Month: June 2013

Eric Swain Game Essays

Fallen: A Story from Primordia

As I’ve expressed before, I’m not a big fan of sequels as a concept. Continuity driven series are fine and all, but video games have a dearth of self-contained experiences. So, if I were asked if I’d want to see a sequel story in the world of one of my favorite games of last year, I would have said no. I would have begged against it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more complete whole in a video game than Primordia. Yet so many fans of the game apparently wanted to see a sequel in that world filling in all the cracks ignoring that they were A. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

The Many Forks in the Road of Twine

June 11, 2013 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Moving Pixels, PopMatters, Twine After skipping two weeks I’m back to continue this look at Interactive Fiction at PopMatters. Lesson learned: never dive into an entire subculture and expect to be finished in a week. The fact of the matter is there are tons of twine games on the internet and more being dumped into cyberspace every day. There is a lot of creativity and lot of junk being spewed out. | more

Eric Swain Thoughts

Against Sequels

June 7, 2013 | Filed under: Recent Posts, Thoughts This is something that’s been on my mind and with E3 starting next week, somewhat timely. I don’t particularly like sequels. I don’t like additions. I like completed wholes. I like stories with beginnings, middles and, most importantly, ends. One of my favorite TV shows, if not my favorite, The Wire is so because it knew when to stop. If I was asked if I would like another season of The Wire, it would be tough, but in the end, I’d say no. | more