Author: Kevin

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games Lost Token Games tech Uncategorized

Welcome to the Jam

As a child, I wanted to create video games so bad. I didn’t know how to program (nor anyone willing to sit down and teach me), but I did have a spiral notebook I packed with ideas: some of them just a title and a genre, others with a character in mind. A few I had built a world in my head, and was ready to get started.

But I didn’t. Never did. I may have turned a few into stories at some point, but otherwise, those ideas are lost to time. A book of childhood fantasies that never came true.

I have better tools now. And over the past week, I’ve exercised them. And with that, there’s now a game named Caretaker.

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games tech

“(Y)ou must first invent the universe.”

I’ve been playing a game called Moonlighter, an independent game from the small team of about seven people in Spain called Digital Sun Games. Players take control of Will, a shop owner that sells by day, and plunders randomly-generated dungeons by night to find new materials with which to craft and sell to his patrons. It has a thoughtfully-crafted in-game economy (as you might expect from a game based on selling items to customers), Legend of Zelda-inspired dungeon crawling, and an expandable shop to spend those earnings on. There’s even a banker that can help grow your money (whenever you’re able to talk to him).

And it’s a perfect example of why I love living in the future: every possibility to make something wonderful… no matter how small your team or experience.

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Categories
life music

Ode to a Rabbit

There are very few things I know for certain in this world after nearly 40 years here: love is rare and should be cherished where you find it. Sleep is just as lovely as it is dangerous. The right songs can not only bring us to tears, but help keep us alive.

And that’s why I’m writing this, after multiple days of difficult mental health: when I’m having trouble, one of my go-to artists helps me to both cry out some energy and remind me that the world isn’t as bad as my brain chemistry is telling me it is. Even if the music that saved me makes me sad.

Even if the music couldn’t save its creator.

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notebooks

A Journal Mindset

The old and the new.

When I started college back in 2003, I was dropped off at the campus in the morning and took multiple buses to get home. I had a cell phone, but in those days, cell phones were primarily for calling; texting in a numpad was frustrating (even when you “got gud”) and made writing anything longer than brief messages just wasn’t a thing. For me, anyway.

So when I bought my first Moleskine notebook at the mall, the halfway point between school and home, I used that for my first serious journal; I still have that one tucked away in a box somewhere. And I loved the feel of that book, so much so that I’ve used Moleskine books for lots of different projects.

Six months ago, I started a new journal. And last night, I finished it. After six straight months of journaling, I can say… much as I’ve failed in the past at maintaining a journal, I’m all for it now.

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books news

In Defense of “Maus”

Fictional stories are often told with the intent of pulling some kind of special meaning from them, even if (or especially if) the subversion of an existing trope is the catalyst for telling them. In stories like Watchmen we find just that: a retelling of the superhero genre to look inward at our expectation of a style of story. Often, such stories are dedicated to a specific point or moral, like many stories of our collective past (Aesop’s fables, Hans Christian Andersen tales, etc).

True stories don’t have that kind of specific baggage. There isn’t always a “deeper meaning” to find, or a moral to take to heart. The story is the reason for its telling. And these are the stories most needed in the world… because they lead to empathy.

-Kevin Schaller, August 2021
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