I just got back from the island of Kaua’i, where they have a lot of chickens.
Author Archives: Ryan
Westerado: Double Barreled: Additional Title
I was lucky enough to get in on an advance version of Westerado: Double Barreled, a remake by Ostrich Banditos of their Adult Swim browser game Westerado. I wrote all about Westerado a while back, and I have plenty to say about the differences between the remake and the original—and what the differences mean to me as a game designer, and what they mean to me in terms of game genre theory—but let’s get the most superficial facts out of the way and work from there.
Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks lyrics, chords, for you
Tonight I took it upon myself to archive some Dan Hicks lyrics and chords compiled by Steve Ramirez, which were previously available only at the Wayback Machine’s archive of his website. They were hard to find. I have uploaded a copy of Steve’s index and all of his files, in the hopes that other fans of Dan will be able to locate them and benefit from Steve’s work a little more easily.
(This is being posted on April 1st, but there’s nothing mischievous or insincere about it, I assure you.)
If you aren’t familiar with Dan Hicks, his Hot Licks, or their work, you are lucky to be suffering from one of those problems that are very easily fixed.
Clashin’ and Typin’ with Emily Short
Only recently have I gotten around to editing and uploading a few episodes of CLASH of the TYPE-INS that Jenni and I recorded with Emily Short way back in September or something. Now they are all up, though. The episode where we play Bronze was crazy good, in my opinion: Some IF design-theoretical issues got brought up and Emily expounded on them with a cogency that Jenni’s and my antics often lack. If you listen to only one episode of our dumb podcast this year, make it Episode 10.
But you should listen to all of them! Why not?
Someone Keeps Moving My Chair
I have a new game! It’s a prequel to The Statue Got Me High. My intent was to make a little sub-game that would briefly explore one of the characters from Statue, but this game is actually about 153% the size of that one.
I think you can play them in either order, but whatever or however you play, I hope you have a good time, and if you have anything to say about them I hope you’ll let me know!
My Wii Fit Trainer amiibo mod
Addendum, 3 September 2015: I did this project with a Wii Fit Trainer from the first amiibo run. I am led to understand that the reprints are better-constructed, and in particular the foot and the cast are glued much more securely to the stand. People who have executed this mod with the reprints have had to “club it straight off and mighty glue it,” albeit with gorgeous results. It’s still very much possible to execute this mod with your newer WFT amiibo, but you probably won’t have as easy a time as I did.
This is what the Wii Fit Trainer amiibo was supposed to look like.
Labyrinth Doesn’t Make Any Dang Sense
Labyrinth is a movie for girls with hardly any female characters. That’s not the part that doesn’t make any dang sense; actually, the film uses this setup fairly effectively. The part that doesn’t make sense is the central conflict: Sarah Williams endures dangers untold and hardships unnumbered to rescue her baby brother Toby, whom she hates. Exactly how much sense this doesn’t make will be made clear at great length in this essay. First, let’s examine my claim that Labyrinth is a movie for girls:
Roman License Plates
The Best License Plate?
The singularity of this license plate was almost lost on me. I noticed it as I was pulling out of my parking space, and I thought: “Hey, ‘Civ 104’, like the 104th entry in the Civilization series! Boy, it’ll be a long time before they get to that one. Kind of like that other hypothetical Civ game, the one they’ll call ‘Civ CIV’, because it’ll be the one where the number of the game is ‘CIV’ in Roman numerals…” Continue reading
The Tree Shaped Like A Monster
CHAPTER ONE
Heather and Nicole were in love. They sat under the tree shaped like a monster and spoke about the things of love. They got out a knife. They tried to cut their initials into the bark of the tree, but blood came out of the wood.
CHAPTER TWO
Then in Fall when they raked up the leaves that fell off the tree they found Heather and Nancy’s skeletons under the leaves.
The End
Dial C for Cupcakes
I have a new text adventure called Dial C for Cupcakes and you can play it! You can play it right now!