I hesitated to write this article at all, because it deals with something very personal and difficult to write about. A few months ago I ordered a watch from David Vigil, the renowned leatherworker whose creations were featured on Kotaku twice, Game Fanatics, among other gaming news networks. A month later, after inquiring about when my gorgeous leather watch would arrive, I got a response that simply said,

I am so very sorry for the delay with everything. I’m running Vigilante Leather while David is in the hospital having emergency treatment for his stomach cancer. He was unable to resolve anything or continue to work due to his illness and was also unable to contact anyone.

David is one of the most ardent supporters of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series. He is a leatherworker and craftsman, meaning that every one of his Uncharted creations is meticulously created by hand. He isn’t in this for the money – he is in it for the love of what he does, and the joy that each of his creations brings for Uncharted fans like myself.

David needs our help. He is trying to get treatment for Stage III Stomach Cancer. I recently have had family and friends going through various forms of cancer (all in Canada, where getting cancer treatment is part of our public health care system), and the healing process is extremely taxing on everyone. So you can imagine how awful it is to have to worry about having enough money to just start getting treated.

There are 10 days left in David’s fundraising campaign to get his cancer treated. After seeing the hundreds of thousands of dollars that us gamers put into indie Kickstarter campaigns, the very least we can do is send this guy enough money so he can fucking live. I am putting my money where my mouth is, and I’m skipping my Christmas vacation this year so I can afford to send him a good hunk of cash today, along with my best wishes for his recovery.

So if you want to save someone’s life – save someone that loves games as much as you do, an artist who has devoted himself to gaming culture, and a damned friendly and caring guy – you have your chance to make a real actual difference. Donate anything you can afford, or not afford.

Can’t afford to donate? Then just spread the word by posting a link to his Save the Vigilante Indiegogo Campaign, and eventually we’ll reach enough people to make this happen. Anything helps.

Welcome to the new, hopefully improved, probably more interesting, definitely more frequently updated, and (maybe) more enjoyable Artful Gamer. As you can see, a lot has changed.

The Early Years

Back when I wrote my first post on March 13th, 2007, I had a very different kind of site in mind: “art games” were emerging as new and interesting approaches to video gaming, and I hoped to hitch a ride on that bandwagon. The art debate played well with a lingering malaise about the quality of video games writing in the air – the journalism of Gamepro and other massive magazines were gradually being supplanted by non-journalists and other writers (like myself) who just wanted to talk about games with a knowledgeable audience. Folks wanted to debate how and why we should talk about games as a way of life, whether games were “mere entertainment” or something deeper.

But at the time, few other blogs existed: Chris Bateman’s Only a Game was a little over a year old, Gnome’s The Gnome’s Lair and Corvus Elrod’s Man Bytes Blog were about a year old, Jason Rohrer’s Arthouse Games was a couple of months old, and Michael Abbott’s Brainy Gamer would not launch for another six months. There just weren’t very many places for mature, interesting conversation.

But despite the heated arguments that emerged from the great art debates of 2007, the storm soon lost its power. Sharing no common language for video games, most of us realized that we couldn’t just argue about what games were about, the blogging community actually had to spend some time thinking about what it meant to play games. This led to a fairly significant shift away from game-blogging as a way of letting others know what the game of the week was, towards more critical, analytical and experiential approaches to thinking about games.

The Golden Years of Game Blogging

In those years – say, from 2008-2010, the game blogging community was a hotbed of discussion: for the first time ever, you could google for “Mass effect review” and come up with thoughtful commentary and criticism on video games that wasn’t written by a major gaming magazine or online publisher. For better or for worse, game bloggers filled in the gigantic linguistic gap that was left from the disappearance of print magazines.

I took my own approach in that time: interleaving my personal experiences (past and present) with philosophy and psychology in order to expose something new about games. I hoped that, deep down, the poetic and lyrical aspects of video games resonated with some of you in the ways that they resonated with me. But that style of writing wasn’t for everyone, and more often than not my interlocutors felt that the writing was too dense, or not dense enough, too analytical, or not analytical enough. And so on.

The Quiet End

Then, in 2010, things started to slow down in the game blogging community. Fewer and fewer blogs were being posted to regularly (including this one), some disappeared completely. The great gold rush that the “Brainysphere” ushered in, was over. Some of the bloggers got jobs in the gaming industry as either developers or as journalists; others pursued their educational aspirations or careers in unrelated fields. Sure, there are more game bloggers out there than ever, but the core blogs that were powerhouses in the Golden Age of Game Blogging (2008-2010) had moved on.

The Artful Gamer, in that time, barely loped along. I was finishing writing my doctoral dissertation, teaching, and was newly married. I neglected the site, and it showed. I made a few abortive attempts at constructive conversation on Twitter, but soon realized that Twitter is not a place for conversation; it is a place for gossip and moralism.

But the demand for thoughtful and honest commentary on video games has not went away. There are more people today, reading and writing about games, than there ever have been.

Postcards from the Multiverse

So, now, five years after I wrote my first post that (as Chris Bateman would tell me years later) horribly offended the respective writers of Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games, I am back on the mule. As you will see in my first new article, I have turned towards a different style of writing that – I hope – is a helluva lot more fun to read. And hopefully, it remains insightful. My first post in this new style is The Land of Tamir: The Text Parser as Play. Let me know what you think

Every week I will write a postcard back home, from whatever planet, town, village, dungeon, galaxy, fairy tale, bathroom, space ship or house I happen to be in. And I hope that you’ll write me back. 

Thanks for all of your supportive, interesting, thoughtful, and insightful replies over the years. Your commentary and responses mean the world to me.

Yours humbly,

- Chris.

As you’ve probably noticed, things slowed down with the Artful Gamer over the last couple of years. What was I doing in that time? Well, I was working on a doctorate, among several other projects, and that was finally completed just a couple of months ago. Now I have some time to work on some real writing.

On March 13, 2012, I will be restructuring and rebuilding the Artful Gamer as a different kind of experience. Hope to see you all there.

Until then, please read some of the wonderful articles written by the authors I’ve linked to on the right side of the page.

À la prochaine, mes amis. It’s been peachy.
- Chris

Imagine sitting in a private room of a smoky nightclub at the turn of the 20th century: the lingering flints of ice in your glass of scotch have disappeared into the tawny depths, your stash of cigars is running dangerously low, and the conversation that began with The Great Train Robbery of 1855 has drifted towards… topics of dubious morality. A man at a nearby table cat-calls at the waitress who turns and returns a sultry wink. You drunkenly stumble towards a table in the far corner of the room. The shadowy inhabitants push a chair over in welcome.

The bearded man in the top-hat leans back and says, “Have a seat. We are discussing the intricacies of Sophocles, Goethe, and Zelda. We call it The Game Cabaret.”

“Why yes. Yes, indeed. In fact, my dear colleague was just commenting on his recent viewing of the motion picture Cabaret and its use of psychological realism. You really must view a celluloid some time – they are quite stimulating!”

Ashamed, you confess that you have not been to viewing of one of those newfangled photographic contraptions yet.

The balding man to your right turns to you and exclaims, “Ah, but then you must try video games! They are quite superior! Why, I was just speaking to my colleagues about repressed homoeroticism in R-Type. I am a reader of Freud, mind you. Care for a cigar?”

At that, the table erupts in laughter.

“My dear colleagues! Let’s not trouble our new friend! Please, have another scotch and join our discussion at your leisure.”

As I reported a few months ago, the Ultima VII engine emulator Exult was ported to the Sony PSP by The Food Sucks team. Not only was it fantastic to see the classic RPG/adventure game ported to a handheld gaming platform, but the quality of the homebrewed port itself was stunning in every respect. (If you aren’t familiar with Exult but you own a Sony PSP, I highly recommend heading on over to the development team’s page and give it a shot.)After playing Ultima VII: The Black Gate for several hours on my PSP, I felt compelled to thank the team with a small gift in appreciation for their tireless efforts punching deck. Although it took a few months, they finally received the gift: a uh… somewhat new.. Nintendo DS Lite! I can only hope that it inspires the team to work on another quality homebrew project…

Congratulations to Petri, of Kloonigames fame! He correctly guessed that the pumpkins I carved (in order) were: Day of the Tentacle, Katamari Damacy, and The Legend of Zelda. Petri’s prize choice was a copy of Defcon. There were only 2 entrants in the contest – was it really that tough?

Defcon, like all of Introversion’s games, stands out as an impressive indie effort. The game succeeds precisely in its focused effort: the play map is small, the player has only a few different options in battle, and the battle interface is simple and clear. With that simplicity comes the polish of balanced gameplay, a very Cold War era-esque aesthetic, and chilling soundtrack. I hope Petri enjoys it as much as I did!

Happy Halloween from the Artful Gamer!

This year I had the opportunity to carve some very gamesy pumpkins. Unfortunately, the trick-or-treaters we had were almost all under 6 years old, and didn’t recognize most of these games/characters (one kid recognized the pumpkin on the far right though!). We had 45 kids this year – definitely better than last year when it was 15 below celsius and snowy.

That being said – the Artful Gamer is holding a special Halloween contest. If you can guess the three games represented in my pumpkins correctly, I’ll enter you into a draw. The winner of the draw will receive one of three downloadable games from the Introversion Software online store (valued at approximately $20 USD). You can choose between Defcon, Darwinia, or Uplink. I own all three of these games in fact… and each definitely has a unique charm. Let’s continue to support indie game developers – especially the good ones!

Entries will be accepted from now until Midnight, Friday, November 2nd (GMT – 7). That gives you 2 full days to figure this out. E-mail your contest entry to: chris {@t} artfulgamer {d0t} com

The winner will be announced on Monday, November 5th. Thank you for continuing to read AG – your support and comments keep this site alive and well.

Just a quick note – due to the increased number of visitors I’ve had lately (and thank you – I truly appreciate that you would bother to read this series of randomly ordered phrases!), I will be transferring the domain over to a private hosting service. This means that service may be disrupted in the next 24-48 hours, but I’ll have things back up ASAP.

The move took about a day to finish and it went fairly smoothly. Apologies for the disruption in your regular programming.

Second: I had no idea that WordPress was queuing up the comments! I didn’t check the comments queue, and ended up missing the (2) comments that required my approval (and the 147 spammers). I’ve now installed Akismet and this should no longer be an issue.