Hello all. I hope you are all well and dry. Me? I am well and soon-to-be soaked. We are hunkered down for Milton as best we can be. Tonight, we ride the storm. My kid was born during the last biggish hurricane two years ago.

I'm some 45~ stars deep in Galaxy and have begun the focused reading of the Iwata Asks interviews. So much to glean just from those articles themselves, especially when one is titled "What is the 'Essence of Mario'?." I am researching in a gold mine.

That ties into the (probably obvious to you, but not me) revelation I had a bit ago. My video isn't about Splatoon 3 per se. It is about the spirit of a Galaxy game.

Duh.

It's opened my brain to new ideas and examinations that come together. A prime example I will likely pull from is a Chinese knock-off I learned about from Did you Know Gaming?—DuLuDuBi Star. This game was promotional shlock for a Chinese dinosaur that copies Galaxy shamelessly. What is missing? Where is the spirit? Sure, the answers there aren't too hard to find, but this line of thinking opens up examination in an exciting way to me.

Why does Splatoon have the spirit? Does Astro Bot have the spirit? Can mature rated games have the spirit? What does this Venn Diagram look like? I want to find out.

And that's part of what I'll be trying to distract myself with over the next 48 hours or so. I feel close to making bigger strides out of research and play for this essay. We'll see how the early stages of writing go. Until then, thanks for your time. Stay well. Stay dry.