Feather #5

Desperately trying not to be bored

Let’s start weird.

According to Mark Fisher

the weird is a particular kind of perturbation. It involves a sensation of wrongness: a weird entity or object is so strange that it makes us feel that it should not exists, or at least it should not exist here.

This has immediately resonated with me when I saw the work of Israeli artist Ronit Baranga.

I love when art gets really visceral, and Ronit’s work has really made me desire to own one of her artworks. Which of course I totally can’t afford.

For now.

In the meantime, I follow her amazing Instagram account and hope for at least a London exhibition at some point. One has to dream.

The Beauty.

We should really think more about this.

Not a boring bed.

Just another insanely cool project from Simone Giertz. If you watch this, you’ll probably end up wanting a CNC machine. I can’t have one but JUST IMAGINE.

Also, should I start thinking about a loft bed? HMMMM.

Things I’ve played

Mostly, Genesis Noir, which in the end really didn’t work for me. While I loved the art style and the music, I found it a little bid disconnected. Stuff keeps happening without a clear logical correlation and the general gameplay is based on a figure what’s the next mechanic which often doesn’t really enjoy. It’s the risk with mechanic arc based games (more on arcs? Check out this old but still valid piece by Dan Cook). What worked with Limbo and Inside, just to take two of the most famous games using this approach, really doesn’t work here. Also, it’s unfortunately a game which suffers of too many bugs. These can still be patched, though.

On a completely different side, I started playing Fantasian on my iPad. Fantasian is part of the Apple Arcade offer and it’s a quite classic JRPG written by Hironobu Sakaguchi with musics by Nobuo Uematsu. If you don’t know them, they have been behind the classic Final Fantasy franchise, and as a FFVII big fan, following their work is pretty much a must to me.

Tilt shift and model trees? Sign me up.

Fantasian boasts an incredible art style done by creating dioramas, scanning them and reprojecting them on game assets, a work which must have taken a lot of time and energy.

I am normally not very keen to play JRPGs anymore, I still love them but I just don’t have time. This one is capturing me, both because it reminds me so much of the ones I’ve played and loved as a late teenager, but also for its (from what I understand) episodic format, which might ease a bit the time commitment these games ask for. There’s also a curious “store your random encounters”mechanic, which seems to be great for avoiding the typical frustration of roaming around and being constantly interrupted by monsters’ ambushes.

And yes, I prefer this over the remake of one of my all-time favourite games. Which is awesome but uh, no thanks. More on Fantasian here.

The tiger’s den

There is a lot of recurring drama in the game industry. Discussions that are going on since the early 2000s and never get solved. Just becomes Twitter food. It’s a trap. But I have fallen into it and wrote something which has been in the back of my head for so long. So, here are my thoughts on the game industry seen through the lens of a ‘70s anime series about wrestlers. Holy hell my pop culture references.

Some other bits

Doing a lot of stuff these days, a combination between trying to reorganize my work, being on top of the MA I’m leading (applications are still open. If you are interested in studying games with me or know someone who could be, look at this thing I wrote and at the official page. I really look forward to welcome more cool applicants!).

Do you care about the arts and live in the UK? Well, the government wants to cut 50% of the budget to art higher education, and I think it’s wrong. Make your voice heard!

In other news, thanks to my friend Anna, I could visit Eataly in its opening weekend here in London. It’s BIG. And it has a lot of good Italian food at unreasonable prices. Also, it’s inside a beautiful art deco building in East London. I think the whole Italian community was there.

Mayor elections in London are almost there and it’s my first time! So excited!

And hoping things will go well. I’ll see you all in one month time. Take care. ❤