Q&A with Kaitlin Tremblay, Author of Life is Strange August 04 2025

Q&A with Alexander B. Joy, Author of Legend of the River King July 31 2025

We've just announced the author and subject of the 38th book in our series, Legend of the River King by Alexander B. Joy, in a new Kickstarter campaign funding right now. To celebrate, fellow forthcoming author Kaitlin Tremblay interviews Joy about the book's travelogue format, River King's legacy, games writing, and bald eagle-punching.

Kaitlin Tremblay: I’d love to chat more about the craft of writing these sorts of books. Since book-length games criticism is its own beast, I’m curious to hear more about your process and techniques. So to start, what made you want to write a book specifically about River King?

Alexander B. Joy: Legend of the River King occupies a strange space in stateside gaming history. There are two things that make it extremely interesting: its unusual subject matter, and its unfortunate timing. It was the world’s first portable fishing RPG – not that it faced much competition in that niche – but in this respect, it was a proto-creature-collector kind of game. Yet within months of its US release, Pokémon Red and Blue arrived on American shores, and completely bulldozed River King in terms of popularity and influence despite the two games’ similar aesthetics and subject matter. This is a minor tragedy, to my mind, because River King represents an extremely different – and much more beneficial – set of attitudes and values toward the world and our place in it than Pokémon does. I wanted to write a book that hoists River King out of the mud of the past to unpack all the ways its philosophy was unique in its day, and increasingly relevant in the age of human-driven climate disaster. 

Once you started writing your book, where did you start? Why did you pick that place to start from?

The form of the book largely decided my starting point for me. I wanted to approach Legend of the River King like a travelogue, documenting the journey through the game and the (in)sights along the way. This meant that, after a short introductory preamble, I started writing from River King’s beginning.

Can you talk a little bit more about the travelogue format? What does it lend to your writing of Legend of the River King? Why did you pick it?

I went with the travelogue format for a couple of reasons. First, I recognized from the outset that I could not count on readers having played the game before, as it’s almost 30 years old, and was not the most popular even in 1998. I therefore needed a format that could illustrate the happenings in the game without presupposing reader familiarity. The travelogue seemed ideal for that – after all, it has historically been deployed to acquaint readers with places they’ve never visited.

Second, the travelogue makes for a productive critical architecture, especially when you’re analyzing a rich and intertextual work. I owe this realization to Geoff Dyer. I cribbed my general approach from Dyer’s Zona, which amounts to a real-time talk-through of the Tarkovsky film Stalker, but with Sebald-style digressions into the threads and undercurrents in each moment. I swear Zona unlocked something in me – it perfectly matched how I usually think and feel about art, and finally gave me a language for putting that mindset into text.

What other techniques or traditions did you bring to writing a book-length piece of criticism on River King?

Throughout the book, I drew upon techniques typically used in nature writing and philosophy. They’re surprisingly similar genres, actually. Both rely on accurate yet evocative descriptions of reality, such that the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of whatever is being described. And they prove that the movement of clear thought furnishes an enticing dramatic arc if done correctly. Michel Foucault was exceptional at this, in my opinion; his essay on Las Meninas from The Order of Things is a prime example. Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain, on the nature writing side, is another choice selection.

Which games critics or other pieces of games criticism have inspired you?

I’ve encountered too many excellent, inspiring games critics to name them all! There are a few whom I will drop everything to read, though. Luis Aguasvivas, for one – his writing on Despelote is a great work of nonfiction, let alone games criticism. Artemis Octavio is another, who, in addition to being a top writer, has cultivated a wonderful platform with Stop Caring. Felipe Pepe is a master of gaming history, especially regarding markets and scenes with which American gamers are largely unacquainted. Steven Santana always has smart, piercing things to say. Anything the great Nathalie Lawhead writes is worth your attention, though they often discuss gaming more broadly than they do specific titles. (This is not a complaint; only an observation of their beat.) The stable of regular contributors to Gamers with Glasses make for good reads. Finally, the team at Critical Distance have made it their mission to uncover the best in current games writing, and I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything and everyone they’ve highlighted.

Now to talk a little bit more about Legend of River King specifically. In your opinion, what makes River King special, even now in 2025?

I note this in the introduction to the book, but the thing that sticks with me about River King is how its attitude toward the world beyond the player feels palpably different compared to RPGs of its era. Nature isn’t something to be slain and lorded over in River King; it’s a force to respect and coexist alongside. (Compare this to, say, the “kill everything to grind to the next level” approach of most RPGs, or the “capture every animal and make them fight” mindset of Pokémon.) When you think about how that attitude of conquest and domination has informed so many games in the intervening years, you can’t help but wonder how the culture might have changed for the better if River King had been the title that more games patterned themselves after. Playing River King nowadays is like asking what might have been.

What kind of legacy do you see River King having? Any games that were inspired by it?

Well, River King was one installment of the long-running Japanese series Kawa no Nushi Tsuri, so it did enjoy many direct and indirect sequels. That said, the series has probably run its course, since the last entry (River King: Mystic Valley on the Nintendo DS) appeared between 2007 and 2009, depending on your region. Truthfully, I don’t think River King has much of a legacy at the moment. And it deserves one, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to write a book about it.

And finally: what’s your favorite memory or anecdote of having played River King?

There’s a section of the game where you can punch out a bald eagle. Or as many bald eagles as you like, for that matter. The localization team must have failed to realize that you are categorically not allowed to do this in the United States. Fistfighting the national symbol was hilarious to me as a kid, and I find it even funnier now.

Q&A with Jordan Ferguson and Jessica Doyle, authors of Dance Dance Revolution June 23 2025

Our latest book, Dance Dance Revolution, is now available in the Boss Fight store! To celebrate, Outer Wilds author Tommy Wallach sent the authors some questions about their history with the game, the DDR competitive scene, the original NES Power Pad, and why arcade games sometimes get unfairly left out of the video game conversation.

Tommy Wallach: Did you come at this book because you are DDR superfans/players? Like, did either of you get really good at having people watch you play at arcades and stuff?

Jordan Ferguson: I don’t think either of us would consider ourselves especially skilled players, ha. Where I grew up in Canada I might have seen an actual cabinet once in my life, but it left enough of an impression to buy a home pad and a copy of MAX for the PS2. At my best, playing daily, I could maybe barely squeak my way through MAX300 on a good day, but my tastes leaned more towards the more disco-flavoured songs on the soundtrack. As for any of my attempts since we started on the book, the less said the better.

Jessica Doyle: I played fairly regularly on my PS1, but I was decidedly an exercise player. One of the side effects of DDR going from a ubiquitous to a niche game is that the people who are playing it now are more likely to be closer to "superfan" status than either of us ever were. For a lot of people, it takes a certain amount of dedication and drive to play DDR at all; you might as well get good at it. Which is a shame, because DDR is a lot of fun even if you're terrible at it! As evidenced by the fact that Jordan and I both remembered the game so fondly despite never having been anywhere close to show-off-able.

Other than the "golden age" cabinets (Pac-Man, Galaga, Asteroids, etc.), even incredibly popular arcade games kinda get left out of the critical discussion around video games. Why do you think that is?

JF: I’d agree with that. I think the biggest contributing factor is that, historically, console games provide more fertile soil for critical discussion. In terms of length and narrative complexity, console and PC games just give you more to work with, and have a greater opportunity to form stronger connections with the people playing them. A game like Mass Effect lends itself to that sort of critical investigation much more than something like Donkey Kong does, even if you could argue the latter has a greater cultural impact.

JD: I think also that console games, by virtue of their greater length, are meant to command more attention. Going to an arcade was (still is) supposed to be an activity where the games were part of your entertainment, but not the focus. The modern-day analog is that class of free-to-play mobile games designed more to kill time than anything else. Yeah, we don't talk about Altered Beast or House of the Dead in a critical context that much, but we also don't talk about, say, Cookie Clicker. (Although I definitely want to read the BFB book on Minesweeper!)

As part of the research of the book, did you guys dive into the competitive scene for DDR? Is it still robust this many years later? See anything cool while out at the tournies?

JF: It pains me to say, and if I’m wrong on this I know I’ll hear about it, but in Toronto where I currently live, I didn’t find any real scene to speak of. Most DDR cabinets in Canada are older models found in retro gaming bars or movie theatres. Personally, in my travels I only found one A20 cabinet at a Dave & Buster’s a two-hour transit ride from my neighbourhood. I had to bribe a friend to give me a ride there and even then, on a Saturday, I only saw two folks I would consider dedicated players. But on the other hand, I know Jessica has seen and spoken with people who organize tournaments on the Atlanta-area convention circuit, and has more optimistic takeaways than I do. None of this is to discount the fan based initiatives like Valkyrie Dimension or LIFE4, that moved tournaments and rankings online and opened them up to the widest possible player base.

JD: I was really, really lucky to stumble into a fairly vibrant Atlanta scene, which I talk about in the book (including why it's so vibrant. Spoiler: there are some truly dedicated people working to organize tournaments and social events). On an international level, there was a very brief period where non-Japanese players were being invited to -- and winning! -- Konami-sponsored tournaments, but the pandemic killed that momentum. So officially, there's no competitive infrastructure unless you're living and playing in Japan. But people are still swapping scores online! It's not uncommon for a regional group to have a Discord where people from outside the region check in -- I was hanging out in the Discord for Okashi Houston, for example -- and compare notes that way. The scene isn't as geographically limited as you might assume.

What was the most surprising fact you learned about the development of DDR while writing your book?

JF: There actually isn’t a ton of information about the making of the game itself, much of it being apocryphal or taken from the handful of interviews with Yoshihiko Ota, the original game’s producer. But the one fact that pops into my head every time I hear it again is that a team of 35 people took the game from concept to prototype in four months. I don’t even know how that happens.

The other thing, which is less about the development and more about how the game exists in the world, is the sort of tug o’ war that exists between the fans who love the game and the company that made it. The story of DDR is as much (if not more) about the people who love it, promote it, organize the tournaments, and dedicate so much time and effort to keeping the culture around the game healthy during the times when Konami didn’t seem to see it as a priority.

JD: My answer to this is, how quickly the "development of DDR" story became not just about Konami. Yes, Konami is still the manufacturer of the official cabs (and holder of all the copyrights -- our history covers a fair number of lawsuits) but the Stepmania open-source clone dates back to the early 2000s. People were making new music and stepcharts, and coming up with new ideas for the game, pretty quickly. Freestyle play, for example: we have no evidence that Konami anticipated that development.

The Nintendo Power Pad feels like the precursor to DDR. Did either of you play with it when you were younger? Was it front of mind for any of the developer's at Konami?

JF: Playing games with your feet was not an entirely new concept by the time Konami started working on the first game in 1998. Atari had the Joyboard for the 2600 and of course the Power Pad for the NES was a success for Nintendo in North America, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bemani team was at least a little inspired by what came before.

Alas! I did not have a Power Pad. But my best friend did! Saturday afternoons were spent in his family rec room, kneeling on the carpet, punching the pad as fast as we could, which is how we all played it, just admit it.

JD: I want to say I never did... my family rented games a week at a time from a now-defunct chain called Phar-Mor. (The Wikipedia entry for Phar-Mor suggests a fascinating business book that I hope got written at some point. It was basically the combination of a drop shipper and a pyramid scheme!) So we wouldn't have rented the pad as well. But did my brother and I whack the heck out of our big Advantage controller? Yes, we did.

We don't think of modern video games as involving movement, unless they're explicitly designed that way like DDR is. But when you look at competitive gaming, and players' needs to customize rigs that shave those crucial fractions of a second off their reaction time, it becomes clear that video games are very much about movement. Given that the Konami folks were already experimenting with different controllers, it's not surprising that they recognized the need for, as the saying goes, a game where you use your feet.

Reading the fascinating Boss Fight Books entry on Breakout (Pilgrim in the Microworld), I was left wondering what it is about games like DDR and Guitar Hero that inspire people to practice the fake dance/instrument every bit as hard as they would a real dance/instrument. What do you think explains that draw? Like, why not just learn the guitar or master the moonwalk?

JF: Wow, that’s a great question. On the one hand, I think both Guitar Hero and DDR approximate the experience they’re supposed to be about, rather than replicate it. I’m not sure the Venn diagram of people who can clear “Through the Fire and Flames" on expert and people who can play the same song note-perfect on guitar have very much overlap. Similarly, people playing DDR at the highest competitive levels require a degree of conditioning most people will never reach, but I don’t think it can be called “dancing” in the strictest terms (this is a tension we actually spend a bit of time on in the book). I think for some, the accomplishment comes from the unforgiving and exacting nature of the scoring: you either hit the note within the timing window or you didn’t. The challenges and successes can be measured, which can be a comfort.

JD: As someone who plays a lot of Stardew Valley and yet cannot grow tomatoes worth a damn, I'd say that video games like DDR take the learning feedback loop, simplify it, and make it much more visible, responsive, and reliable. If you're practicing dancing or playing guitar by yourself, or even with a mentor, it can be hard to tell when you're making progress. DDR tells you immediately how close you've gotten to reaching your goal. And it doesn't care how silly you look, or what kind of face you made as you were working up a sweat; it's going to remain focused on whether or not you make contact with the right sensor at the right time. It's a more forgiving learning environment. In a way, the experience of playing something like DDR or Guitar Hero is the goal for a lot of experiments in educational technology over the last couple decades -- think of Khan Academy giving you a score for completing a lesson.

But also, to pick (respectfully) on your example: DDR isn't the moonwalk! If you were an average arcade-goer in the 1990s, the moonwalk was the signature move of an awe-inspiring pop star. Being told to "master the moonwalk" would have seemed like such a reach you probably wouldn't even have started trying. (Kind of like writing a book from scratch, honestly. Though it helps to have an awesome co-author.) DDR's take on dancing is simple enough that anyone can do it. It levels the playing field, and people can be inspired on that field even if they might not be on a more demanding one. I'm answering these questions soon enough after the Olympics that memes are still circulating about Australian breaker Raygun. You could say that DDR is a space where the Rayguns of the world can thrive. Is it the most technically excellent dancing you've ever seen? No, but it doesn't need to be.

Pick up Dance Dance Revolution in paperback and ebook format today.

Q&A with Matthew S. Smith, Author of EverQuest September 16 2024

Just two days from the end of our Season 7 Kickstarter, it's time for another author Q&A! This time, DDR author Jessica Doyle interviews Matthew S. Smith about his EverQuest book. They discuss MMOs, launch drama, crunch, addiction, and the best ways to play a 25-year-old online game.

Jessica Doyle: You played EverQuest when it first came out in 1999. What was the experience like? And what made you decide to write a book about the game?

Matthew S. Smith: Playing EverQuest on release was like nothing else before or since. Stepping into an online world with no information besides what was available in the manual is something most players just can’t experience today. It was unpredictable, fresh, and exhilarating. Getting lost in a forest after dark (and I did, because my first character was a Human, which lacks night vision), was genuinely scary.

Of course, I didn’t decide to write a book until years later, around 2014 or 2015. At that time I saw some MMORPGs, like Wildstar, come and go, and also saw Bungie launch Destiny, an FPS-MMO hybrid (though it took them a long time to admit the second part). I began to realize many of the trends I was seeing started with EverQuest.

One of the stories you tell about EverQuest’s development is the horrific crunch period that immediately preceded launch—one developer was apparently put off pizza for life. Terrible working conditions at crunch time are well-known in the video-games industry now, but was that true in 1998? And did the crunches continue?

I’ve dug into the development of many mid-90s computer games for my YouTube channel, Computer Gaming Yesterday, including titles like Baldur’s Gate and Homeworld. And what I’ve learned is that, yes, in the 1990s, intense crunch was common.

Something that’s different between then and now is that in the 1990s, though, is that virtually everyone in the industry who wasn’t in an executive position was young (usually in their 20s — often, early 20s, and sometimes even late teens, though I don’t think that was true with the EverQuest team). They were energetic, didn’t have much on-the-job experience, and had less commitments in their personal life than older employees would, which made them prone to throwing everything into the game they were working on.

To be fair, in some cases, that worked out really well for them! Some of the people who worked on EverQuest made a decent living out of it, or went on to high-paying roles at other studios.

But the crunch also had its consequences. A lot of the EverQuest team was burnt out and wanted to work on a different game after the original launch. Because of that, there was a definite “changing of the guard” from the original developers to their successors, who in some cases were EverQuest players. But eventually, EverQuest’s development did reach a more reasonable pace. And that was the result of a very intentional effort by the team’s leaders to lessen the crunch, because it just was not sustainable.

You make the point that EverQuest’s launch problems, such as new players not being able to create accounts for hours on end, didn’t get the same scrutiny that a game releasing today might. Why is that? How do you think EverQuest would have been received in today’s gaming-consumer environment?

I think it comes down to the slower pace of news, and lower player expectations, at the time.

Many gamers were still getting their news from magazines at the time, and those that were publishing online had plenty of blind spots in their coverage. There was also less of a sense that fans of the hobby had to be plugged-in to news about games 24-7.

Plus, game reviews often didn’t appear until several months after release! By the time that happened, many problems were fixed.

Much of the criticism, where it did appear, came from the nascent blogosphere of ultra-passionate players: sites like Dr. Twister and Lum the Mad. But even as influential as they were in their niche, I think the vast majority of players didn’t see those sites until after they’d bought an MMORPG and started to look for deeper information about it.

Absolutely, EverQuest would be received differently if it suffered launch problems today. But also, developers were much less experienced in running online persistent games back then, and had far fewer tools to work with. So I think a team with a level of experience and budget has an easier time launching an online game today.

And we are actually seeing that happen: Embers Adrift and the upcoming Monsters & Memories are examples of MMORPGs built by small teams, something only possible with modern software tools and online infrastructure.

I thought one of the most fascinating chapters was on the idea of “EverCrack” and video-game addiction, which was a big public concern in 2000 and really isn’t now, despite statistics showing people play more video games, for longer, than they did in 2000. Are we all just addicted to video games now and not admitting it?

That observation is one reason I wanted to include this chapter. Valheim had just released around the time I was outlining the book, and that’s the kind of game where many people in the community will insist you haven’t really experienced the game unless you’ve spent 500 or 1,000 hours in it. And that viewpoint is hugely disconnected from views on gaming around 2000, where news reports often depict gamers who play for two hours a night as having a problem.

The other reason I wanted to talk about the game addiction controversy surrounding EverQuest is to highlight the real impacts, positive and negative, that can happen when a person becomes obsessive about a hobby.

The story of Shawn Woolley, who committed suicide while playing EverQuest, is one that I highlight in the book, and which I remember seeing in the paper at the time it occurred, as it caused me to reflect on how I was playing games in my personal life at the time. On the other hand, a great many people met friends and even fell in love in EverQuest, and had their lives tangibly improved forever. The EQ Fan Fairies are a great early example of how games can create community. And again, personally, games like EverQuest have brought me plenty of social connections and friends over the years.

To get back to the question - “are we all just addicted to video games now and not admitting it?” - I’m not sure there’s a broad answer to that. What counts as addiction? What’s positive, and what’s negative? It requires a personal look at how a person is playing. And that was a challenge of concluding the chapter. Because I think this debate will continue for literally the remainder of human civilization.

People can still play EverQuest, though they have to jump through some extra hoops to do it now. (That’s often true of Dance Dance Revolution now, too, by the way.) What effects does that have on the player base?

Anyone can download and play EverQuest for free on the official servers, and I think that’s the easiest and most sensible way for most people to jump into the game today. EverQuest’s official servers were also among the first to explore the idea of time-locked progression servers, and those servers become available on a yearly cadence, with the latest launching in mid-2024 as part of the game’s 25th anniversary celebration. The emulated servers, which often target older expansions, require a lot more steps, which makes them less appealing to some newcomers, but they preserve the game’s earlier incarnations.

While the variety of TLPs and emulated servers is mostly good for the game, I think EverQuest does suffer from a divided player base. Contrary to what some claim, there’s at least in the low tens of thousands of people playing EverQuest routinely. But you might not know that from the number of players you see on any one server. It’s a big community that’s spread too thin.

I’m not sure what can be done about that for EverQuest, but it’s something modern developers in charge of an MMORPG should consider as it ages. World of Warcraft is a great example, and once again it’s following in EverQuest’s footsteps. The effort to expand on World of Warcraft: Classic is already causing division inside that community.

What do you think EverQuest’s biggest legacy is? (Is it World Of Warcraft, whose developers loved EverQuest? A change in the way people approached video games? A change in the way people approached role-playing more generally? None of the above?)

I think that EverQuest contributed greatly to a change in how people engaged with video games, at least in the west.

Before EverQuest, the western games industry, and gamers themselves, seemed to subscribe to a “Hollywood” model. A game was released, enjoyed, and finished. If it was successful, it would get an expansion pack. If it was really successful, it would get some sequels. But it was ultimately something designed for a player to appreciate and then move past.

EverQuest was a game that showed, in a wide variety of ways, games can have deeper, sustained relationships with their players, and that players would pay a lot of money over the box price for the privilege. The extent of this impact surprised even the EverQuest developers: they were caught off guard by eBay auctions for in-game items and characters, because they had no idea that people would find their game so enjoyable they’d be willing to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have more fun or get ahead.

There’s a line to be drawn from EverQuest to modern live service games. Of course, that line is interrupted by other games that are more popular today, like World of Warcraft or Destiny and then Fortnite. But EverQuest was a turning point, for sure.

Q&A with James O'Connor, Author of Untitled Goose Game September 09 2024

The Season 7 Kickstarter is going strong with just one book reveal left! Today, though, we're learning more about the 2nd book of the new season, Untitled Goose Game by James O'Connor. Below, EverQuest author Matthew S. Smith interviews James about the success of the game, the state of Australian game development, and what other devs could learn from Goose Game. - Gabe Durham, BFB

Matthew S. Smith: James, you wrote the review of Untitled Goose Game for Gamespot. What made you decide you wanted to follow up the review with a book?

James O’Connor: Untitled Goose Game had been on my radar since it was announced, and as an Australian critic, I always enjoyed getting to review locally-developed games (at the time GameSpot had Australian staff that were very good at making sure that local stories were being highlighted).

Around that same time I joined the GameSpot news team, and got to report a few times on the meteoric success of Untitled Goose Game, which well and truly felt like it was taking over the world in the months that followed. I gave the game an 8/10, and liked it a lot. I found that, over the months and years that followed, I'd still often think about it fondly.

When I pitched the book to Boss Fight Books, though, my angle went beyond the game itself. I wanted to discuss Untitled Goose Game in the context of game development in Australia. Launching in late 2019 meant that Untitled Goose Game landed at the end of a turbulent decade of collapse and rebirth, where the local development scene had shifted and changed dramatically. I wanted to put the game into that context, and explore the circumstances that birthed such an enormous hit. Untitled Goose Game is one of many huge Australian-developed games made since 2010, when the local industry felt like it was falling apart in the wake of the global financial crisis.

I was glad to be able to examine the game through this lens, and the more I researched, the more it became clear that Untitled Goose Game is just a perfect fit for Boss Fight Books. I had moved into game development myself since that review was published, and learning more about the process of how this game came to be was very exciting.

Matthew: Why do you think that Untitled Goose Game, in particular, became a meteoric success?

James: I think, every now and then, a game comes along that just makes immediate sense to everyone, despite being something new.

There is just something undeniable about Untitled Goose Game, and as much as I break it down and analyze it in the book, here’s what it really boils down to: a goose causing mischief is really funny. If a goose grabs a man’s keys and dunks them in a lake, I feel sorry for the man, but somehow I’m still on the goose’s side. There’s a comedic tension House House tapped into that is recognizable in a gif, in a screenshot, in a person describing the game to you out loud.

The full answer to this question is, of course, more complicated and interesting, which is why I wrote a book about it!

Matthew: What was happening in Australian game development in 2019 – why was it shifting?

James: 2019 itself isn’t necessarily a point where there was a grand shift, as much as it was a strong year for Australian game development (some other Australian games released that year: City of Brass, Void Bastards, Amid Evil, Frog Detective 2, the excellent expanded Switch version of Assault Android Cactus).

But it’s also a year that, in retrospect, feels like the end of a growth period that had seen the Australian games industry rebuild itself after the Global Financial Crisis had shuttered so many studios – and resulted in the formation of many newer, smaller teams, perfectly positioned to create games for the iPhone App Store. There’s a chapter in the book that digs into this in more detail!

Alongside the local context, game development was a field that was opening up to more people than ever. Teams no longer had to develop their own engines, indie development success stories were piling up, and new opportunities were materializing, like releasing a game on Nintendo’s hugely popular Switch console, or capitalizing on Epic’s hunger for exclusives.

Was Untitled Goose Game a reason for your decision to pursue game development?

James: No, funnily enough! I have worked primarily in games as a narrative designer.

I think Untitled Goose Game is an elegant example of wordless narrative design, but as a writer and a lover of dialogue, the big inspirations for me in the year I transitioned into game development were titles like Paradise Killer and Hades (as well as plenty of older games...Ace Attorney is a series I always point to as a huge inspiration).

Having said that, it was a game that made me excited about being a game maker in Australia and enmeshing myself further in that world. There have been some huge Australian game development success stories, and I think there will be many more in the future, too. This is the first Boss Fight Books title about a game developed in Australia, but I doubt it will be the last.

Matthew: Now that Untitled Goose Game has been out for a few years, are you aware of any newcomers you think might have been inspired by its design, or which build on it?

James: Recently Panic published Thank Goodness You're Here, which feels in many ways spiritually connected to Untitled Goose Game. It's another game about being a bit rude in a quaint English village.

There have definitely been other short games about funny animals, too. Little Kitty, Big City was a good recent example of a game that felt at least Untitled Goose Game adjacent.

But I think developers have known better than to make the "it's Untitled Goose Game but with this specific tweak" games you might expect. Maybe attempts have been made and abandoned!

Matthew: What were some of the lessons that you, personally, took away from Untitled Goose Game, and have you tried to apply them in your work?

James: A big takeaway, for me, is that you should have faith in the ideas that feel good to you.

That's not to say that the funny joke idea you threw out is going to make you wildly successful. I think the lesson here is about artistic and creative fulfillment more than it's about financial success.

But I think it takes a lot of courage, sometimes, to look at your own ideas and say "this one is really good, actually,” and then to pursue it. 

Q&A with Tommy Wallach, Author of Outer Wilds September 04 2024

Our Season 7 Kickstarter just hit $30k, which means it's time to offer up some interviews with our new authors. Since it's Outer Wilds Week, let's start with that! Below, Untitled Goose Game author James O'Connor interviews Tommy Wallach about Outer Wilds, time loops, "best game ever" convos, and that other game that kinda sounds like Outer Wilds. - Gabe Durham, BFB

James O'Connor: Do you remember the first time you encountered Outer Wilds? Were you excited for it ahead of launch?

Tommy Wallach: I definitely didn't know anything about it prior to launch, but I remember downloading it not too long after it came out, just because the reviews were so effusive. At that point, I wasn't really involved in game design myself, so I came at everything purely as a player/fan. So when I hit that first wall a couple hours in, where you haven't found anything that coheres into a story yet, and the ship is still super hard to control, and you keep falling into the center of Brittle Hollow and getting spat out at the White Hole Station, I just quit. If it wasn't immediately fun, I usually wasn't there for it!

You told me that it took you a few goes to get into Outer Wilds properly. What kept you coming back to it?

Purely word-of-mouth, really. One friend in particular, a musical theater writer named Zack Zadek, kept telling me it was his favorite video game of all time, and he's a smart dude. I'd also begun building escape rooms at that point, so I'd become more interested in game design, which is to say I'd become more forgiving of experiences that weren't immediately (or sometimes ever) "enjoyable" if they were doing interesting things. The more I read about Outer Wilds, the more I realized that it was tackling, and maybe even succeeding, at solving some of the thorniest issues of game design (diegetic "puzzles," integrating narrative and gameplay, creating a genuinely moving experience, etc.).

I love a time loop story. How do you feel about them, generally speaking?

I talk about this in the book, but time loops solve one of the central ludonarrative (i.e. the conflict between narrative and gameplay) problems with most video games. As dark as it is, when Super Mario dies, we're supposed to believe that he's actually, you know, dead. Sure, he may have three lives, but after those are gone, we have to assume that version of Mario is now six feet under, pushing up the daisies. So it's just pure illogic/fantasy when we can start the game over and try again. What's great about time loops is that they turn the traditional gameplay loop (live, die, repeat) sensible; it's now part of the story of the game. In most games, your poor gameplay is punished with death...but death isn't real! Thus the emotional stakes are kinda fundamentally undermined. Time loop games dodge this inconsistency, and can often tell more interesting and grounded stories as a result.

Outer Wilds is one of those rare contemporary games that comes up in a lot of "best games ever made" conversations. Without spoiling anything, do you think there's something particular to this game beyond it being well-designed that leads to this level of excitement from players?

Even if they don't know it, people are desperate for video games to mature. As Tom Bissell put it in his seminal book on gaming, "most games are about attacking a childish world with an adult mind." What's exciting about Outer Wilds (beyond the incredible reconciliation of gameplay and narrative) is that it offers up a far more mature world than any other game I know of. Not mature in the way it's meant when it appears on the cover of a game box, (i.e. get ready for tons of gore, a bunch of gruff men shouting obscenities, and the occasional sex scene taking place at the awkward nadir of the uncanny valley). The game is actually mature. It addresses deep questions in a deep way, which is to say it provides no glib answers or cutesy platitudes. It's genuinely moving. Most games that have achieved this thus far do it only by pressing a particular hot-button issue, meaning it might be incredibly powerful for some and leave others cold. Outer Wilds is universalist in its appeal.

I should also say that the curiosity-based gameplay of Outer Wilds is more or less unique. There are no way points or prescriptive journal entries. No items or powers. No progress beyond the slow acquisition of knowledge through observation and deduction. It's satisfying in a way no other game I've ever played is.

Outer Wilds tells its story in a non-linear fashion. When researching this book, did you encounter any player experiences that wildly differed from your own?

I design and own escape rooms here in Los Angeles, and I never get tired of watching groups go through them. It's staggering how differently certain brains (and combinations of brains) tackle the same set of seemingly simple problems and puzzles. Probably the starkest manifestation of this came when I watched famed game designer Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) play through pieces of Outer Wilds on his YouTube channel. In one segment, he notices a small piece of set decoration that's spiral-shaped, and then attempts to use that spiral as if it were the key to a puzzle. He did that because his own game The Witness is designed in this sort of way--very spatial and arbitrary. He simply wasn't able to understand that Outer Wilds is completely logical, so there'd be no reason that a random piece of a stairway bannister would have some greater purpose.

What's your personal favorite planet in the game?

While it's probably the least interesting from a design perspective, Timber Hearth is definitely the most pleasant place to hang out. And the first time you dive down into one of the geysers and learn the evolutionary history of the Hearthians is revelatory.

We've both written books about games that came out in 2019. Looking at the year, it's easy to imagine books about Disco Elysium, Death Stranding, Control, Sekiro, or many other releases from that year. Do you have any thoughts about why 2019 was such a hot year for interesting games?

Wow. I got nothing. I tend to be skeptical of studying trends. I think the world is chaos and madness, and this kind of thing just happens. (It's sorta like the way people tend to vastly underestimate how often long runs of heads or tails will crop up in a thousand flips of a coin.) That being said, I think Disco Elysium has by far the best writing of any game I've ever played, and I think Sekiro is the high point of the FromSoftware design philosophy (not the flabby-ass Elden Ring!). So I gotta agree...amazing year.

What would you say to anyone who accidentally bought this because they thought it was about The Outer Worlds?

You dodged a bullet.

*

Check out the Outer Wilds book in the Season 7 Kickstarter!

Q&A with Kyle Orland, Author of Minesweeper March 03 2023

 

 

Kyle Orland is the author of a new book about the decades-spanning Windows staple Minesweeper, currently funding on Kickstarter. I caught up with Kyle over email to discuss 90s gaming stigma, unlikely book topics, and his own history with the game. - Gabe Durham

 

Your book is historical, and only barely touches on your personal history with Minesweeper. Could you tell us about how you got into the game?

What made you think of Minesweeper, years later, for the topic of a book?

Q&A with Bob Mackey, Author of Day of the Tentacle March 01 2023

 

Bob Mackey is the author of a new book about the PC classic Day of the Tentacle, currently funding on Kickstarter. I caught up with Bob over email to discuss adventure games, animation, comedy, and puzzle design. - Gabe Durham

 

Could you tell us about how you first discovered Day of the Tentacle? Were you already playing a lot of adventure games at the time?

 

After playing and falling in love with the Maniac Mansion NES port, I became an adventure game fan with no real access to a PC: the sole platform where the genre thrived. So when Day of the Tentacle appeared at my local game store in 1993 (in its eye-catching five-sided box), I absolutely coveted it—and should have bought it anyway, seeing as it's now an incredibly rare collector's item I don't have the guts to drop several hundred bucks on three decades later. We didn't get a family PC until 1996, and as soon as it entered our home I found myself catching up with 15 years of adventure games. Of course, Day of the Tentacle was one of the first ones I jumped into.

 

In the book, you hit on the growing pains that the point-and-click adventure genre went through before  Day of the Tentacle came out. How did the DotT team benefit from the lessons of the past?

 

Day of the Tentacle was the first project led by directors Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, two guys who had previously worked directly under Ron Gilbert on the first two Monkey Island games. This duo of releases essentially codified the rules all (good) adventure games adhere to, and Schafer and Grossman took these lessons learned and applied them to everything within Day of the Tentacle. The result is an experience that feels more refined than everything in the genre that came before it, and one that remains incredibly playable today.

 

Making a legit funny video game is famously very hard. Why do you think Dave Grossman and Tim Shafer succeeded where so many have failed?

 

Grossman and Schafer realized the limitations of technology at the time, which is why so much of the DotT's humor isn't reliant on dialogue—in fact, voice acting entered the equation much later during the production. Of course, the dialogue is funny, and they nabbed some great actors to fill the roles, but the awkward pauses between spoken lines in games of this era couldn't necessarily sell jokes as intended. So DotT makes the right choice to rely on its visuals to communicate humor to an extreme other adventure games of the early '90s weren't attempting.

 

A lot of your work in recent years has been podcasting about The Simpsons and other animated shows, and Day of the Tentacle is often praised for its distinct animation style. Could you tell a little about the DotT team's approach? And how do you think they were able to pull it off with so much less space and frames than their TV & film counterparts?

 

Day of the Tentacle came about at a time when very few games had any formal sense of art direction. (Hey, 1993 was 30 years ago.) Earlier games featured cartoony visuals, of course, but DotT had an actual mission statement: "Let's make this look and move like a Chuck Jones cartoon." The artists behind the game closely studied classic animated shorts of the era, resulting in the most Chuck-Jones-like production possible at a resolution of 320 by 200. And they were able to make it work on just a handful of floppy discs using the same techniques of classic animation: strong poses and silhouettes that communicate everything you need to know about a character. (Not to mention stylized backgrounds that rely more on file-size-friendly abstraction than photorealism.) 

 

The puzzles in DotT are so goofy and clever. Do you have a favorite? And do you have one that you still have to look up online?

 

I don't want to completely give away all the steps, but there's a certain puzzle where you have to transform a cat into a skunk via a method that would feel right at home in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon. This isn't my favorite puzzle in terms of design, but it's the most evocative of how Day of the Tentacle is aspiring to be an interactive classic cartoon. And it felt absolutely natural to me as a kid who grew up watching close to 10 hours of Warner Bros. shorts a week on at least four different channels.

 

After growing up a Day of the Tentacle fan and working on this book project for years, there's absolutely no puzzle for the game I haven't memorized. If you see me on the street, feel free to ask for a hint!

 

There's been a resurgence of adventure games in recent years, including new games and remasters of old games. Have you kept up with the genre? Any games you'd recommend?

Q&A with Mike Sholars, Author of PaRappa the Rapper February 09 2023

 

 

Mike Sholars is the author of a new book about the 1997 PS1 classic PaRappa the Rapper, currently funding on Kickstarter. I caught up with Mike over email to discuss games writing, demo discs, video game music concerts, and the rapping dog mantras. - Gabe Durham

 

Why was PaRappa the Rapper THE game you wanted to write a book about? Were there other games you also considered pitching to us?

 

Short answer? The Chicken Level Song had been stuck in my head for decades, and this was the best way to do something about it. But taking a step back, I had to do a lot of introspection. I've written articles about individual topics, games, whatever. I've written some aggressively long articles. But a book is a conversation, and I wanted to make sure it was a good one. There are games out there I could ramble about for tens of thousands of words, but it would be painful for everyone involved. Something like Super Mario RPG would be a great example of that; lots of thoughts and feelings, but I knew I'd struggle to provide big ideas or new historical research. And I also didn't want to go Full Journalist Mode; I wanted to make sure the reader knew I had passion and a personal connection to the game. My mind went to the Yakuza games; I love them and find their development history fascinating, but my own insight would be at arm's length.

 

PaRappa felt like the perfect mix; I'm a forever fan, but I felt like its story wasn't common knowledge when compared to something like Doom or Super Mario Bros. At the same time, I knew there was a universal story here: This decades-long arc of a game that invented music games as we know them, but doesn't get the credit. Like Searching For Sugar Man or The Sparks Brothers, but also written by an anxious Millennial who turned his first published book into a running joke about Aerosmith. (And I'd do it again.)

 

You mention in the book that as a kid you read video game mags obsessively, and as an adult you've written essays for a lot of good video game and pop culture sites. What do you look for in good writing about games? And how has that changed over time?

 

Despite spending all my formative years as a know-it-all, my favourite feeling in the world is being shown something new. When someone you trust (a friend, a critic you follow, someone on social media) can express not just why a work of art is good, but how it made them feel and think, that's magic. When I was devouring GamePro and EGM issues as a kid, game criticism was mostly surface level; more product review than At the Movies, you know? And there's absolutely a place for that; I have had my mind changed plenty of times because I thought a game was going to play like one thing, and in reality, it was something else. We've never had more options when it comes to objective coverage of video games, and I don't see that changing. So what I look for in good games writing, and what I try to do with my own work, is take that next step, and do my best Roger Ebert impression.

(Did I just spend 100 words paraphrasing that one monologue from Ratatouille? Oui.)

 

A Marques Brownlee-style approach to reviewing things is incredibly valuable when you're on the fence about committing your time and money to something. But what about after you've watched the movie, read the book, or played the game? When you're sitting there with your thoughts and the end credits scrolling in the darkness, where can you take that energy? That's good games writing, for me; it's something I can take with me and turn around in my brain. It doesn't need to be full of spoilers, but I want it to go deeper. I love when writers are brave enough to explain what they brought into their experience with a game, because it shapes what they took away from it. Because games journalism and pop culture criticism outlets are facing the exact same money-gatekeeper problems that drove me away from mainstream journalism, the biggest change I've seen over time is in how many writers are encouraged and supported in those kinds of deeper dives. You can't write that type of piece around a week-long embargo review period (although everyone does their best, and many of them are miracle workers), and a game will rarely be as click-worthy as it is during its launch window. This type of writing (and these kinds of writers!) are often migrating towards YouTube, creating multi-hour video essays that I adore.

 

But that's the heart of it: I think games are relevant past their first month of release, and I don't think games writing should be treated like it has an expiry date. You may have noticed this when I wrote a book about a game released in 1997.

 

You also mention in the book that a demo disc was how you first encountered the game, or at least the first level. Was that true of a lot of people you've talked to? And if so, how did that one demo disc find so many eager players?

 

I have no way of proving this, but it feels very accurate. Everyone who knows a bit about PaRappa remembers Chop Chop Master Onion. In some ways, I think it's just that the whole world was smaller at that time; console gaming was split between two companies, all games were enjoyed through physical copies, and pirating media was a dark art that few had the resources or desire to master for themselves. And demo discs were cheap/free. There's also certainly a novelty aspect to all of this: On that same demo disc, you can play Cool Boarders 2. We were already at a point where multiple 3D snowboarding simulators existed, and Cool Boarders wasn't even the best one. But a voice-acted cartoon starring a rapping dog? It was fresh then, it's fresh now.

 

What is something you learned about PaRappa while researching and writing the book that surprised you?

 

There were so many things, I don't even know where to begin. I learned that a huge amount of the preliminary art was sent via fax machine from Rodney Greenblat (in New York) to NaNaOn-Sha (in Japan). But we're talking mid-90s fax machines here; they were in black and white. So Rodney essentially turned all of his concept art into a paint-by-numbers, which the team in Japan would then decipher and put into the game. One of the most colourful games of its era started in monochrome!

 

I learned that both Greenblat and Masaya Matsuura were relatively new to game design, and operated without a ton of oversight from Sony. The PlayStation was a gamble, and every option was viable. That wouldn't last long; even by the end of the 90s, the idea of what games were supposed to be like had a big influence on Um Jammer Lammy and PaRappa 2.

 

Finally, I learned about Ryu Watabe, who might be the coolest person ever? He was the backbone of this project. Bilingual in Japanese and English; left a corporate job to pursue his love of hip hop. He penned all the lyrics on the fly, working with Matsuura and Gabin Itou. He laid down the demo tracks for every character in the game. And that's his voice as Chop Chop Master Onion. Dude put in the work, and I did my best to sing his praises.

 

I'm obsessed with this YouTube video you shared with me of the PaRappa rappers and singers performing their songs live (along with songs from Um Jammer Lammy). I want to be at this concert! Do you think a cover band who performs songs from the PaRappa/Lammy trilogy would be successful? How much should they charge?

 

Yo, I want to be at that concert. On a very practical level, that is footage from a Sony marketing event; most of the crowd is games media and/or people affiliated with the games. But the vibes are immaculate (and once again, Ryu Watabe is objectively dope as hell). But...PaRappa is weird when you just consider the songs. Almost every music game that followed it treats player input as the trigger that makes music happen; it you don't press a button, the song stops, or your score goes down. But if you mess up in DDR, the song keeps going. PaRappa and Lammy are more like Simon; the song is built around a pattern that the player immediately repeats. It's fun and intuitive when you play it, but it's kind of ridiculous when you do it live.

 

So, I think it would have to be a more general cover. And we're in a golden age of amazingly talented musicians taking the bones of game music and turning them into compositions and performances that are amazing as a cover and in their own right. I'm talking about groups like the J-Music Ensemble, Mariachi Entertainment System, The Oneups, GameChops, and the 8-Bit Big Band. That last artist won a goddamn Grammy for a Kirby Superstar cover last year.

 

Somewhere out there, a punk band an a jazz/hip hop duo are planning out their Lammy and PaRappa projects. I can't wait to hear them.

 

There is a contagious optimism to the character of PaRappa. This optimism scans as authentic in a way that sneaks past my defenses and warms my frosty heart. Why do you think that is? What's the difference between the cheap sentimentality, sometimes called "toxic positivity" these days, and PaRappa's "gotta believe" mentality?

Blair Farrell Interviews Philip J Reed about Resident Evil August 09 2022

This week, we are remembering friend and author Philip J Reed, author of our book on Resident Evil. Blair Farrell's 2020 interview with Philip for the site Electric Bento went offline when the site was shuttered. We are happy to republish the interview here with thanks to Blair and Electric Bento.

1)      Blair Farrell: To start things off, let us get to know you. How long have you been writing?

Philip J Reed: Pretty much as long as I’ve been alive.  I’ve always enjoyed reading, so it was nothing to pick up a pen and try it myself.  I was terrible for many, many years. But that’s important. If you want to write, be terrible for many, many years and be okay with that!  You’ll gradually get less terrible, and you’ll probably even get good at some point.  I studied literature in college, where I was exposed to many more influences and worked under instructors who deliberately challenged me to further my abilities.  I cannot emphasize enough how important and helpful that was.

Professionally, we’re looking at around 15 years of writing.  I’ve written for a number of different sites, magazines, and other outlets.  Nintendo Life is what brought me into the games criticism fold; I was fortunate enough to be part of the initial wave of writers for that site.  I was with them for around seven years before striking out on my own.

2)      What is your history with the Resident Evil series? What is it about the franchise that made you want to write a book about it?

My Resident Evil experience goes back to its very first Western release, pre-Director’s Cut. It was the first PlayStation game I ever played, and I hated it.  It seemed like a clunkier ripoff of Alone in the Dark, which was already pretty clunky to begin with.

I’m almost certain my friend brought the game over just because he knew it would scare the hell out of me, and not because he thought I’d enjoy it.  After he left that night, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about the game.  We hadn’t made it very far.  I saw the dogs crash through the windows, I got pecked to death by crows in the art gallery, I got crushed by the ceiling...but that was about it.  And that was more than enough to get me wondering about what other horrific secrets the Spencer Mansion held.

I popped into and out of the series over the years, most notably when the first game was remade for the GameCube, and my appreciation has grown consistently.  I think it says a lot that the original game, which scared me and angered me and frustrated me, still kept me coming back for more.

3)      When did you pitch Resident Evil to Boss Fight? Describe what the process was like and how long it took from pitch to final product

I pitched in early 2018, and if I remember correctly it was accepted and I signed the contract in May of that year.  Gabe, the head of Boss Fight Books, called me and we chatted about the pitch, about what he was looking for, about timelines and so on.  He believed in this book from the start and that was a big source of encouragement.

The first draft, which was extremely rough and mainly consisted of me getting everything on paper that I wanted to flesh out and cover properly, took me a couple of months.  From there it was a lot of fact finding, rewriting, discovering new directions for the book to take, and working with Michael P. Williams, Boss Fight’s superhuman researcher.  He’d help me dig up just about anything I needed, and he’d do it in the blink of an eye.  I’m pretty sure he’s part robot but I don’t want to rat him out.  He and I spent probably a year going back and forth on drafts and concepts, and anything I did he was able to find a way to elevate it.  I’d take something as far as I could take it, and he’d push me just a bit further.  It was a remarkably beneficial relationship.

We landed on a “finished” draft in January of this year, I think, and it's just been a matter of polishing and refining it since.

4)      What can readers expect from your take on the source material?

They can expect to be taken on a journey from frustration through begrudging admiration all the way to genuine love.  I try to use the game’s trip through the Spencer Mansion as a way of tracing the development of my own understanding of horror in general.  It’s amazing how instructive that game can be.  Lots of folks remember it for its sillier moments, and that’s completely fair.  The game gets quite silly many times over.  But if you’re willing to push a little further and look at what it’s actually doing, how it’s accomplishing its particular goals, it’s often masterful.  And that’s what the book does.  It walks you through all of these moments like little exhibits, and we take a fun little journey of love and understanding together.

5)      Resident Evil is an incredibly popular, and long running, series. What will make your book stand out against other creators who have also produced articles and videos about the game? Are there perhaps any teases you can let us in on?

It’s funny, because it seems like so many people discuss the game and the series, but everybody’s point of view is unique.  If you watch 50 videos about Super Mario Bros. or Mega Man, you’ll hear a lot of repetition.  That isn’t really the case with Resident Evil. The Sphere Hunter will do these great, personal reflections that are just bursting with love and heart.  Avalanche Reviews will do a more detached retrospective with an emphasis on technical performance and the game’s ports. SinglePlayerNacho will do an entire lore video about a corpse you find on the floor that isn’t there when you come back. Dante Ravioli will do a video in which he sees if he can kill the chainsaw man with an egg.

My point is that Resident Evil, for whatever reason, is so vastly open to interpretation that new voices nearly always have new things to say.  I love everybody I listed above, and my discussion of the game is also nothing like theirs.  I approach it as someone who has grown to love horror – the best and worst of horror – over the years.  I critique it and analyze its blocking and direction the way I would a film.  I even track down the actors and voice actors who made Resident Evil the closest thing to a playable horror film we’d ever had, so that I could construct for the first time the complete story of those recording sessions.  That’s something else the book offers that I don’t think any video or article can:  comprehensiveness.  You get the entire story in one place, and I’m honored I am able to provide that.

As far as teases go, and what also sets this book apart from any other video or article, is the fact that it contains interviews – consisting almost exclusively of new information – with nearly every known actor and voice actor in the game.  There are two sad exceptions:  one who passed away and one who declined to be interviewed.  But otherwise, this is the most complete story we as fans have ever had about Resident Evil's notorious performances.

6)      What were some of the more challenging things to research while writing Resident Evil?

This might be an even better question than you realize! There is so much misinformation about this game on the internet. Constantly I would stumble across something that seemed interesting, and I’d try to validate it as fact.  So I’d go backward from wherever I found it, trace it through various repetitions over the years, and discover that it originated as someone’s theory on some long-dead web forum.  It was never a fact to begin with, but people read it, repeated it, and now they “know” it, even though it’s not true. That was profoundly frustrating for me, and I wasn’t alone.  When I interviewed the actors from the game, they took the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions themselves.

Part of this is due to the era in which the game was released; video games were still not taken seriously, and the haunted-mansion zombie game wasn’t going to buck that trend.  A lot of definitive records of the development process simply don’t exist because nobody cared enough to keep them.  That’s okay, but I think we as people and fans do have a responsibility to separate fact from fiction when we write about the game.  Perpetuating fictions does a lot of harm to the folks trying to piece together the facts.

7)      Will your book mostly look at the 1996 original, or will it also touch upon the beloved 2002 remake?

Mainly about the original, but I definitely wanted to drill into bits of the remake as well. I think the remake is a genuinely fascinating game in its own right, and the Lisa Trevor stuff is still, to this day, my favorite thing in the entire franchise. It takes something that was touched upon in the original (“These monsters were once real people. See?  Here’s someone’s diary…”) and brings it to the saddest, scariest, most unnerving extreme.  It’s not just good for a horror game; it’s good horror period.

8)      Finally, where can people find your work on the internet, and is there a proposed release window for Resident Evil? 

The book is finished, so anyone who pre-orders it through the Kickstarter can expect to receive it in August.  There’s the standard COVID caveat that things could change in the interim, but the book is as ready as it can be prior to printing and distribution!

You can find my work at TripleJump on YouTube, where I write for the two funniest guys on the internet.  I also have my own site at noiselesschatter.com, which is full of critical essays about film, games, books, and every episode of ALF.