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I found one of those secret code things, I think! [HEY ACTUALLY: After “solving” a bunch of this the nerdy way, I found out about a much simpler method, which I will detail at the bottom of the post.] This won’t be too spoilery. You can find this portrait of Lionel pretty early in the […]
It occurs to me that my thoughts in that post about “The Van der Nagel Papyrus” derive not only from that essay I wrote about puzzles and gymnastics but from something else I wrote in 2023—a postmortem for The Little Match Girl 4: Crown of Pearls. If you haven’t played that game, HOO BOY, YOU […]
I recently participated in a one-on-one interactive fiction competition in which I served as Iron Chef Inform 7. The prompt was “a scroll that alters the world around it,” and I wrote a game called “The Van der Nagel Papyrus” which, if you haven’t played it, you will find much more interesting than this dumb […]
I recently participated in a one-on-one interactive fiction competition in which I served as Iron Chef Inform 7. I wrote a game called “The Van der Nagel Papyrus” which, if you haven’t played it, you will find much more interesting than this dumb post. I wrote something to wrap up my thoughts on “The Van […]
I didn’t make as much neat stuff this year. 2024 was a tough act to follow. January and February These year-in-review posts are supposed to highlight the stuff I made that you can enjoy. It’s not really the story of my personal life! Well, in January and February of 2025, I was mostly focused on […]
(I’ve spent so long thinking about this that the ideas have twisted around on each other, and it’s hard to distinguish my premises from my conclusions. Where can I start? What exactly am I trying to prove? I guess I’ll try to put things down in the manner I find most satisfying. This will turn […]
In 2021 I realized that my diachronic analyses of Ravenloft would only be complete when they incorporated Boris Karloff’s character in The Mummy (1932). Having recently watched this and several other pertinent films, I am approaching the point where I am ready to state my case. But before I get there, I have to talk […]
Good grief I did so much stuff this year. January As the year began, Zach and Sarah and I were still recording Third Strongest Podcast, our deep dive into EarthBound. We haven’t pursued any other deep-dive-into-important-video-game podcast projects since Third Strongest Podcast wrapped up in March, because no other video game is important enough. February […]
I suppose I am a member of a certain genus, a certain sad fraternity scattered across the world, who are never quite comfortable, wherever we are. We can manage to feel like outsiders even in the company of old frends; we consider the notion of making new friends a fanciful prospect, better undertaken by those […]
I recently saw the Adventure Time episode “James” (season 5, episode 42) for the first time, and I got all excited about the ways in which it quoted 2001: A Space Odyssey. But so far as I’ve been able to tell, nobody on the internet has pointed out this influence yet. “James” is not a […]