Death to Realism! 009
Death to Realism! 009
Welcome back! Summer is waning but still rather sweaty here in Glasgow. If you need a refresher on the origin & nature of these bi-weekly updates, check out the first issue before reading on.
What’s New?
The Bipsi Launch/Lunch jam was a great success, and I made a game for it about getting lunch at your favorite spot again for the first time after lockdown. Bipsi is really fun to use and even throws in some interesting features and potential capabilities that Bitsy doesn’t typically have, so I recommend playing around with it! Anyways, this game is also similar to the other Bipsi game I can now reveal that I made for Domino Club, both because it’s pretty diaristic and also about the weird experience of being kind of out of lockdown but also instinctively feeling you should play it safe more than “necessary” that has pretty much defined the UK for most of this year.
I also wrote another post for my sideblog which somehow tries to intellectually punch-up my love of the latest FGO boy (and basically an assortment of all my other unfortunate fixations). Well, at least it’s not Mass Effect, right?
Coming Soon
I have a few writing and non-writing pots on the boil now. I’m doing some documentation and curatorial work on a cross-cultural collaboration bringing together 3D animators and fashion design in Scotland and China, which is logistically challenging but interesting! Hopefully that will have an online output soon. Also hoping for good news about curating a selection of game based works and writing for a forthcoming festival at the end of the year. Oh, and I’m working with a few other academics on a CFP focused on local and unprofessionalized game production for an academic journal issue that will start going around in a few weeks, so I’m looking forward to reading new research in that area. I also think I’ve settled on the novella concept I’m going to try to get to a completed draft of for this years NaNoWriMo…
The Rec Room
- I have been digging this one by Indigo DeSouza lately and am looking forward to her very forthcoming new album this week
- forest song, another entry to the Bipsi Lunch Jam, showcases the ability to add text to speech and sound generation to Bipsi games in a really cute way
- porton make a sandwich also uses some clever and very cool tricks with a Busytowncore soundtrack
- This video art piece about the censorship of sexually explicit games by Oma Keeling is fun and fascinating.
- We watched Sonatine in Zone recently and I found it really good (Thanks Beck for the selection!)
I’ve Been Reading
I recently reread Chica Umino’s Honey & Clover which I think was one of the first Josei titles to have much of a presence in the English translated manga scene. I definitely read it before going to college so it’s really different to read it from the other end of that. The things that surprisingly rang true for me were less the obvious themes of formative romances that never lead to anything and the struggle of figuring out what to do with your life (though these are both good) but that the characters also graduated into a recession and finding work, uh, sucks! lol… Guess that reality didn’t quite stick with me when I was like, 16 or so.
In terms of articles, I think Rob Gallagher getting to write for The Architectural Review consistently produces for VERY cool and interesting features, like this one on my perennially favorite topic of asset use and re-use. Alison Parrish has also uploaded some recent talks to her site, I especially love this more complex and in-depth view on language models, which are often spoken of with overblown fear and mystery.
Petra Szemán’s animation work is really cool, and if you’re not familiar with it, I hope this new interview encourages you to check it out! I also really enjoyed this overview of Monthly Halloween, a horror manga magazine aimed at girls. I have a few issues around the house because they can sometimes be found online for cheap and are fun to flip through, but this additional context was really neat. Finally, I’m not sure if I fully agree with all the lines of argumentation in this n+1 piece on book reviewing, but I think parts of it do give a name to an element of how instrumental so much reviewing and criticism can be, where it just kind of prepares you for what elements of “the present moment” a work usefully slots into rather than providing any reflection on its specific qualities.
I think that’s all I have this bi-week! For new subscribers who have signed on since the last newsletter, you can check out the archive of past issues at any time!
Thank you again for your support,
Emilie