Week 20, Year 2: Fun and Games.

You may have read in last week's post, that I've been making time to play through some games for a change. I wrote a little about Dear Esther, which heavily inspired our current project. This week, I'd like to write a little more about Never Alone.

I first came across Never Alone on the Extra Credits show, James Recommends. The video provides a good introduction, but in short; the game is half a puzzle platformer and half a documentary film.

It's a lovely story, from a foreign culture, told really tastefully through a game. While the game has a few problems, none of them really bothered me as the experience felt so fresh. Visually, it achieves a lot with very little, particularly the harshness of the environments, which is conveyed simply and beautifully.

While Dear Esther helped inspire our current project, Never Alone revitalized my enthusiasm for making games, because it's a game that really matters. I'd strongly recommend it and I hope 'documentary games' become a thing. One day, I hope I get to help make one.

I also found time for a couple of personal paintings this week, one master study (left) and a landscape study (right). The John Constable study, rapidly turned into a bit of a failure in progress so I abandoned it fairly quickly. The landscape study however went pretty well and I really enjoyed my evening noodling around with it.

I also got to go to London, for a 'Meet the Curators' event at the British Library. I had a great time, but unfortunately I've been quite ill since coming back. I should be better next week though, as team Flaming Dodo gets into the full swing of development. I'm really, really confident in our idea and I'm sure we can execute it effectively.