To the Beat of My Own (Bongo) Drum
I'm over half way through Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat. What an odd and sometimes delightful game. The bongo drum controller proves itself to be the goofiest peripheral I own and I am glad I am playing this way, despite the lack of finer control.
I imagine myself chipping away at the core games on this essay. I don't have many games to play intentionally for the remainder of the year. I'm skipping Zelda for budgetary reasons. Metroid Prime progress for Chapter Select is slow. Much slower than I anticipated. I did just beat Prime 2 though and that felt good. I worry about Hunters, but that should be shorter.
Back to the essay though, I find myself getting pulled toward the deeper history and design of the 3D Mario games after Galaxy 2. I need to remind myself that the core focus here is DK for its novelty and significance as the "start," then the Galaxy games for obvious reasons, and then Splatoon 3. I don't think I have the time to divert into 3D Land, 3D World, Odyssey, and Bowser's Fury. While those may be beneficial, they change the scope and focus of the project tremendously. At that point, I would consider playing all the Splatoon games too. Scope goes from four games to ten. Scope creep is real and I am trying to keep it in check.
Before signing off today, I don't love the name "Essay Diaries." I just needed something to change from "Wiki Stories" so I could keep the same Buttondown account. Buttondown is so good. If newsletters were my bread and butter, I'd use them.
This letter is one block from the newsletter Memory Card by Max Roberts. Thoughts? Send me an email at max@maxfrequency.net.
Max is the writer and producer behind Max Frequency. cultivate and curate curiosity—both for himself and for others—by delighting in the details and growing greatness from small beginnings.
He's written a rich history and dive on the making of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II, celebrated the 15th anniversary of Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the voice behind its hype, and examined how Zelda "stole" Fortnite's best mechanic.
Memory Card is a real-ish time, raw, drip feed newsletter of his creative process for telling these stories. It’s how The Thing™ gets made.
It's all powered by Max Frequency and patrons.
Wanna see The Thing™? Check it out on YouTube. Read it on The Blog.