Daniel Binns is a media theorist and filmmaker tinkering with the weird edges of technology, storytelling, and screen culture. He is the author of Material Media-Making in the Digital Age and currently writes about posthuman poetics, glitchy machines, and speculative media worlds.
Based on a recommendation from my good friend Joel (his excellent writing can be sampled at his equally excellent project The Ladyist Experiment), today I started playing 11 bit studios’ hyphenate extravaganza This War of Mine. I sunk about two hours into the game, and feel I’ve barely scratched the surface. As such, what follows are my very rudimentary notes on the early experience of the game. (more…)
What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What have we done to each other? What will we do?
About a month ago, I smashed through Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl in a few days. I came away from the book feeling dirty: sullied somehow. My first words to my partner were, “I think I need a shower.” It’s hard to define why this is. I enjoyed reading the book. I was hooked the entire time, utterly engrossed in this deep character study of two seriously messed up people. The book was very well-written, a literary thriller of the first degree, and mesmerising in its wit and structure. The book was funny, at times, too. (more…)
Rough cut.
Draft cut.
Polish.
Proof render.
Final cut.
*crack beer*
…
Changes arrive.
Final cut V2.
Final cut V3.
Export for web.
I’ve been doing my best to take notes on as many films as I can, but for now I’ll just compile a list of those watched in the last fortnight…
Planned viewing for the next seven days…
* – Rewatch
I’ve been spending the odd hour or two mucking around with Bungie’s latest reasonably small indie game Destiny*. In a combined play time of about 4-5 hours I’ve managed to ascend to level 5 – hopefully this will increase with some more free time over the next couple of weeks.
Destiny, despite being a small indie offering, has garnered a great deal of critical attention, with gamers and critics alike being very quick to point out its shortcomings. From the lack of discernible story, to what story there is being full of gaping chasms, to problems with mechanics and the integration of RPG elements, to problems with its being a not-that-great shooter, people love taking potshots at small releases like this one.
In my small engagement with the game, I don’t really have a problem with it. My review of the game is a resounding slight shrug, but playing the game is a joy, and I’ll keep playing, and it’s hard to understand why. The game plays like a pared-back Halo, with the integration of some pared-back elements from Skyrim and Mass Effect, set in a gloriously detailed and rendered solar system that’s just damned fun to fly around.
The game markets itself as a sci-fi shooter with some RPG elements. And, lo and behold, the player is required to shoot things in a sci-fi environment in order to level up and choose some bonuses. Hardly groundbreaking, but I’m not sure what everyone was expecting from a low-budget, indie developer like Bungie.
* Irony. In point of fact, Destiny cost exactly US$72.3 bajillion to make over its 279-year-long development (No One, 2014).
Her language contains elements from Aeolic vernacular and poetic tradition, with traces of epic vocabulary familiar to readers of Homer. She has the ability to judge critically her own ecstasies and grief, and her emotions lose nothing of their force by being recollected in tranquillity.
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