Category Archives: prose

Thoughts and High Scores on Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder

Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder (working title; also, release title) was not originally intended as an Interactive Fiction Competition entry. In late 2012 and early 2013, as Emily Boegheim and I were trying to pick up steam on Robin & Orchid (working title; also, release title), I thought to myself: I just need to make a tiny game, to stretch my dang legs. After I finish a little game, I can finish this big game.

Verdeterre was not that game, but for a while I thought it was. From the beginning my goal was to make a slight game, unambitious in scope or plot or theme or mechanics, and to a certain extent I think I succeeded.

And yet here I have written many words, a lot of words, about the design of this game. You will have to scroll past them to see the high score table.

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Girl of the Horses Galloping Flying Free Ranch

With a gilded finger the sun traced a lingering line up her leg, and her stomach, and across the brass mirror of her shoulder, so that she shone like a reclining Colossus on that dusty beach. All the men gazed on her, and all had to shield their eyes.

“Are you maybe like from Greece or something?” a babbling boy asked.

“No; I am from Montana,” she said, and the crowd hummed in disbelief.

“I didn’t know they had pretty girls in Montana,” another joked, from his seat behind the woman, where he could see down the top of her bikini. From there, he knew, he had no need to fear her frightful glare.

But she twisted her radiant body around like a lithesome cat’s amber tail on her stripèd towel, and fixed him to the spot with sunglass-lenses burning like twin suns: “The girls of the State of Montana are as beautiful as its horses,” she said. “That’s why the girls and the horses get along so well.”

“I’ll tell you all about it,” she said.

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Groundhog Day Around the World

2013 marks the twentieth anniversary of the film Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis and starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Since the movie’s release, the real-life holiday has been inextricably linked with Sonny, Cher, and temporal disturbances. But there’s more to Groundhog Day than Groundhog Day, isn’t there?

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Westerado: a Roguelikesque Spaghetti Western

I haven’t played all of the games in adultswim.com’s online catalogue, but for the most part they seem rather slight. Burrito Bison Revenge is the best “launch-an-object-as-far-as-you-can” game I’ve ever played, but it’s still a launch-an-object-as-far-as-you-can game. It’s an arcade game.

Westerado is not an arcade game. Westerado, created by the Dutch studio Ostrich Banditos, is an open-world Western that you play in a browser—and I’d say it beats quite a few console and PC open-world games for depth, immersion, and freedom.

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Interview: Alexandra Niehlan

Hey, it’s me, Ryan. I have to explain a couple things first: I recently found out about this incredible opportunity to interview Alexandra Niehlan, the famous voice actress that you’ve definitely heard of. I’m a huge fan of Niehlan’s work, as I’m sure you are, and talking to her in person felt like it could be a turning point for me, a career-shaping experience. Continue reading →