In January, I came back from Plymouth wondering what I would do with my interview with Professor Steve Furnell and considered submitting it to various gaming sites. But sending my word-children off to other people’s homes is such a pain; those places have their own style and ethos plus I’m likely an unknown to site editors. Submitting an article is something you take time over – and I don’t have that kind of time to waste. So I realised if I just published on Electron Dance, I could write it the way I wanted.
A couple of months on, I saw there were a number of promising concepts that could be lumped together under one umbrella: examining Fukushima through an old Atari nuclear reactor simulation, a retrospective on Bill Williams’ Necromancer and something I had dubbed “When We Was Indie” – an intermittent series of interviews with some guys from back in the day.
The Aspiration had been big but I didn’t want that to be Electron Dance’s highpoint. You have to keep trying to show yourself up. So Where We Came From was born. It would be my one, dedicated stroll down retro lane.
As some of the final words of the series suggest, I want to live in the now and not in the past. It was never my intention for Electron Dance to become associated with “retro” articles and the project was likely to be a one-off occurrence. So I had to do this right. Which meant the articles I thought were going to be an easy write were far from it.
Long story short. The project morphed into a punishing, brutal three months which brought me within nanometres of closing the site around the time of The Fukushima Syndrome.
So it’s time for rehab and I’ll be taking a writing holiday for the next two weeks.
But don’t worry! There will be stand-ins over the next couple of weeks to keep the site active, a bit like a bunch of Jack Nicholson’s in the Overlook Hotel. With axe murderiness intact.
You won’t even notice I’m gone.
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I came to your site half way through these series and have been impressed by how deep you get into the subject. The The Fukushima Syndrome was actually my favourite piece of the series (although i am yet to get through it all). Looking forward to more. Take a breather, but do come back. You have fans to please.
Hey, thanks Adam! For that I will tell you my first new article will be another discussion with Gregg B of Tap on an extremely well-known title. With a bonus video that features lines like “I feel the peril in my loins.”
Just wanted to post to say that I have loved this whole series you’ve done. I have not commented much on the articles, mainly because the subjects are all from before I was born and there’s no way I could intelligently add to the conversation, but I have been reading along quietly and loving it. Thanks for all the work you’ve put in to writing this.
Thanks Switchbreak. I knew you were out there- I could feel your presence, like Garrett ready to blackjack my cranium.
You deserve it. It’s been a long time since writing about games has triggered something besides laughter or anticipation.
Fly free(eeeeeee)!
Enjoy the sabbatical!
The writing you’ve been doing here is seriously fabulous. Good work. Laura and I are starting up 2PS again in the next few days with a straight week of every-day posts. I look forward to rejoining the community that I’ve quite missed.
Kent… is that you? Don’t go into light!