the website of michael suileabhain-wilson
Last September I decided that I wanted to learn how to build a VRChat world. I had never made a VR project before, but I’ve been working in and around interactive entertainment since before the turn of the millennium, so I have Opinions, and plenty of them. I wasn’t sure what sort of world I Continue reading "A Gay and Magnificent Revel: Postmortem"
I just reread McLuhan s observation in Understanding Media that in the arts the particular mix of our senses in the medium employed is all-important, and it got me thinking about @McPhersonsound s TLX talk about sound design, and the discussion we ve been having about muted audiences. In most of the VR experiences I ve had, sound Continue reading "The Power of Sound in VR"
I gave a lecture at Prefabs TLX in VRChat in December 2020, and I made some observations about presenting in VR. The audience was muted during my talk, which absolutely makes sense. However, it meant that I got, relative to a meatspace presentation, almost no realtime feedback. It *felt* like I was absolutely bombing. At Continue reading "Presentations in VR"
Every year around this time I spend an afternoon hunting for my chowder recipe so that I can use up our Christmas leftovers, because I am bad at organizing information consistently. So I m going to share it here because I probably won t forget I did that. I don t remember where this recipe came from, but Continue reading "Ham and Potato Chowder"
There are a lot of essays I want to write within the field of How D D Is And Why, but before I even begin, framing it that way has some problems. The concepts and patterns of thought I want to talk about aren’t limited to D D; they appear throughout tabletop RPG, and even out into Continue reading "The Implicit Empire"
Lots more stuff this month than in July! I posted some reflections on nerdish social dynamics, with Nitpicking and the fannish tithe, Fanboys and scientific realism, and Social Science and the Popular Kids. I posted some thoughts about the theory of gameplay and game design with Aesthetics of Play: Masquerade, Deter behavior by making it Continue reading "August 2021 in Review"
In July I posted nine pieces, mostly blog posts from my time as a bookseller and freelance game designer back during the Bush administration. Also a knights-and-knaves puzzle, because variety. Reflecting on a log Faulty Pattern-Matching The fateful lightning of my terrible swift sword System flexibility and the first generation of RPGs Recall nonsense Unfit Continue reading "July 2021 in Review"
I posted 13 pieces in June. Several of them looked at issues in game design, from my review of the Two Towers console game to my thoughts on stealing game dynamics from digital games for use in tabletop RPGs to some reflections on playtesting to my ideas on Negotiated Chess. I also posted two new Continue reading "June 2021 in Review"
I recently re-read Roland Barthes essay The World of Wrestling, in which he draws a distinction between a sport, which is an event based on the demonstration of excellence, and a spectacle, which is a ritualized narrative embodying a struggle of moral values. He identifies professional wrestling, in which the show is compelling despite its Continue reading "Aesthetics of Play: Sports and…
In May I uploaded nine new pieces. Most were vignettes from different periods of my life, from wrangling squirrels in Redwood City to the travails of women in Silicon Valley 7-Elevens to handling children who plead the insanity defense. I also wrote Remembering A Mysterious Prince Among Dogs, about our dog Finn, who passed away Continue reading "May 2021 in Review"