Moral Ambiguity and Improvised Nunchucks: My Review of “Dex”

As promised, (or threatened, depending on how you look at it,) here at last is my review of Dex! Dex is the brainchild of Czech indie publisher Dreadlocks Ltd, which describes it as a “2D, side-scrolling, open-world cyberpunk roleplaying game with a focus on exploration and non-linear gameplay.” This is spot-on: Dex makes very innovative use of the limited side-scroller format by combining questing, combat, role-play, arcade gaming, and open exploration. In fact, it comes dangerously close to succumbing to the pitfalls of trying to be all things to all gamers, but it manages to balance multiple elements effectively for an engaging experience that feels smoothly integrated.

The story centers around Dex, a young woman living in the futuristic city of Harbor Prime, who awakes one morning to find herself being pursued by a gang of militarized assassins. An ethereal figure named Raycast appears on her computer screen and directs her to a safe house in the run-down district of Fixer’s Hope, where she is introduced to Decker, an ex-hacker who takes her under his wing. It is soon revealed that Dex has unique attributes, including the ability to project herself into cyberspace directly “without a jack”, and superhuman combat skills that she can further hone through the use of trans-human “augmentations.” We discover that she poses a major threat to the controlling corporation of Harbor Prime because she is an avatar of Kether, a draconian artificial intelligence program that they lost control of at one time but is that’s currently being held in check by…um…okay to be honest, that whole part of the plot is still a little muddled for me. I don’t really understand what Dex’s role in this is, nor do I fully have a grasp on the somewhat garbled Matrixy logic of the whole “projecting into cyberspace” thing. But no matter; there is plenty more going on.  Throughout her adventures in the districts of Harbor Prime, Dex runs into a number of eccentric characters, all who try to rope her into various, at times morally questionable missions. As you complete quests, you have the opportunity to upgrade Dex’s skills in combat, hacking, lock picking, shooting, and even persuasion.

The hand-to-hand combat is smooth and fun, and so far I’ve found it to be quite entertaining. The various thugs and gangsters are colorfully drawn and have their own tricks, including bike chains wielded as improvised nunchucks, and some pretty heavy knockout punches. You can pack a handgun, too, but I’ve found that guns are far more useful for shooting out security cameras and turrets than taking down thugs, and with ammo being pricy, I’ve started saving mine for that, and the occasional rogue security guard. The questing is technically non-linear, but there is a particular order the quests must be done in to optimize your rewards and skills points and to build on other plot branches. The voice acting is overall quite good, but jarringly uneven with some characters. The world is visually interesting and evocative, the quests and dialogue are well-written, and the storylines are intriguing and unusual. Getting needed cash and supplies such as stimulant pills and ammo can be a challenge, and keeping up on healing gets expensive as you advance through the game, so plan well, steal freely, and sell everything you don’t need. (If you play your cards right, you can score a discount at Hank’s Guns.)

Overall, the game is very absorbing and enjoyable. But it has one fatal flaw that drags this otherwise great experience down: By far, the most frustrating and infuriating aspect of Dex is the hacking. When hacking is required, Dex basically throws you into a mini-arcade game, which is maddeningly difficult, slow, and costly in terms of character health and the pricey boosts needed to beat back the attacking viruses. After iron-willed determination, I did manage to complete one important hacking quest to get a much needed upgrade, but it was hair-pullingly difficult and I rage-quit more than once. After scouring various Dex message boards for hacking tips, it seems that I’m not the only who has an issue with this “feature” of Dex. It either needs to be made skippable, or able to be played on an easier setting for uncoordinated non-twitch gamers like me. Dreadlocks, please fix this, because it’s wrecking an otherwise great experience!

Overall, I would give Dex three out of five bionic limbs. It’s innovative, although not revolutionary, entertaining, clever and has a great story. It’s also a great way to get your feet wet if you’re a non-gamer, so why not give it a shot?

--Kristen McHenry

Buddy and the Black Death, Minecraft Vortex, Fitness Nut (Not)

I promised a Buddy update last week, so here goes: We recently experienced what I refer to as the Era of the Black Death. About two weeks ago, Buddy burst through the screen door on the deck at around 9:00 p.m., triumphantly bearing a giant black rat in his jaws. He marched over and flung it onto his “cat bed”—a big sheet of packing paper that he commandeered from an Amazon box and now calls home. He started crowing triumphantly and prancing around, exuberant with hunting glory. Meanwhile Mr. Typist and I were staring in horror at the stiff, dead rodent and already beginning a silent debate over who was going to remove it from the apartment. I, driven more by blind panic than quick thinking, grabbed a paper towel and thrust it into Mr. Typist’s hands before he could object. He whisked the rat away, to Buddy’s immediate outrage and disappointment. To distract him, I snatched one of his stuffed toys, rubbed some catnip on it, and threw it down in place of the rat—you know, the old “dead-rat-stuffed-animal-switcharoo” trick, but he wasn’t fooled in the least. He grew frenzied with panic over his missing trophy, sniffing and scratching at the paper and emitting sounds that were the verbal equivalent of “What the bloody hell???” It took a half hour to calm him down. To add insult to injury, it’s common knowledge that you’re supposed to compliment cats when they bring home dinner, so we also had to pet him and say nice things.

We naively figured this was a one-off incident, but nope. It was repeated no less than four times within the span of a week, with only slight variations on the aforementioned scenario. I have no idea where all of these rodents are coming from. At any rate, I think Buddy finally figured out that when he brings in prey, we steal it, because the rat delivery service has stopped, at least for the moment. Thank God. Otherwise, Buddy is just being Buddy...taking 22-hours naps on our good Pendleton blanket, scamming extra meals, and vocally complaining about the deficiencies in our efforts to entertain him on demand. Humans are so lame.

*Sigh*. Okay, I have a confession to make. I didn’t really want to bring this up, but it has loomed large in my reality the last week or so. I have somehow gotten sucked into a Minecraft vortex. Before when I have attempted Minecraft, I would just wander around at a loss for a few minutes, knock out some blocks, shrug, and exit the game. It was all very puzzling, and I couldn’t figure out what to do. But for some reason, I started the game up again this week, and it suddenly clicked. With some expert tips from Mr. Typist, I was off to the races! I have created the beginnings of an empire, my friends. I have a beautiful cobblestone house with adorned with artwork, two skylights and an underground spa, a lakefront view, a cow pen, a garden, free-range sheep, and soon, my own enchanting shrine. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. (I mean, I can stop anytime I want, I’m not an addict or anything, but you know what I mean.) I was telling Mr. Typist the other day that I find it incredibly Zen and relaxing. Unlike in real life, a small bit of effort in Minecraft allows me to create any world I want. That, my friends, is very dangerous. But it’s not going to stop me.

However, one must keep one’s mouse-clicking fingers in good shape, and lately, I’ve been pudging up again. I have finally figured out my exercise pattern—go hard, consistently, until my knee starts hurting. Then get discouraged, give up, gain five to seven pounds, sulk about it for a while and contemplate giving up entirely and allowing myself to explode into the Michelin man, then getting back on my grind until I no longer deem myself pudgy. Right now I’m in the “go-hard, consistently” stage. I don’t really have any plans to change this pattern to a healthier one, so in a month or so, I’ll be slumped on the sofa with an icepack on my knee, halfway into a bag of Ruffles. Hashtag healthyhabitsforlife!

--Kristen McHenry

In Which Old-Lady-Typist Shakes Her Fist and Shouts into the Wind

I’m currently reading a novel called “Startup” by Doree Shafrir, a semi-satirical jaunt through the inane world of tech startups. I’m not going to do a full review of the book here because I haven’t quite finished it yet, but I did have some thoughts on its supremely shallow main character Mack, his ridiculously overvalued app, and tech in general. Bear with me now, because this is related: Yesterday, Mr. Typist managed to lure me out for a walk to our local Big Brand General Goods store. This is a store that I have walked to many times over the years, and for many of those years, it’s been a pleasant, quiet walk. Mellow. Uncrowded. A little traffic here and there, nothing unmanageable. But recently I’ve begun to notice that there is more and more traffic along the main road, cars are getting noisier, faster, and more liberal with the horn-leaning, and more and more bikes are whizzing by at record speed, their riders shouting at pedestrians and generally being a-holes. 

About two thirds of the way to Big Brand Store yesterday, I started to have a stimulation-overload meltdown. It was horrifically noisy. The once untrodden street was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with pedestrians. Cars were zooming dangerously over the speed limit. And what finally pushed me over the edge was the unbearably shrill shrieks and screams of partiers on a “beer bike” whizzing by just as semi blew over the bridge and honked his horn. At that point, I actually burst into tears. Mr. Typist led me down a slightly less noisy side street and we trudged back home, where I closed the blinds and sat in my blessedly quiet apartment for the rest of the afternoon, lamenting the loss of my once-sleepy, pleasantly shabby, un-gentrified fisherman’s neighborhood, before Big Tech moved into this city like a plague of locusts and devoured all affordable housing and small businesses.

I understand that this is not a new or original complaint. This is the most common story in the book. The loss of my neighborhood and countless others like it is the price of progress. It’s inevitable, it’s a foregone conclusion, it’s Just the Way Things are. But my feelings about it amount to more than just annoyance or short-sighted resistance to change—it is actual, genuine grief.  It hurts my heart. It makes me feel alienated and lost and sad. It’s been said that all writers work has one central, spiritual theme, and for me, it’s always been the search for home. And I feel that the home I have cultivated here in this neighborhood, which I have lived in for almost fifteen years, has been obliterated. It’s not coming back. Thousands of out-of-state tech workers continue to pour in, houses are getting snapped up for cash, razed by the dozens and replaced with four-thousand-dollar-a-month “efficiency apartments”, luxury sports cars are speeding down side streets at the behest of Waze, endangering pedestrians and killing cats, and wealthy hipsters flood in on the weekends, elbowing out residents on the sidewalks and guzzling seventeen-dollar herb-infused cocktails at uber-trendy bars that used to be mom-and-pop storefronts. “Well, Ms. Typist,” you may say, “you live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. You can always get away on a weekend hike!” Not anymore. Our once-pristine and lightly populated trails have been overrun, and driving to get to them is a gridlocked-choked nightmare.

In “Startup”, Mack’s app is all about “maximizing” human beings. It tracks user’s social media, e-mail, Fit Bits and other electronic devices, seeking information on their mood through emojis and keywords. It aggregates the data, detects patterns, then sends the user reminders tailor-made to their biorhythms. Do you get a blood-sugar crash in the afternoons? The app will ping you at around 2:00 p.m. to suggest a light snack. Are you peppier in the mornings? The app will send you a message to take a brisk walk after you wake up. It represents an absurd level of human micromanagement, and it’s a total privacy nightmare. However, somehow Mack manages to secure, or so far appears to have secured, twenty million dollars in funding for this idiotic “tool.” All I could think as I was reading this was that we don’t need any more innovation, disruption, or optimization. We’ve hit peak everything. We’re done. We’re maxed out. We can track literally every emotional, intellectual and biological function. We’re drowning in social media. There are hundreds of meal delivery services, errand services, ride choices, and bio-trackers. We have access to all of the TED talks we can handle. There are no longer any meaningful improvements to be made. So what is all of this tech doing? How much better can any “innovation” really make our lives? None of what we already have has made us happier, healthier, or less lonely. Is one more social medium platform or dubious box delivery service worth the loss of our communities? I get that I’m just shouting into the wind here, but I really needed to share my sadness and grief with someone. I miss my neighborhood. Thank you for listening, dear readers.

In the interest of not ending on a total bummer, here’s a Simon’s Cat. (Buddy loves a rousing game of “Hide Under the Blanket and Chase The Hand”.)

--Kristen McHenry

The Discipline of Wasting Time

This year, I did the unprecedented (for me) and took a week and half off between Christmas and New Year’s. I’m not used to taking time off, and because I’m in constant “go mode”, I tend to have unrealistic fantasies about all of the things I am going to accomplish during my rare vacations. My big plan this time was to edge my goldfish rug, get my poetry chapbook up on Lulu, do a deep clean of the entire apartment, start up “Wolfpine Glen” again, color my hair, catch up on the news on Conspiracy Daily, and double down on my gym visits. So far, I have slept in late every morning, stayed in my sweat pants until past noon, played video games for twelve hours at a stretch, and staunchly ignored the grime building up in the bathroom and the dust thickening on the cherry wood nesting tables. I know this sounds like a laughable statement, but it’s actually been a struggle to fully relax and not give in to the temptation to Accomplish All The Things. My brain doesn’t know how to let go naturally, and I feel guilty when I’m not, in my estimation, “using my time wisely”, whatever that means. So this vacation has been an exercise in the discipline of wasting time. I’ve had to go to the mat with my inner scold, who loves to run around tapping her watch and accusing all and sundry of whiling away their days on frivolity.

One of those glorious bits of frivolity for me has been surfing game demos on Steam (Winter Sale, folks!) Most of them have been fails--I have a zero-frustration tolerance policy when it comes to gaming. My game principles are that I will stick with nothing that poses more than a minor mental challenge or that elevates my heart rate in the slightest. For a while, I was playing a game in which I was an adorable forest fox who could control the seasons, but then somehow I died, and then I was a ghost fox, and it wasn’t as fun anymore, and I got annoyed by the mushroom puzzle. Poof, gone! Then there was one in which I was being chased by a giant, suffocating haze called “The Void”, which was okay for the first hour or so, but then started to feel too much like real life. Deleted! Finally, I came upon a most wondrous story game called “Demetrios”, about a slovenly, dim-witted antiques dealer who gets caught up in a doomsday conspiracy. That one was delightful, and I played it all the way through.

Right now, I’m playing a game called “Dead in Bermuda”, which violates my game policy, but appeals strongly to my overblown sense of responsibility. In “Dead”, eight survivors of a plane crash must pool resources and work together to build a life on a desert island. As the player, I am in charge of making sure each character gets proper healing, help for their trauma and depression, adequate food and water, and enough resources to survive for another day. I find myself quite concerned about dear Julia and Jacob and little Illyana and the sweet if gossipy Alice. And the other four, including Bob the Fisherman and even that snooty lady surgeon. So far, despite my best efforts, my attempts have been disastrous. On my first go-round, I made it to Day 18 before three of the characters committed suicide, and the rest starved to death. On my second attempt, I made it to Day 31, but then they all ran out of water and died. After consulting a few online game guides, I came across the revolutionary idea that I should have been investing more resources in my people. In the interest of conservation, I had been pretty stingy with food and medicine, but the prevailing wisdom on the internet says that you shouldn’t hoard anything, but immediately invest any and all resources into the characters, so they are operating at peak efficiency and can thereby produce more. Hmm…perhaps a lesson for draconian corporate slave-drivers? At any rate, so far I am at Day 21, and while everyone is squabbling and hates each other, so far no one has died. We’ll see how far I get with my newfound largess with the food and medicine. In the meantime, here’s a Happy New Year’s video from College Humor. Warning: Lots of swears. 

--Kristen McHenry

The Last Game Review for a While: Life is Strange

One more game review (because I only bought three games during Steam’s big 4^th of July sale and I have now played all of them), and then I will go back to my regular posts complaining about the lack of viable consumer goods, my drama-prone cat, and my addiction of the week, which is, currently, reading lifestyle pieces about Pokemon Go. (I have little desire to actually play it, but I’m fascinated by the cultural phenomenon.)

Warning: Mild spoilers. So, I delved into “Life is Strange” and I have played through most of the chapters. It’s a frustratingly flawed, but compelling game. I’ll explain the plot shortly, but just to get it off of my chest, here are my gripes so far: It skews really young. That’s not the fault of the game; I am just far out of its target demographic. There are too many scenes in which I am forced to wander around the halls of its fictional high school while some querulous emo band plays in the background. High school was horrendous and I do not wish to dredge up those awful memories. I haven’t figured out how to skip those scenes, so I find myself trapped in a nightmare of re-living the days in which I literally would have preferred death to going to school, complete with a bad soundtrack to round out the anguished walk down crap-strewn memory lane.

Secondly, a big part of the storyline revolves around a female student, Kate, who is getting bullied and slut-shamed due to a “viral video” of her making out with a bunch of guys at an underground party. It appears that she had possibly been drugged before the party, but at this point, it’s not totally clear. “Life is Strange” has been lauded by critics for addressing serious issues not normally tackled by video games, and it does a phenomenal job of addressing disability in later chapters, but something about the bullied-girl storyline rankles me. Due in part to my ineptitude at picking the right dialogue choices, Kate eventually commits suicide by jumping off the roof of the dorms. After her death, the inevitable schmaltzy alter is erected, and there is token talk of how she was cruelly bullied and how unfair it was that no one was nicer to her, but the deeper issues surrounding slut-shaming are never tackled. It seems to accept that it’s par for the course that any female who gets “caught” expressing their sexuality is going to be harassed into oblivion, and that’s it’s just really unfortunate that it happened to nice Christian girl like Kate. There is something maudlin and off-putting about how that whole storyline plays out, and at no time do any of the characters address the underlying cultural hypocrisy and misogyny that lead to Kate’s tragedy.

Complaints aside, “Life is Strange” is an absorbing and innovative game. You play Maxine (Max), a sensitive aspiring photographer who gets a rare scholarship to a prestigious arts high school in the fictional Oregon town of Arcadia. On her first day of school, through a terrifying incident in the girl’s bathroom, Max discovers that she has the power to “rewind” time. The core of the game revolves around using this time-warp mechanism to change the outcome of your choices, manipulate time, and create your desired outcomes. There is a steep learning curve at the beginning, and many of the early puzzles are specifically designed to train you to use the rewind mechanic. It takes a bit of getting used to, and it’s best not to think too much about the logic of how it plays out most of the time, but overall, once you learn it, it’s a joy to use. Early in the game, Max reunites with her long-lost best friend Chloe, and at first, the two of them play with this new-found power like it’s a toy. But very quickly, things get dark in Arcadia, and young Max is faced with some serious existential dilemmas surrounding choice, power, and morality. Unlike most games that use the “choice” mechanic as little more than a pretense, in “Life is Strange”, your choices actually do affect the outcome of the story. So far, I’m quite disappointed in myself, but I can’t seem to help but make questionable decisions, like stealing money and selling out my classmates. Look, I’m a total goody-goody in real life and I have to blow off steam somehow, so just stop judging me. Jeez.

I still have a few chapters left to play, but overall, I’ve found the game incredibly absorbing, despite its flaws. And while I’m not thrilled with how it handles the Kate storyline, it delves into disability with an impressively in-depth and sensitive perspective. I learned some things I didn’t know, and it led me to think about disability in a new way. Also, while the character of Max is little bit of a Mary Sue, her wild-at-heart friend Chloe is a brilliantly-written character, as are Chloe’s mom and stepdad. Unfortunately, the voice acting is distractingly uneven at times, but Chloe is by far the most consistent. Despite its bumps and rough spots, I’m looking forward to playing it through to its conclusion. As stated I’ll be back with a “normal” blog post next week. In the meantime, here’s a fun launch trailer. 

--Kristen McHenry

Artistic Creation vs. Artistic Consumption, “The Silent Age” Game Review

When it comes to works of creativity, I harbor a prideful fear of going through life being a consumer rather than a creator. It’s a silly thing to be hung up on for several reasons; one being that art and literature needs consumers, and another being that it’s a rarely a dichotomy—most of us are both creators and consumers to varying degrees and at various times in our lives. Right now, I’m a consumer. My creative fire remains dashed with wet sand, and I’m trying to let of go of forcing it to light. I e-mailed a friend of mine recently and said that I think the muse is like a cat. If you chase it down waving your arms and making demands, it sprints off and hides. But if you just ignore it, it will eventually sidle up to you, and maybe even curl up on your lap and purr.

As a consumer, I’ve been playing a lot of interactive story games. I reviewed “Firewatch” last week, and after I finished that (rather short) game, I played through the award-winning “The Silent Age.” To give you some context, a number of years ago I played a game called “Syberia”, a two-part point-and-click adventure that I found astounding. I was so emotionally involved in the characters and the story that I cried at the end of it. I have been chasing that point-and-click dragon ever since, but no game has yet satisfied me as completely. That is, until “The Silent Age.” I was so excited about this game that I actually took the time to e-mail the developers and thank them.

“The Silent Age” centers on Joe, an ordinary janitor living in the early 1970’s, who works for Archon, a large national defense corporation. At the opening of the game, Joe gets called in to the CEO’s office, where he is informed that he is getting a “promotion”—sans increased pay or a more prominent title. Joe’s work buddy Frank left Archon suddenly, and Joe, in addition to his regular duties, is now responsible for Frank’s former duties in Archon’s top-secret lab. Puzzled but taking it in a stride, Joe arrives at the lab, where he finds a trail of blood that eventually leads to a dying man named Lambert. Lambert claims to be a time traveler from the future. He gives Joe a hand-held, solar powered time-traveling device (basically, a big green button) and tells him that the survival of mankind is dependent on Joe traveling to the future to warn Lambert of the impending doom so he can stop it.

The gameplay itself is very meditative; simple but ingenious. I thought I was going to be annoyed by the time-travel clicker device, but it turned out to be one of most fun aspects of the game, which is good, because it’s central to the gameplay. Many times, you have to click back and forth between the post-apocalyptic future and the 70’s present in order to accomplish a goal. It requires some critical thinking and attention to detail, but the puzzles are very common-sense. In fact, I only needed to consult a walk-through once, for an exasperatingly fiendish puzzle involving a retina scanner. Most of the gameplay takes place in a very limited landscape, so if you get stumped, it won’t be long before the process of elimination solves the problem for you. I know some people like to complain about game puzzles not being challenging enough, but I’m lazy. I like mine to be just hard enough to give me a mild sense of accomplishment.  

But it’s the story that’s the real star of the game. The graphics and gameplay are simple, but the storyline is elaborate and complex, and eventually delves deep into top-level governmental conspiracy territory. In between, there are some delightful scenes involving a bevy of side-characters, including a groovy bartender who knows how to make a mind-blowing drink, man. Joe is mild-mannered and plain-spoken, and by the end of the game, I came to care for him and appreciate his pragmatic approach to his predicament. This is another good “starter game” if you haven’t played a point-and-click before. It’s heavily narrative in nature, so it helps if you like to read—you’ll be doing a lot of that in “The Silent Age.”

Perhaps soon I will have something of my own to create. But for now, I’ve started on “Life is Strange,” a game by Dontnod Entertainment. I’m about a quarter of the way through, and I have a lot to say about it, not all of it good. But it will have to wait for a future post. In the meantime, enjoy very this deliberately-paced teaser for “The Silent Age.”

--Kristen McHenry

Game Review: “Firewatch”, Summer Slump

Over these recent warm-ish summer evenings, I have been playing the indie game “Firewatch”, by Campo Santo Studios. I just finished it a few days ago, and I was left deeply touched, if a bit mournful. There are some indie games out now that are so well-written they’re more literary than certain novels I've read. Games have always been an art form, but there is so much literary richness in a lot of these new games that I would almost sooner curl up with a game than a good book anymore.

“Firewatch” centers on Henry, your basic everydude. At the beginning of the game, it tells the story of his wife, an ambitious professor who is struck in her forties with severe early-onset Alzheimer’s. The game asks you to make a series of choices about how Henry handles the tragedy, although I have a feeling that whatever choices you select, the outcome is more or less the same. I chose for Henry to have her institutionalized rather than try to take care of her himself. (I didn’t trust Henry to handle caretaking.) At any rate, a rift in the family ensues, and Henry flees to Wyoming to be a fire lookout, which involves holing up in an isolated watchtower in the middle of the wilderness. Henry’s only connection to another human being is through radio contact with Delilah, his hard-living, boozy supervisor with a murky past.

As the days wear on, it’s clear that Something is Terribly Wrong in the idyllic Wyoming outback. Henry and Delilah are being watched, and possibly stalked by nefarious forces. But the ins and outs of the plot are not the most interesting part of the game—it’s the metaphorical brilliance of the human tragedy being played out against the backdrop of the Wyoming wilderness; the ever-present threat of fire and its eventual engulfing of their lives. As much as Henry and Delilah have tried to run from the fires in their own lives, they are thrust back into them by the forces of nature, and, in spite of their emotional connection, they end up as alone as they were when they first fled. It’s a superbly well-written story, brought to life by top-notch voice acting and effective, if somewhat simple, graphics. I don’t think that “Firewatch” would have worked without the skilled voice acting, as the relationship between Delilah and Henry is central to the heart of the game.

If you’re not an experienced gamer, this is a great “starter” game—it’s easy to learn, with fairly straightforward story advancement. If there is one little quibble I have with it, it’s the conceit of the dialogue choices for Henry, as well as the action choices at the beginning. Since none of them ultimately make a difference in the outcome (at least, I am assuming they don’t, considering that the ending seems pretty much inevitable), it seems like an inefficient way to move through the story. But at least it gives you some sense of autonomy, however futile. Nonetheless, I fully recommend this game--just be prepared to feel the sads for a few days afterwards.

 I was looking for something on this blog last week and stumbled across a post I wrote a few years ago about coping with writer’s block. It’s like going back in time and reading my own advice to my future self. It’s advice I can use right now, since I’m in a bit of a creative slump. A lot of it has to do with not having closure on the novel; of having poured my passion into it for so long and seeing it not go anywhere. A part of it is just general lack of confidence combined with a dearth of creative vision. (“Wolfpine” is still rattling around in there, but it feels too big and exhausting for me to get my head around right now.) I know all of this is temporary, and probably the best thing for me to do it just let go and give myself permission not to write for a while. I feel a strong impulse to do something with my hands, anyway; to paint or draw or maybe make another rug. Really just to do anything besides staring at a blank Word document, panicking because I am devoid of creative energy. And on that cheery note, here is a trailer for “Firewatch”. Enjoy!

-Kristen McHenry

P.S. I'm off the night cheese and have sworn off Goldfish crackers. I beat Big Cheese at it's own game!