Here are the best things I’ve published online, sorted alphabetically, with a brief explanation of what makes each one special. Most of them are about games, but a few are short stories and several stand up as interesting no matter what your interest in video games. Enjoy.
A truly graphic adventure: The 25-year rise and fall of the adventure genre
At the beginning of December, 2010, I got an unexpected email. Ars Technica had, some weeks prior, put out a call for freelancers who could write good long-form content. I responded to the call, sending three pitches as per their instructions, and thought I’d never hear back. I was wrong. They liked my pitches, and wanted me to do two of them. I agreed to do one immediately, and suggested the other could come later if things go well.A week later, I’d signed a contract and agreed to write 2500-5000 words about the history of graphic adventure games. I finished off my research and wrote the story, which eventually—after a few drafts—ended up at around 6700 words. My first professional feature article was a big one, and it attracted a huge number of readers.
An excerpt: “Sam and Max also find exploitative tourist attractions such as a gigantic ball of twine and a small rock that utterly fails to look like a frog, and a country music star lives a life of absurdly extravagant self-indulgence that includes two gigantic statues and an escalator-equipped bed.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Caught in a loop: The sound of falling tetrominoes
The Bitmob community takes on monthly writing challenges. In September 2010 the challenge was to write video-game music—specifically, the was in a which the soundtrack works with a game of our choosing. I picked Tetris, and what followed was a meditation on how it so completely enthrals you when you play. I really hit the mark with this one. It even got nominated for Best article about a single element in Bitmob’s 2010 Community Awards.An excerpt: “Soon you stop noticing that the music repeats. It feels fresh, yet familiar—old, yet new. The rhythmic do-dos and dee-dees take on new form as they narrow in your focus on that 2.6-inch tinted, monochrome screen. The hypnotic falling of tetrominoes may draw your attention to the screen, but the music keeps it from wavering. You enter a state of "flow" as your sense of hearing meets with touch and sight, and you attune to the brick-shaped handheld.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Cultural Victory: A personal history of the Civilization series
I have spent hundreds of hours playing the Civilization games. It made sense, in the lead-up to Civilization 5’s release, to write my own story about how the series has impacted on my life. I didn’t expect it to be so well received, though. It stands as my most-read article on Bitmob, at 8583 hits at the time of writing. And I even won an award for it—I took out Best personal narrative in Bitmob’s 2010 Community Awards.An excerpt: “In the summer of 1998, my brother went on exchange to Germany and entrusted me with his laptop, which had Civilization 2 installed. My Ben Folds Five phase was at its peak (as was, incidentally, the band), and Whatever and Ever Amen became the soundtrack to my Summer of Civilization. I spent my days leaning back in an inflatable orange chair, with my feet on my bed and the stereo blasting, while I played Civ 2 and sang loudly out-of-tune: ‘She’s everything I want, she’s everything I’m not / Oh, I... / Have you got nothing to say.’” Click here to read the whole thing.
Dancing, dreams, and finding my way...kinda
I make no secret of the fact that I'm a dancer and choreographer. In 2011, I put together a piece for Flare Dance Ensemble's annual production. It was my final production with the group, so I wanted the piece to be special. What resulted was a heartfelt number about struggling against perfection and the challenges of life. It was a deeply personal piece, even if it took me the whole year of rehearsing and choreographing to fully comprehend this fact.Here is the story behind it, and how I learnt about myself through analysing its themes.
An excerpt: "My own conduct has always been filled with a paradoxical perfectionism tinged with imperfection and apathetic laziness. I figured out that I needed to not care sometimes, or the drive to do everything perfectly—to be perfect—would consume me." Click here to read the whole thing.
Dreaming of a Thousand-Room House: The evolution of Glider
Glider is one of my all-time favourite games, so when I decided to try writing an interview-based “making of” article I figured contacting Glider-creator John Calhoun was worth a shot. I tracked down his email address, with help from a former leader in the series’ fan community. He agreed to an interview, which over a number of months swelled to almost 7000 words. I somehow managed to craft this into a 2500-word article on the development of the series and the ideas that went into its conception. It’s a great read even if you never played the game.An excerpt: “Imagine a house filled with thousands of rooms, each unique in some small way. Its occupants are mysteriously absent, yet the house is teeming with life.
Goldfish jump in and out of bowls placed haphazardly; a nearby basketball bounces of its own accord. Paper helicopters materialize out of the ether, only to disappear just as suddenly, while two slices of bread hop up and down in a toaster that sits on a small table. Elsewhere, an exposed pipe drips water in a darkened room and balloons magically rise through the floor.” Click here to read the whole thing.
From SimCity to Real Girlfriend: 20 years of Sim games, part 1
I nearly lost my mind writing this one. I agreed to do a history of simulation games for Ars Technica, not realising the enormity of the task. What I had originally pitched as an 8000-word story ballooned to 11,000 words, and still didn’t go into great detail. My editor split the article in half, publishing part 2 one day after part 1. The first part is undoubtedly the stronger of the two, and may even be the best thing I’ve had published.An excerpt: “True to the open-ended spirit fostered by Wright's design, a common approach was to abuse or run experiments on Sims. There was a certain sadistic thrill in locking a Sim in a room with no exit or toilet (but perhaps with a TV or refrigerator) or watching a Sim drown in an inescapable swimming pool.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Game Diary #12: Bully—The End
I started writing game diaries as an exercise in game design—I wanted to understand what worked and what didn’t, and why. But when I moved into writing online I thought it would make an interesting format for covering games. I would tell my story of playing a game, as it happened, through a combination of first-person narrative, third-person storytelling, and second-person analysis. What followed proved more engaging than I could have ever imagined. Read the whole series if you have time. Otherwise, just look at this final entry.Also check out my Civilization 5 and Ayiti game diaries, which are similarly accessible and entertaining for even non-gamers.
An excerpt: “Because now I know: That’s just how people roll in the town of Bullworth. They’ll swim out to a shipwreck in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black darkness of the night, steal your shoes, and leave you for dead. It’s a fact of life—there’s nothing you or I can do about it.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Growing up Mac: Windows to another dimension
I love writing personal narratives about video games and technology because they are products that you experience. Everyone gets the same—or close to the same—product, but we all have unique experiences with it. Writing out those unique experiences lets others see the product from a different perspective—from someone else’s perspective—and to see how something mass produced actually had a profoundly individual affect on their life. I grew up using Macs, and had intermittent exposure to Windows PCs. Given the huge discrepancy in user base for the two platforms during the 90s, my story is not just unique—it’s novel. And apparently I wrote it rather well.An excerpt: “I soon developed a fascination with an off-shoot of the dying bulletin board systems and Internet Relay Chat programs of the late '80s and early '90s, Hotline. Through Hotline I discovered there was much more to the Internet than first meets the eye—and that the most interesting people and things tended to gravitate towards the seedier side of it.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Homeless and Hopeless in Ulitsa Dimitrova
I had previously tried a couple of short stories based on my experience with a video game, but never in such a compelling way as this. It is a powerful game, and I think I did a fine job capturing its feeling of despair.An excerpt: “I feel like I'm caught in an endless cycle. It seems that no matter what I do, I keep passing that same dumpster I slept in last night, and I can't break out of all this thieving and begging.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Is Steam for Mac really a game-changer?
I didn’t want my writing to only appear on Bitmob and MacScene; even after only a few months publishing my stuff online, I craved more eyeballs, more exposure, more opportunities. I thought to try Australian Macworld, which is based several kilometres from where I live. They allowed me to write several gaming-related articles for the Australian Macworld website as part of a push for more locally-written content. I didn’t make any money out of the exercise, but it was a great learning experience and a fun eight-or-so months contributing to a publication I’d read as a kid.An excerpt: “With a bit of luck, Steam will be the first in a series of minor victories that together lead to a golden age in Mac gaming.
But don’t hold your breath. It will take a while.” Click here to read the whole thing. (The republished version has images.)
Know your role—Gary Smith: Bully’s sociopathic antagonist
I originally wrote this for a Bitmob Writing Challenge wherein we had to analyse a character from a game of our choosing. I’d just finished doing my Bully Game Diary, so I picked that game’s antagonist, Gary Smith. A while later, I contacted Game Career Guide to see if they’d be interested in republishing the piece—it’s exactly the kind of student essay they like. They posted it within a week.An excerpt: “He talks with an air of over-confidence and a hint of sarcasm—reminiscent of the similarly arrogant and conceited Sebastian Valmont (played by Ryan Phillippe) from Cruel Intentions.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Love Looming in the darkness
I based this short story on my experience with an online game called Looming, which is about a lone explorer in a stark black and white world. It was an interesting game, with an open-ended narrative and a perfect setting for a story of love and longing. I actually sent the story to Gregory Weir, the game’s creator, shortly after I published it. He called it “beautiful.” I hope you like it.An excerpt: “You appear in a dark, cold, and empty world, seeking answers and knowledge of a mysterious place, long abandoned by all life. Artifacts of a bygone era dot the dusty, barren environment and give hints of two vastly different peoples and a huge, four-legged flying animal. Hidden stone pillars rise from the earth as you approach, and gigantic, awe-inspiring structures reach high into the most beautiful sky you have ever seen.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Make Blooms, Not War: Fractal demo impressions
A few years back, I played a music-based web game called Auditorium that I loved. I kept an eye on the developers, waiting to see what they did next. Fractal blew me away the first time I tried it. I wrote this straight away. The developers later used my article as their leading press quote for the game.An excerpt: “I found myself consumed by the game, my breathing synchronized with the pulsating music—rising and falling until I almost hold my breath as the push queue nears empty.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Making a game under a deadline is hard
I had to make two games for university assessment in Semester 2, 2010. It was hard. I wrote this article to summarise what I’d learnt from the experience, and to explore what it is about game development that’s so tough.An excerpt: “I looked at my checklist with a wistful gleam of sadness in my eyes. My 3D game would not have textures, animations, or music; I only had time to use primitive shapes and decidedly unglamorous lighting effects. The shooter would end up with only one level—even the super small and short secret level would be left out. Game development sucks.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Playing chicken with a ghost in Burnout Paradise
This one came to me in a sudden spark of inspiration. There’s something unsettling about the absence of drivers in the cars of Burnout Paradise. I think I figured out what it is. This is one of my best-written stories.An excerpt: “Other cars swerve to avoid me, braking hard in a futile attempt to avoid crashing. I snake around one, which then smashes against the wall, and clip the side of another; I barely retain control as I send them reeling. Unfazed, I angle myself head on with the next vehicle. I am fearless; they are driverless.” Click here to read the whole thing.
SimStapler
I had a lot of fun writing this article, and I think it shows. Before you ask, yes, SimStapler is a real game. It was made as a joke and released by a successful shareware game company.An excerpt: “The game's brilliance rested in its simplicity. The nature of the documents being stapled together was left to your imagination. Perhaps you were stapling two blank sheets of white paper. Or maybe the paper was purple. It could be that you were stapling together a ten-thousand page thesis (try doing that on a real stapler!) on the benefits of virtual office equipment. Perhaps you weren't stapling paper at all, but rather stapling a co-worker's shirt to their pants. The only limit was your imagination.” Click here to read the whole thing.
StuntCopter
Before I was born, some kid made a simple game for the Mac about a tiny little man jumping from a helicopter into a haystack at the back of a (moving) horse-drawn wagon. That game was StuntCopter, and it is fondly remembered by everyone who played games on the Mac in the 80s and/or 90s. I wrote this retrospective, which did well on StumbleUpon, to explain just what made it so endearing.An excerpt: “There is a certain humour inherent in failing the game that makes StuntCopter more than the sum of its parts. If you drop your stuntman on the horse, it will topple over and you'll instantly lose. Likewise, the driver of the wagon can be taken out with a well-timed drop. It became a legendary meta-game—the aim being to take them out from as high as possible, with bonus points for falling through the cloud.” Click here to read the whole thing.
System 1.0: A Revolution called Macintosh
I am extremely interested in the early history of computers and in the evolution of their user interfaces. The original Macintosh was a revolution in computing, but the precise details of how and why are often overlooked. I wrote this, after copious amounts of research, to fill in the blanks for everyone who isn’t an obsessive Apple or tech history buff.An excerpt: “They were, quite simply, trying to make a computer for everyone at a time when computers weren’t really designed for anyone—not even the computer scientists, businessmen, and hobbyists that adopted them so enthusiastically.” Click here to read the whole thing.
The rocky history of gaming on the Mac
This is the reason I started writing online, and the reason I joined Bitmob. The Mac’s gaming capabilities have always received short shrift. When I looked for a decent treatment on the history of Mac gaming in December 2009, I couldn’t find one. I thought that was insane, given the fascinating, heartbreaking story that I knew could be told. I decided to take things into my own hands. This was the result. It was later picked up as a news item by major Mac gaming website Inside Mac Games.An excerpt: “Apple had no answer. They tried licensing hardware-clones (too late in the game) and hurriedly put together a major upgrade (later canceled) to their operating system. Between mismanagement, poor finances, and retreating momentum Apple simply could not compete with Microsoft.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Untold stories of war
I have long considered the Civilization games to be brilliant vehicles for storytelling. But rather than write yet another narrative playthrough, I wanted to challenge myself a bit. I considered what goes on beneath the abstraction—if it were real life, who would be affected by my decisions? How would it feel to be a citizen caught in the midst of a game of Civilization? I came up with this tale of loss, hate, and revenge.An excerpt: “Invaders came from across the sea. Strange warriors in jaguar masks wielded spears and shields. Some even rode fearsome chariots. They attacked without warning from the beach.” Click here to read the whole thing.
Who wants to play Baby Smash?
I still chuckle at that headline. Baby Smash is a game for toddlers that I found on an old CD collection of games. It turns out that there are several similar games, which are all about smashing the keyboard (or screen, if it’s touch-based) in order to receive such immersive audio-visual feedback as a picture of a cow accompanied by a loud ping.An excerpt: “The games were a remarkable leap forward in interactive entertainment for toddlers, though adults of more infantile levels of maturity could also appreciate their charm. Fart sounds, speech, pretty patterns, bright colors, drawings, shapes of various sizes and type, and bells and whistles of dozens of different frequencies are just some of the things that filled your screen and blasted out of your speakers.” Click here to read the whole thing.
9 iPhone apps for the retro enthusiast
The internet is overflowing with lists about all sorts of things. I always hesitate to add another one to the noise, but I’ve still put out four lists in these past two years. I think this is the best of the bunch. It’s punchy, and it hits the perfect balance of light-hearted fun, informativeness, and brevity. Check it out.An excerpt: “But so many apps are terrible that it can sometimes be a dice roll whether you’ll find what you want. This is doubly so for fans of retro games and technology, with countless attempts made to trick you out of your money in an orgasmic blast of nostalgia.” Click here to read the whole thing.
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