Visitors (Patreon)

My parents have been in town this week, which is always nice. Primarily, they were here to help out with transportation and household chores, since Beth is still recovering from surgery, but I enjoy their company, as well. My dad even fixed an annoying thing going on with our dishwasher that didn't rise to the level of "hire someone to fix it", which is a thing he genuinely enjoys doing. My brothers got his handiness gene, while I didn't. I can look at a spreadsheet of numbers and tell you which one is out of place, and I can put words together to make a story or game, but I'm not great at most DIY home improvement stuff.

So, I haven't consumed a whole lot of media this week. I did pick up a copy of the Cypher System and have been reading that in the evenings. One of my "jobs" as a game developer is keeping abreast of what's going on in the TTRPG world. It helps me avoid the embarrassment of saying "other games don't do this thing that my game does" at a convention when that turns out to be a fundamentally false statement. This space and the people in it are constantly innovating, constantly finding new ways to analyze what makes a game fun and deliver an experience that gaming groups will get value out of. There are always exciting things going on in this space.

The fifth issue of Assorted Crisis Events is out. This is a comic drawn by the artist who shares my name, which I originally picked up because the people mistaking me for him on Bluesky seemed so incredibly excited about it. And it is a really cool anthology of stories about ordinary people living in a world where time itself is breaking down. It's hard to top that first issue (firsts are always so impactful), but #5 is my favorite so far because of the way the art reflects the time loop story. Ever since House of Leaves, I've been a sucker for graphic design gags that perfectly reflect the content and mood of the story. House of Leaves was about a twisted and unnerving space, and at its peak, it arranged the words on paper in a way that was both twisted and unnerving for the reader. Issue 3 did this somewhat with its parallel timelines (many pages were mirrors of their facing pages), but I thought the story was maybe a little too didactic. Issue 4 was a return to form, and the art is good, but it isn't doing the thing #3 was doing. #5 has a nice, immersive story that is thoughtful without being preachy, paired with art/layout that really makes the story sing.