Okay. The “This month in Dan” title is probably pretentious. No, it’s a couple suitcases of pretentious. Regardless, here are some links to other things I wrote, produced or did this month. (Which is also, in it’s own way, probably pretentious too. Oh well.)

Nightmare Mode:

I like signs in games. I always wonder, as I look at them, why they are placed where they are. Is that a sign for the player or something for the characters? What does the sign say and what is it saying? Those questions, as well as probably the only positive spin on the denizens of Borderlands you will ever see, were part of Building Worlds: Signs in Borderlands.

My sister is getting married in a few months. If anyone is wondering why I, seemingly out of nowhere, started talking about my singleness and relationships in games (other than it being linked to the Blogs of the Round Table topic of “Love” in video games), that’s why.

I’ve been getting asked, by my mother and other relatives more frequently over the last couple weeks, when I’m getting married. (As the older brother and over 25, it’s not my favorite question. It’s right up there with “English degree? Are you going to teach?”) Given that, I’ve been forced to examine my life. And, of course, by “examine” I mean that other people are doing it for me.

Anyway, some of those ideas got funneled into Life and Death of Sigrun in Dragon Age: Awakenings.

Podcasts:

I somehow talked my way onto the VGHVI podcast. The latest episode says that “Dan assume[ed] hosting duties,” but what it meant to say was “Dan introduced the podcast and then let other people talk for awhile.” (I might have secretly been eating dinner most of the episode. Shhh. Don’t tell them that.)

Game Dev:

I finished February’s game. It’s Indigo Protocol.

It’s… I don’t know. It’s something. I ended up talking about it across several posts over on my dev blog. You can watch (and listen!) to a week by week breakdown of the process (Week 2, Week 3, Week 4).

Those videos probably say way more about me than any of these blog posts ever will. On Saturday mornings, after staying up late on Friday night, I am a bit… loony. And I might also laugh-way-too-much-oh-my-god-I-am-so-sorry. (March’s game won’t be as purposely funny. I hope.)

I have a crazy schedule — crazy! Seriously. Super crazy. So, I am not writing much. And, even when I have time, my writing is going up in a different place. Yes, I have sold out. All my creative-ness, it’s gone. Completely. I will never write here again. Your eyes are not reading this post either. (Also, it’s not 3 AM as I write this — no, it totally is. I’m tired.)

Anyway, other people — blog neighbors? Beighors? — are writing good stuff and I have read it. I want to take some time here to highlight things you should have read. Emphasis on the “should”.

Rachel Helps, over on Ludi Bin, has been writing up a storm. Last week saw What visual novels should learn from sequential art, something I’ve been meaning to write about for awhile now. Visual novels, with their emphasis on the single frames, are more like graphic novels with their cells. Each screen, then, should spend more time cutting down the dialogue and condensing the action — simple and solid is best.

Just a couple days ago, she wrote Dear Esther’s setting matches its emotional push talking about how atmosphere and mechanics link Dear Esther to the idea of a cybertext, but configurable. I still haven’t played it, so I can’t comment. It’s a neat approach though.

Actually, speaking of atmosphere and mechanics, Line Hollis goes all out on Limbo asking, as people have before, What’s the Point of Limbo? I don’t disagree with Line’s take, but have had my time with it and… I liked it. Overall, I liked. I’ll leave the aesthetic discussions to people who know more. It was a neat little thing.

Speaking of Line, and in the hope of getting more recorded interactive fiction sessions, there was I Am Bad at Interactive Fiction a couple weeks ago. It’s rare that I laugh while reading a blog post. Most of the time, it’s me considering a theory or trying to think through someone else’s point. That was a great example of someone just posting a thing for no other reasons than to just wanting to do it. I liked it.

They say that Punk’s Not Dead and, it seems, neither is ~hellfire~. I’m always glad to see people writing again and “whenever I’m” is a look into Rock Paper Shotgun’s new –series? — on “Punk Games”. (I might also be doing that, making games for no other reason than love of the process and trying to put something together.) Ewers, says ~hellfire~, are “very hard to craft” — and so are games. (That is so very true.)

That was the advice that Rampant Coyote echoed from Robert Boyd’s post on So You Want to Be an Indie Game Developer? That’s the advice I have tried to follow in both my writing and game making: follow your passion. Do what you love.