So. I moved. (Patreon)

I try to do these on the first of the month, but I've just finished moving, and my health is so poor as a result (chronic fatigue is like being powered by a battery that can barely hold a charge; the more you expend, the slower you recover) that this took a bit longer than I hoped.

But, uh, hey. I'm actually in a better place now than I've been in some time. Those of you following me on Twitter might have noticed that I'm not posting a ton of depressive tweets all the time. Yaaaay.

Last month, move aside, was pretty productive. I wrote several pieces, though most of them were just capsule reviews. Longer stuff is coming. Like today, I wrote a little criticism, which you can see above. It's a review of Hitman: Sniper Challenge. It's a format I'm going to try to do more often.

Have you ever seen that Twitter account that quotes journalists who say "it's like Dark Souls"? I forget the actual twitter handle, sorry. But... it's something I've noticed a lot. Too much games writing is focused on comparing one thing to another thing.

Games has this big problem of having a barrier to entry. Like, you can watch any movie just by sitting there and keeping your eyes open. You can read a book if you have the ability to interpret the little pictograms we call letters as sounds, which make up words, which make up human communication. This is all relatively "easy" for most people.

Games are hard. There are games you'll never finish because they require you to take action and be skilled enough to get past. There's a barrier there. There's a barrier in having a 16 button controller or a 144 button keyboard as opposed to flipping a page or pressing "play" on your DVD remote.

Games are just a little bit more difficult to get into than staring at a painting or sculpture or listening to a song.

They require effort.

So... what can we do to remove that effort? One thing might be to start cutting down on the references. Stop assuming everyone has the same frame of references.

This Hitman piece is my first attempt at that. Talk about a thing without using jargon. Explain what it is and why it's interesting without making comparisons (note that I do make references to other Hitman games, but I try to be clear on why that's necessary).

The more I write, the more I'm going to play with this approach, limiting myself and what I can or can't say. It's a bonsai approach to games writing, I guess.

Let's see where it takes us.

I'm writing about Halo Wars 2 next. Requests include: Receiver. The Crew. Bioshock 2. Resident Evil 4. If I've forgotten anything, let me know.

Hit me if you've got requests.

And, as always, thank you. With everything I have in me, thank you. I would not be alive were it not for you, and I hope that knowledge brings you happiness.