myself, the_claw and Dagada were faced with a quandary - do we ask the long standing character, the seemingly all-powerful Vladamir Sirin, to delve deeper into Jayden's mind in order to extract more information and possibly save Ben (an Order member who's body Jayden had invaded with his consciousness), but also risk killing both Ben and Jayden in the process? Or do we ask Vladamir to withdraw, sparing Jayden, but possibly not saving Ben?

We struggled with the choice, dear readers, we hesitated and faltered and left it till the last minute - we simply couldn't choose! Eventually we bit the bullet and decided to urge Vlad to push further into Jayden's mind to extract more info. My reasoning was as follows: Vladamir, although at times secretive and manipulative, is a good man and would gladly risk his own safety for the safety of others. Similarly, if we do not push forward we spare Jayden (a seemingly ruthless man who had no problem invading someone else's body for his own means) and lose Ben. So, onward and upward Mr Sirin. This choice, it appeared, was not without consequence.

The strain of pushing further into Jayden's mind, probably coupled with the fact that we ummed and eeerred for so long was too much for Vlad. He managed to evict Jayden and gather more information, but in the process he succumbed to the pressure and died. Oh woe! Oh damn and blast!


It seemed as if we had made the wrong choice, we had sacrificed one of the most important characters and we weren't even sure what it was worth - all we had gained was a cryptic video message from Vlad and a dead Jayden.
But then Ben chirped up on his facebook wall - he was alive! We'd saved him! He had woken up in a dark flat above a shop in London.
Furthermore, we were able to use the images in Vlad's final message to hack Jayden's account on the Order of Oberon's message board, there we found a final farewell by Jayden to the members of the Order and his conversations with a mysterious character "MeeM" to whom he appeared to be reporting. MeeM demanded reports every few months from Jayden, each time Jayden reported our actions to this overseer and MeeM responded with derision and aggression - eventually it emerged that MeeM intended all along for Vlad to hack Jayden's mind, and in fact had sacrificed Jayden to kill Vlad. I think at that point we all appreciated the gravity of what we had done. Jayden was just another pawn, as were we.

You ain't gettin' on no Train Foo'!

Ben described to us his surroundings, he had woken up in the flat in London, above a shop with the shutters down. Next door was another shop called "Ecomax" where he grabbed a bite to eat and then headed left and round the corner to a tube station called "Stamford... something", then he took the district line into the center - intending to take a train up North. We recognised that he'd essentially been a prisoner in his own body for many weeks and it would probably be best if he could get some rest and see Claire.

It occurred to me, however, that we kind of ignored the information which Ben had given us (and in these games you learn quickly that nothing is irrelevant, we are not given information which has no purpose). I decided to take another look at the place where he had woken up, I looked up Ecomax and myself and the_claw tracked his movements along Chiswick High Road and down Goldhawk Road to Stamford Brooks tube station. There must be something important in the area, then it hit me: Jayden had taken his body to that specific shop next to Ecomax - so I checked it out.

A freaking pharmacist! A perfect place to grow experimental regenerative herbs! My suspicions were confirmed when the_claw - having been reporting to MeeM and pretending to be Jayden, received the following reply:

Message subject: Re: Report
From: MeeM
Sent: Wed Dec 22, 2010 4:16 pm
To: JayD
Message
You write early in the day for me, but I can understand your urgency to inform me of this, little rabbit.
What extra information do you need to know? The plants are in your care still, are they not? Growing comfortably in that dismal city you call home? So what is it you need to know? On the 4th we will be glorious, alive and never turning back...

This message confirmed to us that the plants were growing in London. I quickly contact Ben through facebook (on my blackberry, not the easiest thing to do!) and asked him to stop and head back to the shop. He wasn't happy. I had to guilt him a bit - gave him the old "many have sacrificed their lives for this" speech and eventually he started heading back across London.

Put the Epsom in the Irrigation!

The employees at the pharmacy, presumably, still worked for the Order of Oberon. So, when Ben arrived they recognised him as the Jayden who had showed up and spent the past few weeks asleep on the bed upstairs. They admitted him without argument and left him alone to explore the shop and find the plants. Ben found his way into a back room, pitch black and stuffy, we asked him to rummage around in his pockets for anything which might light the room, he came out with a lighter.
Once he could see by the light of the flame he described the room to us, lines of shelves with seedlings supported by an irrigation system coming from plants. At the end was a window with a shutter over it - angled so as to catch the light of the moon. As he described the surroundings, he complained of a wooziness, but he soldiered on. He uploaded a picture of the shutter to facebook:

Ben activated the shutter, and a countdown appeared - we feared we might be caught! The device had a musical lock, which needed a specific sequence to unlock it. Thankfully Sarah (the_claw) was quick on the case and described to Ben how to play the melody composed by Mozart which we encountered earlier in the ARG. This, thankfully, stopped the countdown.
However, this extra time in the room had left Ben extra extra woozy. We figured it was some kind of gas meant to keep the plants alive, but it certainly wasn't good for Ben! He started to pass out, we frantically suggested items to hurl at/bash the window with, chairs, water tanks, keys... in the end he just went through the door... clever boy.


Once Ben had gained his composure he took a look around the shop - we realise we probably shouldn't just wander round in full view of the cameras, so he used his new found abilities (gifted to him by Vlad upon departure) to take out the security cameras. Unfortunately, the effort caused a nosebleed. We could tell he wasn't exactly having a hoot so we devised a plan to kill the plants quickly and quietly. We asked Ben to scour the pharmacists for anything which might be harmful to the plants - Bleach, Salts etc.
He came up with some Epsom salts. Brillo!

So, we urged him to quickly and quietly fill the water tanks with as much salt as he could muster and turn the irrigation system up to full to give the plants a full blast of its salty goodness. Boom baby! After a couple of breaks to get some air, he was done. We told him to make sure he cleaned himself up (would look a bit suspicious walking out there with a bloody nose!) and calmly make his way out the shop as if nothing happened. I don't even think he knew that he might just have saved the world.

Once this was done the PM, Paul, gave us an out of game tip that the game was now over until 4th January. We still aren't sure if we won - did the salts kill the plants and stop MeeM from achieving eternal life? Was it all in vain? Will Jack Morgan top the charts this Christmas with "Little Mouse"? The answer to the first two questions will come early next year. The answer to the final one: No. It's Matt Cardle. Stupid.


Monday 20 December 2010

Guild Wars: Wintersday 2010

Ah look, its the non-denominational secular holiday man! Here he comes in his generic multi-faith red suit, with his non-threatening possibly Sikh inspired white beard. He's come to hand out inoffensive non-specific winter-themed gifts! Hooray! Merry Christma... I mean, Yay for Wintersday!

Guild Wars' Christmas is always an amusing time, ANet try so hard to please everyone that you get odd uncanny valley Christmas cliches cropping up left right and centre: Elder Skruug, Grenches, Jingle Bears etc etc. Far from finding this attempt to side-step the normal PC problems galling, I actually find it quite quaint, perhaps its my rose-tinted view of the GW universe.
Looking forward to Christmas this year - in and out of game - in Guild Wars they are bringing Melandru (Goddess of Nature) and Balthazar (God of War) into the mix to join Grenth (God of Death) and Dwayna (Goddess of Life) in the Wintersday celebrations. Unfortunately, I'm missing the finale which takes place over New Year, as I'll be up in the Lake District - my friends parents own a hotel up there and its a great place for a New Year's Eve party!

In the real world, it's mine and the Mrs' first Christmas outside of our family nests and although it will be a little weird, I can't wait! Our tree is up, I've made mulled wine, wrapped the presents and spent all my savings (my girlfriend had the excellent idea to be born JUST after Christmas, meaning I have to buy her presents x2). So, its going to be a scant Christmas, what with the monetary constraints, but we'll have fun, I'm sure! To top this off, we got Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood the other day, shes dead into it; even to the point where if she can't find her glasses she will sit inches away from the telly, see below:

Sunday 19 December 2010

Apple of our Eye

I crave content! Which is why the "Holiday Season" *nod to all you PC peeps who reject the word Christmas, keepin' it real...* is frustrating. We waited a good month or so for Entry #29 from Marble Hornets and then its a whole minute long! Don't get me wrong, in that minute I went through 3.5 pairs of underwear, but nonetheless it only fills a one minute slot in my otherwise meaningless day!

Which is why its nice to come across a half-decent youtube grassroots horror series once in a while. The more I amass, the more of my day I can fill watching 5minute long incerpts of little nuggets of tension. So, without further ado: Apple of our Eye. Their latest offering is here, however, I would suggest watching the series from the start - just to get to know the characters a bit more.


This is a strong start from these guys, their first video came out about a month ago and it seems pretty standard. The classic "teens filming themselves as they frolic near wooded areas" premise is strong in this one. Its a little hacknied but it seems natural enough and its believable. There are forshadowing events such as the missing persons poster in the "Young Fools with an Old Camera" video, the tall manequins in suits in the shop window etc. 

The videos set you up nicely, there are subtle video distortions which you could easily miss but a trained Slendy-hunter will notice immediately, and when the big reveal comes, its EPIC. The unFiction thread regarding this series can be found HERE. Follow after the jump for a bit of a spoiler!

(btw, had to pause the video and then maximise it to get this screenshot. I actually was a bit scared he'd start moving again. CURSE YOU INTERNET FOR MAKING ME A WUSS)



Nice thing about this series is I've caught it at the start, unlike EMH and MH. I get to watch the story unfold in REAAAL time baby. To the AooE crew (wow, that does not acronymise as well as MH and EMH) I say keep up the good work - check unFiction for the dos and don'ts, because you are treading on very thin ice, its only one slip up between Slenderblog and Slanderblog.

Friday 17 December 2010

Gaming in 2011: Part 2

Phew, I've finally got around to thinking about the second part of my "Gaming in 2011" series, Alternate Reality Gaming. Now, in recent months the ARG boat has been rocked by the ripples of the return of Marble Hornets, and the rise of EMH and Tribe Twelve - these chaotic fictions have really grabbed the limelight when it comes to storytelling and intrigue, but there are a significant number of outstanding games running which DON'T concern our Slender friend and I am hoping that in the New Year we can cover a few of them and really give them the attention they deserve.
As in the previous post, I'm going to focus on the aspects of Alternate Reality Gaming which I am most excited about for 2011. Three different aspects, and one honourable mention:

Alternate Reality Gaming

The ARG scene is something I tend to flow in and out of, I will be obsessed for months (particularly if there is a good game going on) but then I will begin to drift away. I drifted away a few months ago (I think it probably coincided with the end of Season 1 of Marble Hornets), but recently I have drifted back and I am very glad I did. UnFiction, to me, is the home of ARGs. It has certainly been the way I have heard about most games, and the main way the majority of players interact and play. If you are at all interested in ARGs, I suggest you head over there right away and take a look around.

The first thing I am excited about for 2011 is Marble Hornets: Season 2. I've posted about Marble Hornets before, with the new Season coming out 2011 is going to be a very busy year for Troy Wagner and the team. In an "Out of Game" sense, I've been following Troys blogspot for a while now and its been interesting to see a little bit behind the scenes on what the guys have to face when they make the series, if you're interested his blog can be found here: Troy Wagner's Blog Machine (although, if you want full immersion, I would avoid it until the series is over). Season 2 is shaping up to be super-duper epic, with Entry #29 just released I would suggest purchasing industrial strength underpants, and watching it with the lights off and headphones on (although not too loud, I about blew my drums out through my bumhole). I'm probably going to lump Entries #28 and #29 into a post later tonight and talk about where the storyline is going fairly soon. Very very excited about this.

Secondly, I am quite excited about the latest offering in the Vanessa Atalanta/Ministry of Argon series, this time called Fifteen Days of Darkness. Last time I played a game by this PM he had me scouring google maps of London, attempting to misdirect operatives to allow a character to escape with some vital evidence. If you haven't had a chance to get in on one of these games, Fifteen Days is still playing (although we are reaching the end game) and we would really appreciate any help! Now, I must admit, I am not the best person to summarise the VA/MoA/Fifteen Days storyline - I came in at the start of MoA and came in late to the currently running game - which is why I am keen to get another player to write an article about it in the New Year. However, what I can tell you is that the games are incredibly well constructed, varied, sometimes impossibly difficult and immensely satisfying to solve.
During Fifteen Days of Darkness myself and other players have solved a series of puzzles meant to represent our breaking down the barriers in the mind of Jayden, the leader of The Order of Oberon. The OoO are a werewolf cult, with a focus on transformation. We have reached the conclusion that Jayden's ultimate aim somehow revolves around the "Flower of Life", a geometric arrangement of overlapping circles which represent numerous spiritual and mathmatical theorums. Our reaching this conclusion has allowed one of the series running characters Vladamir Sirin to hack into Jayden's mind and force him to speak the truth, just for one weekend. Hopefully, we made full use of this opportunity.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this game so far, and I have to admit MoA was the most thrilling ARG I have ever participated in. The PM puts an astounding amount of thought into the running of this ARG and it really pays off. I cannot wait for the finale of Fifteen Days and I am really looking forward to where the story will go from there.

Thirdly, there are a number of low-level grassroots games going on with small casts which really talk to me. The two I will focus on for the moment are: The Sound Guy and TheArtoftheOak. Sometimes I want the big, complex and flashy ARGs like Fifteen Days, but sometimes I just want to sit down and play a BLARG! Thats a blog-ARG, I just created the term - like it? The Sound Guy is the story of a normal British bloke, much like myself, who is into metal and wants our opinion on the sound quality of his recordings, unfortunately the audio is plagued by strange background sound which he can't seem to get rid of - lets just say, everything is not as it seems! One of the things which hindered the real blast off of this game is the fact that TSG hid the message so well! After a few weeks we have only just cracked the file and I'm hoping the game will blast off from there. I think the reason I like this game is because it is ballsy, often games are just stumbled upon, but TSG had the guts to just send his trailhead out to members of the community inviting them to take part. I'm looking forward to where he's going from here.
TheArtoftheOak is the story of Shannon, a simple girl who is into the paranormal. One day her friend reads a passage from the necronomicon, and, well, what do you think happens?! Shit goes down! Now Shannon is haunted by strange children in the night, the visage of Ingrid Cold and crazed stalkers. The blog has been eerily quiet over the past few weeks (holidays, finals etc), but I am interested to see how the PM marries these quite varied threads together - it could turn out that Shannon's friend has, well, just released all hell upon them! Poor gal.


Finally, the honourable mention. Slenderblogs/Slenderblags. The good and the bad, Marble Hornets and EMH have spawned numerous Slenderblogs which, more often than not, fall to the wayside due to overwhelming weariness from the Slender-community. The writers over at The Slender Review do a great job of keeping tabs on what's hot and what's not, if you'd like to really get the cream of the crop then head over there for some top notch reviews. My personal fave is Hiking Fiend, find the review HERE.

Its going to be a very exciting year for games in general. My social life is going to be baaaad....

Thursday 16 December 2010

Weekly ARG Report: After the New Year

Ok audience, I may have been a little hasty trying to set up my weekly ARG report! What with Christmas, Thanksgiving, finals etc etc people have been finding it hard to get time together to help me out. So, I've decided I will put the project on the backburner until after the New Year.

I'm still looking for people who might be interested, I've got a couple lined up but I could always use more help - the subject of the article could be a currently running ARG, chaotic fiction etc, or one which has finished, or even just an ARG-y subject. I will be contacting players through their threads on unFiction so if you see me post and are interested, either post on my blog, on the unForum thread here, or send me an email at: will.r.knight@gmail.com.

There are some really interesting games running at the moment, and hopefully we can get some exciting and informative articles going after the New Year. So, don't hesitate to contact me - even if its just to ask a question, you don't need to be an experienced writer, I'm looking for anyone who is enthusiastic about the subject.

Friday 10 December 2010

Postponing Start of Weekly ARG Report

This is going to be a really quick post. Just popping in to say that I'm postponing the start of the weekly ARG Report for the moment! Stay tuned for updates!


Ta!

Monday 6 December 2010

Gaming in 2011 Part 1

There will be a bucketload of posts like this across the web as this year comes to a close, and I'm hoping to get mine in nice and early! Set up shop and see what everyone else thinks. I thought I'd tackle Gaming in its many and varied guises in this post, and say what I am looking forward to over the next year or so. I'm splitting this into two parts, one for Video Games, one for Alternate Reality Games. Here goes:

Video Games
I really don't like the name "video games", it feels like the term "movies" - do we really need to define the film by the fact that the pictures are moving? However, no other term seems to fit "computer games" doesn't really cover consoles, jumpy-shooty-flippymajigg doesn't match either. So, video games it is. For me there are 3 exciting events (and one honourable mention):

Anywho, 2011 is a pretty big year for me. There are a number of titles on the horizon which get my juices flowing and to start off I think I'll go with Portal 2. Ho momma, Portal is a beast of a game - its funny, clever, witty, frustrating, mind bending, disturbing, scary and most importantly it is a whole troughload of fun.
Spicy! I cannot wait to see what GLaDOS (not sure if the capitalisation is correct here!) has in store as she informs us over the end credits of the first game (through song) that she is "I'm doing science and I'm still alive". If you haven't been HERE, then do so, and then tremble in fear at the last scene.

[EDIT=07/12/10] Originally watched this with the sound off - having watched it with sound I now realise that the voice is Stephen Bloody Merchant! First Danny Wallace in Assassin's Creed 2/Brotherhood and now this! Big few years for British comedians! My money would be on Harry Hill voicing the lord of the Sith in Star Wars: The Old Republic[/EDIT]

[EDIT 2=07/12/10]Oh, and Stephen Fry in Fable III[/EDIT]

Secondly, we have Batman: Arkham City. Arkham Asylum was one of the first games I got for the PS3 this year and I played it through in about a week. It was a game that just felt like all the little bits just worked, the combat was fluid and fun (particularly slowing down the final punch on a badguy just to watch his jaw break) the scenery was wacky enough to be almost Kilmer era Batman, but also dark and brooding enough to stick to the canon, and Batman himself was suitably gadget-filled to make the game varied and interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience (even if it was somewhat let down by a final boss fight which could have been competantly completed by a blind 3 fingered sloth who'd just woken up).
I love games like this, quirky, a little scary, with a tongue in cheek way of approaching violence and horror. Fun. Can't wait for the next installment.



Thirdly and most importantly: Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars has been my almost constant companion now for about 5 years, I love this game, I love the lore, the combat, the characters and storylines, its awesome. Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be awesome on a whole other scale. I'm hesitant about the persistant world (the only other foray I've had into persistent world MMOs is Aion, and, well, it wasn't good!), nonetheless, I'm squeeing with delight knowing its coming at some point next year. ANet are holding their cards characteristically close to their chest re: release date, but most people are predicting first/second quarter 2011.
I won't go on about it too much here as I could talk for hours, but I will make a post nearer the release date and when we have a little bit more info.



Honourable mention: American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns. One of my quite early gaming loves was the prequal to this game. It was downright scary on a fundamental level, not just jumpy and gory, but it was more like that time in the park in Amsterdam when I had a whooooole spacecake to myself and I fell into a Dali painting - it was kinda like that. I am looking forward to where they go from there.

Friday 3 December 2010

Writing About ARGs

You may have noticed the new page which has appeared at the top of the blog ^ just up there entitled "ARG Report: Looking for Guest Writers". I'm well aware that a lot of the people who read this blog are forwarded from the link in my UnFiction signiture, welcome to my world uF readers! I wanted to make this post to announce we have our first guest writer coming up this time next week!

Ellocia will be writing on the subject of "Great Big Jerk" - this is a game which I was involved in at the start, but then quickly lost track of as shinier and more "Black Ops"-y things came on the horizon. Personally, I'm very excited about how this weekly spot is going to shape up. So, be sure to check back here on Friday 10th December (probably be up sometime in the evening GMT) for Ellocia's post.

If you'd like to get involved yourself, either leave a message here or on the unFiction forum post and I'll get it sorted. Literally anyone is welcome to contribute, on any ARG subject, so don't hesitate to ask me a question and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

So, to recap:

FRIDAY 10th DECEMBER

FIRST EVER WEEKLY ARG REPORT

ELLOCIA: GREAT BIG JERK

Wednesday 1 December 2010

XKCD - Poking Pandora in the Eye

The latest XKCD comic is rather evocative for me:


It actually really reminds me of when my sister was ill a few years back. I think the overall lesson is the mantra you hear a lot from those suffering from long term serious illnesses - "one day at a time". That was certainly how we faced the illness back then, and with recent tragedies in my life it is most definitely how I having been living for the past few months. I really don't want to get too far into it, but this is another example of how the XKCD stories hide real human problems behind their simple stick-figure appearance. I love this comic. I suggest you check it out.

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