Issue : Games : Her Story

Her Story is a game about narrative.

I never learned to spot a liar. I always felt allotting time to sussing out a lie less efficient than sorting out what someone wanted. I figured lies to be only shortcuts a person uses to get to what they want. I figured a lie and the truth are both going to the same place, one just takes longer than the other.

Up until my current job my best test bed for this theory was independent pharmaceuticals. Everybody wanted the same thing, they had different names and containers, but it was all basically the same thing. It would be a cold foggy morning near the first or fifteenth. It would be a park, or a porch, or a random slab of sidewalk near an industrial neighborhood. There would be shuffling things around, they would pass by once or twice, they would approach and ask for a light, and then the story would start.

"Wife just left, I figure I got nothing to live for," "It's not for me, I got a big party going on tonight and I just want everybody to be chill," "I can't afford med's and I'm not gonna get any better, this is my last option."

After the first couple of days you never overtly ask for a backstory. A simple "How you been?"can establish a rapport that is hard to walk back when they wind up short. They begin to just start talking, about the weather, about the bus ride. I was the type of guy to love a good yarn so I indulged them, besides, outside of sunflower seeds and comic books I had nothing else to do.

It was always the same story, Man In Hole, which was sad. The man out of hole portion was supposed to happen when I give them whatever they happened to be looking for. I knew I had a whole bag of "Hole," and was not the person to be telling any story. I was a vending machine, it would be a better endeavor explaining roaming charges to a Verizon customer rep.

But hey, I figured they needed, it, I had the time, balance to the world. One guy had the best story, he believed that he was born in a crack. I felt I knew where he was going at the time and I let him know I appreciated his mother as well. He corrected me and let me know that he had been born in a fissure in the earth and the warmth the products give help him survive the harsh over-world environment. I feel like Her Story is a great game, I feel like I had a better ending to this story.

Anyway, Hope information is enjoying the vodka and Shchi! Sup Ruskies where you been? Also I have no idea, but I know it ain't gonna be at Ibaza, shit's expensive! Also speakers are expensive also invoices also JERBZ. ...Ibiza, have I been saying it wrong this whole time?

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Stump

Issue : Games : Imagine Dragons

That Dragon, Cancer is a Game about Mortality.

A long time ago I was a kid very used to hospitals. Any kid who's parent works in a hospital is a kid that gets used to hospitals. There is always a pager beep in the middle of the night, and there are never enough babysitters.

So a kid get's used to the smell of pine-sol, gets used to vending machine hot pockets, and gets used to sitting in uncomfortable chairs waiting for someone to take you home, understanding it's probably not going to be the person that brought you there. It was cool with me because I didn't have any friends and I could bring my Nintendo and hook it up in any vacant room and play, which is what I would have been doing anyway.

The only other recurring children in the building were the cancer kids. When they found out I had a system available the would search me out. I felt comfortable around them because I knew the deal, they would be around for a while, and if they were gone, they were gone. It was a very low risk investment for me, which allowed me to open up more than I usually would.

One thing I know is that cancer kids love to curse. When their parents weren't in the room it was a constant stream of  "fucks," "shit's," and "suck a butts" coming out of them. When the parents were in the room the all inadvertently clammed up, the parents were always in mourning, and the kids were too nice to tell them to chill the fuck out because they were alive right now and only had so much time. All except the girl that turned out to be my first crush.

I had zero chance against her, she carried herself almost exactly like Wednesday. None of my tricks worked on her. She looked upon all of the other kids like patrons of the Titty Twister bar before the vampires were revealed. I felt this unmistakable need for her to like me, and she gave no indication that I was anything but a rude entitled little snot and let me know as much.

Her dad was some kind of cop. The guy hated me, he hated me because of the way I looked at her, he hated the way she looked at me, he hated that I saw him in his car crying that one time and asked him what is wrong. It was apparent he sat her down one day and explained life to her in a rush.

He brought her home to pass, there was nothing else the hospital could do for her. I wrote her until she left, she wrote and said she liked me, I invited her to the skating rink, I didn't even like skating at the time, just wanted an excuse to hold her hand.

I didn't run into another cancer kid until much later, only to find them as annoying as ever. I have yet to finish That Dragon, Cancer. I have tried twice, once during PAX, I had to walk away, and once during test at my day job where I had to stop once again at the same place. The same impossible, painful, place. I hope information finishes. Also JERBZ.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : Games : Stardust

Issue : Games : Insert a Synonym

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

Westerado DB is a game about vengeance.

Gunslingers were the Crips of the old west. Imagine the terror a rancher felt seeing a group of cowboys riding up to his homestead. He knows he is in the middle of nowhere, law enforcement would never get there in time. And if they did, who would they side with? Should their intentions be bad he is the only thing standing between them and his family.

Who would a homesteader have to be to address whatever threat was rolling up? Seems a shame we tell the rustlers story and not the ranchers more times than not. Westerado is a great story because its both in the same person.

It's a great game, has this oddly satisfying combat system and open world style that makes you forget the graphics after the first couple objectives. There is some unknown big bad to find who is revealed through descriptions of the townsfolk. How you obtain that information is up to you.

The games good, you should play it.

Anyway (What? Yeah that's it. After a CES like that I've earned a phone in) I had a few questions on the subject so I hope information is clear on my stance.

Bill Cosby is not my dad, I'm not the one betraying black people, he is, as well as betraying all men. And for the record I didn't like him and his pedantic confused pretentious bullshit dogma before, now I  lament the legacy he could have left. So yeah, fuck Bill Cosby and if you are down with rape fuck you too. My office is always open for feedback. Also JERBZ.

The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Insert an Antonym