Picked up BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! over the weekend. Tried the co-op out with Wyatt. Gameplay is tight AND requires a bit of communication (re: patience). 😛
Looking forward to trying out the single-player.
Homecoming: Why are video games so hard to come back to?
A long time ago (2014), in a living room far far away, I asked Wyatt to help me create my Dragon Age: Inquisition character.
We created a:
- Scrawny Elf
- With a facial tattoo that covers his entire face
- Who carries a two-handed sword
- And has a deep voice
I loved playing as him.
I sunk hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition until I hit the wall and got stuck in the game. At this point, I am sure, a new game entered my orbit, and I blasted away from my elf and the inquisition.
I loaded Dragon Age: Inquisition once more last night. Combat/gameplay rhythms were unfamiliar after being away from the game for so long. My elf had not changed… but I have.
Unlike reading multiple books at the same time, I think video games are harder not to play fully invested in. With big AAA games, I tend to forget about the:
- Controls (muscle memory does help with skill-based games)
- Story (I’m thankful for the games that feature a story recap)
- How much I cared/was invested in characters
So I wanted to ask you:
- How long is too long to come back to a game?
- At what point do you give up/delete/move on because you simply do not care anymore?
Let me know in the comments below!
Death of a Modern Woman
A daughter got up to speak at her mother’s funeral recently. She talked about how her mom was a “modern woman”. Her unspoken words silently screaming that her mother resented staying home and raising her and her siblings.
The funeral continued with another daughter stepping up to the lectern to speak. She mentioned that her mom was a life long member of the church they attended. She also talked about current tensions between siblings and made a sideswipe at her brother for his lack of talent.
Sitting there, I noticed that nothing was said of the deceased woman’s faith but only of her membership. As another daughter’s words were read aloud by the pastor, I felt grossed out by the tension in this family. The bitterness smothering any love that might once have existed between them.
As Tabitha and I walked out of the church, we held hands while walking out to the car. Trying to imagine living in family, having siblings, that were so torn up and hurt by one another. In the privacy of the car, we talked about how we want to be remembered. How we want people to speak of us at our own funerals.
I walked away thinking about what holds our family together. The faith and values that Tabitha and I surround ourselves and fill our home with. I would hope that Wyatt would grow up and look back on his childhood with fondness. I also realize that we can do EVERYTHING we’d consider right and things can still go sideways. I am thankful that God is bigger than any of my own parental missteps.
I want people to remember me for my actions and not my accomplishments. I want to be remembered as more than just a life long member of a church.
From Across the Net – “Five Specific Ways The Current Approach to Church Seems Badly Outdated”
I have always been impressed by pastors and church worship leaders who allow for God to move. Thankful that my church’s Worship Arts Pastor naturally builds in time to pray during the music worship portion of our service.
One of the best questions you can ask as a church leader is “If people show up on a Sunday, have we left enough room for them to encounter God?” That can be done through music, through prayer, through silence and even through the way you preach. It’s a posture as much as it’s programming.
Too often, people show up at church hoping to find God. Instead, they find us.
From Across the Net – “How Fortnite’s success led to months of intense crunch at Epic Games”
I’m not saying that this is right… but I think businesses are managed like this far more than we think. This scatterbrained approach to management, constantly shifting to put out the biggest fire, leads to worker frustration as nothing is ever getting done. Good management respects its greatest resource, time.
“If a build went out into the wild and there was a negative reaction, then someone at the top would say, ‘We need to change that,’” one source said, “and everyone would be pulled in from what they were doing, and people were told to cancel their plans, because they were going to crunch until this was done. It was never-ending. It’s great for supporting the community and for the public. But that comes at a cost.”
You can read more of Polygon’s article titled “How Fortnite’s success led to months of intense crunch at Epic Games“.
JohnnyBGamer 