My grandmother passed a couple of months ago, preceded by my grandfather in 2007. Over the past decade as she’s moved in with different daughters, the family has been collectively downsizing her belongings and spreading them out to whoever would most benefit from them.I have two bookshelves that are designed to hold mass market paperbacks… Continue reading The Erosion of Identity in the Rise of Corporate Decor
So we’re in the middle of an organized boycott of Disney products because of their response to government pressure to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Great cool. Kimmel’s back on the air as I write this, so it looks like it might have worked. But honestly, who knows! Yay government overreach! In those exact… Continue reading Media Piracy Isn’t Inherently Revolutionary, You Weirdos
There’s this exercise that I did back in middle school at least a couple of times. It’s the peanut butter and jelly activity. You basically take turns explaining to the teacher or the camp counselor or whatever how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the adult in question follows your directions literally… Continue reading These Crafting Communities are Freaking Me Out
Japanese visual novels are set in Japan with Japanese characters...because they're made by Japanese studios in Japan for Japanese people.
Oh, Ashe, so you've got something poignant and insightful to say about the human condition and how the footprint of an inter-social ... No. I just finished Mass Effect.
It's a piece of advice that I give to anyone I can. Someone might have made it before, but no one's made it quite like you. What exactly does that mean, though, especially when paired with the idea that there are no new stories? Isolate Your Personal Narrative/Experience We all have things that are unique… Continue reading …But No One’s Done it Like You
There are no new ideas. West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet is Pyramus and Thisbe. Arthurian legends have been told and retold hundreds of times. The same thing for classic fairy tales. There's a whole classification system for character archetypes we see over and over and over again. And that's fine. These stories and… Continue reading Everything’s been done before…
This article features Extra Credit: Developing an Idea to Execution for $5 Patrons. Check it out here. That's a dangerous phrase isn't it? The "idea guy." The one who spouts things but doesn't actually do the work associated with the thing and yet still wants to see it done. The person who takes way more… Continue reading How to Be the “Idea Guy”
I've been going around to local conventions with a presentation about the development process of visual novels (a video of one you can see here). It's been great bringing this information to people who are genuinely excited about the narrative game development and want to learn more. At one of the conventions, they invited me… Continue reading On Starting
Pixels and Pins Studio 