Some news! I’ve decided Link Drag is going to be more regular. I’m hoping weekly, but we’ll see. However, I’ve decided to stop publishing Marginalia as that sucked up resources out of proportion with its audience.
I’m officially back from sabbatical next week but, until then, if you’re new around here, why don’t you give The Aspiration a read? It’s one of the best things I ever wrote, you know.
And if that’s not good enough then how about the seven links below?
Here Be Links
“A Basic Marketing and PR plan for Indies” – Daniel Griliopoulos
PRs have two aims; to make sure their client’s product is well-known and liked, and to maintain their relationships with as many people as possible who are relevant to their continued career. To do this, they charge a lot of money – £200-600 a day weren’t unusual amounts when I worked in a PR agency, though self-employed individuals will charge less.
“Too poor for pop culture” – D. Watkins
“What the fuck is a selfie?” said Miss Sheryl.
“When a stupid person with a smartphone flicks themselves and looks at it,” I said to the room. She replied with a raised eyebrow, “Oh?”
“The Deleted Scenes of No One Lives Forever…” – Joe Martin
The poodle isn’t the only design remnant with such a story behind it either. Select the most polite responses in NOLF’s briefings and you’ll earn a Reputation Bonus at the end – but it’s never explained what that means. And that’s the only point where Reputation is even mentioned as a value. This led to years of personal curiosity, not to mention frequent speculation on forums.
FAV “Achieving DEADLOCK in 868-HACK” – Shay Pierce
Would the game handle this? 868’s creator Michael Brough is known for making games that you can “break” in interesting ways (my favorite is still Corrypt)… was there a chance he didn’t anticipate this edge case and I could truly break his game by getting stuck with no way to proceed?
“Stop Picking on Master Chief” – Amanda Lange
Brendan Keogh wrote an article this week, linked from Critical Distance, about how AAA games are pretty ham-handed when they discuss major, heavy themes. Generally, I agree. But what about Halo 4? I thought, reading over the article. It’s not mentioned. Nobody expects anything like that from Halo.
“The Making of a Dark Souls Bore” – Shaun Green
But Dark Souls also struck me as a game that I would never play myself. The barbarous cruelty of its combat put me off; I felt I would find this off-putting and never get terribly far in the game due to frustration. I thought I’d experience it vicariously instead, like EVE Online, through the tales that reached me.
VID “Game Design Theory I Wish I had Known When I Started” – Daniel Cook
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I always read that as “Master Chef.” Every time.
It is Master Chef. Look closer.
This week, I have subsisted on mostly Fate Stay Night and Divine Cybermancy.
I will not ARG. Lemme know when the cool stuff happens/HM gives up.
Oh, actually, I wouldn’t mind having a weekly link drag with one or two articles! As it is, it probably gets in the way of commenting on any of them on Electron Dance. Well, my actual reason is that being stuffed with links makes me lethargic, but I doubt anyone else has that problem.
I’m planning on running 5-7 links a week, otherwise I’d soon run out.
ARG? I have no idea what you’re talking about. None at all. Whistling innocently now. That’s me.
I don’t think many people click on all of the links presented, which is why I used to labour over a description but that never seemed to make any difference. So back to basics.