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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

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Two Steps Down the Interactive Fiction Road

My second post looking into Interactive Fiction is up on PopMatters. This time I look at two works that move away from the text adventure lineage and start pushing what can be done with text and a parser. This paragraph got cut from the posted version – probably rightly so – but it shows my intent behind the post just the same: I don’t have really anything sort of introduction beyond that. I’m not going to compare or contrast them. | more

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A Look Down the Interactive Fiction Road

Finally, I’m back to talking about games. For the first week of May I decided to critique two modern text adventures and look at the interesting things they do. Instead of jumping into the next big thing or tackling my backlog of AAA titles, and boy I have a lot to get through on that front, I wanted to go off the beaten path. I wanted to look into the weird, the experimental, the lambasted and the old. I wanted to look at the stuff that doesn’t get critiqued. | more

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PAX East: A Primer

April 30, 2013 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Moving Pixels, PAX, PAX East, PopMatters And so I finally finish my three-part series on PAX East. Part the First, Part the Second and Part the Last. It’s not so much about this PAX East, but using this PAX East as an attempt to explain all PAX Easts, maybe all PAXs, but I haven’t been to the west coast. Don’t know how good a job I did. | more

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Deirdra Kiai Podcast Interview

Episode 12 of the CDC podcast went live. I know it was promised back in March, but it was delayed due to the hell that misbegotten excuse for an audio file put me through. I had to edit the thing three times. Originally, I had planned to release it last year in conjunction with Deirdra Kiai’s Indigogo for her newest game. That fell through due to editing problems which caused me to start all over again. So, I’m editing it for release in the second week of March. | more

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Reviews and Review Scores

April 2, 2013 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: A New Beginning, Cognition, Moving Pixels, Polygon, PopMatters, SimCity I had a post here. 1200 words of what I thought at least were some interesting ideas and for once decently written. WordPress said screw you and erased them from existence when I saved them. All that’s left is the title above, the tags at the bottom and my anger within. | more

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Changing Perspectives: Defining What We See in First Person and Third Person Games

And so comes to an end of a month looking at walking games with jaunt over to the Third-Person Walkers of last year Journey and Bientôt l’été. The whole idea of the first-person walking genre was from Kris Ligman or at least I thought it did until I tried to track down where she said it. It isn’t often that a year provides so many examples of a new genre. Especially one as diverse as this one. | more

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‘Proteus’ and the Simple Act of Being

I’ve finally finished up my series on the First Person Walkers of 2012. Ending on the last of the three that I played and the one I honestly had the hardest time writing about: Proteus. I don’t know if it’s the fact I don’t play that many open world games and thus don’t have the proper critical vocabulary to discuss them or what. I like Proteus. It’s restful. I end up closing my eyes and just lightly rest in my chair. Not really napping, just resting. I don’t know how the piece came out. | more

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The Podcast That Burns At 100 Billion Degrees

I appeared on another episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast to discuss the indie game Little Inferno. I don’t know what to really think of the game and spend most of my time trying to parse it out in real time with my fellow podcasters. It’s another game I’m very happy that it exists and I enjoyed my time with it, but I don’t know what to ultimately say about it in any final word sort of way. It feels like a lot of half-finished ideas and sentiments put together centering on the Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace. | more