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Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life review posted

My review of Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life went up this morning at Adventure Gamers. This is the first City Interactive game I’ve played, although I’ve been vaguely aware of their existence for a year or so now. They’re churning out regular installments of two adventure game series (The Art of Murder and Chronicles of Mystery) and let’s face it, these days any company that commits to putting out multiple installments of a new series—and actually follows through—deserves applause and a bit of attention.

Unfortunately the game suffers from low-budgetosis in many areas. This may sound like a petty complaint, but the characters’ idle animations are awful and they diverted my attention for much of the game (not in a good way). I also had a lot of problems with the way the story was told, and since for me experiencing an interesting story is the main reason for playing an adventure game in the first place, this really sapped my enjoyment. Plus the game falls into some standard adventure pitfalls that I may have been able to deal with back in the eighties when I didn’t know any better, but today just don’t have the patience for.

Even so, if you’re an adventure game fan (and more patient than I am), it’s a game you might want to check out—or at the very least, a company to keep on your radar. I get the impression that these issues are not unique to The Tree of Life, but that’s not to say City Interactive won’t keep improving…

In other news, Heather’s Kickstarter project has jumped to 94% funded, with about 10 hours left to go. She only needs around $500 more. That’s nothing! If you haven’t already pledged, maybe forego that latte today and pitch in a few bucks to a good cause instead?

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Categories: Games, Writing.

By Emily
— February 1, 2010 at 10:09 am

Help Heather’s dream come true

My friend Heather Logas is a game designer. We worked together at Telltale. Like me, she’s now her own boss… and also like me, she has big, creative dreams. In my case, that creativity is generally channeled into fiction. In Heather’s case, it comes through in games, and they happen to be the types of games I love to play.

Heather’s trying to fund a project she’s been wanting to do since she was in grad school. You can read more about it on her Kickstarter page. She’s trying to raise enough cash to take a few months off from contract work, so she can focus on getting this game made. With only two days left to go, she’s about 66% of the way there.

A bit more info…

Before You Close Your Eyes is a Choose Your Own Adventure style game where you create your own personality and the choices you make have real consequences on a game world.

Remember those Choose your own Adventure books you used to love as a kid? The game is a bit like that, if it was the fevered brain child of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and H.P Lovecraft. Create your new Self by answering questions that shape your personality. The personality traits you choose for your character affect the choices you have available to you at any given point. Your chosen personality shapes the path of the story, and the decisions you make will change your fate, and the fate of everyone you will meet.

If you think this sounds intriguing, why not go pledge a few bucks to her cause? Even with the revival Telltale’s episodic series have sparked these past few years, quality adventure games are still few and far between, which often means people with big dreams like this one have to go it alone. Can’t blame a girl for trying.

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Categories: Games, Thoughts, Writing.

By Emily
— January 30, 2010 at 11:08 pm

Overheard in 2002

This morning I was flipping through old notebooks as part of a writing exercise, and came across this snippet of dialogue:

-Where has she moved to?
-Guatemala.
-Oh, what a pity. I mean, good for her, but I’ll miss seeing her around. But I’m not sure that’s safe?
-Oh, I think where she is is pretty okay. Right by the lake. And besides, what’s safe nowadays?
-I know! My friends say, as I plan my trips, do you want to travel? At a time like this? And I say, I’m probably safer in Italy than I am here in the states—
-Isn’t that true.
-What with these terror alerts.

I probably overheard this exchange at a coffee shop. The dates on the surrounding pages suggest that it was sometime in February, 2002.

What an unsettling decade it’s been.

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Categories: Thoughts, Writing.

By Emily
— January 27, 2010 at 1:11 pm

Fairfield progress, slow and steady

I won’t be winning any races, but someday in the not-so-distant future the Fairfield will be finished and on display in my living room, and when that day comes I’ll be really proud I took so long to make it as close to perfect as I can. (Right?!) My latest task is doing all of the interior trim (crown molding, baseboards, etc.) This stuff takes a long time, and the fact that it’s half scale and sometimes hard to get my hands in where they need to be adds to the work.

Back in June, I cut all of the crown molding for the living room, dining room, and bedrooms, but I only put it up in the the dining room before taking “a break.” (I have to stop taking six month breaks!) This week I did the living room (pictured above with dining room furniture… I’m rethinking my layout). This room was considerably more work, due to the bay window and the stair area, and I ran into some issues that required an emergency replacement of the wall next to the fireplace (long, annoying story). Today I did the baseboards and some other trim odds and ends, including gluing in the front door and finishing up some lingering baseboard in the entryway. I was hoping to do crown molding in there but I just can’t get my hands in there to measure it. (It doesn’t help that there’s a chandelier in the way…)

It looks great and I’m happy with the results, but by far the best part of the day was making a snap decision to fix something that has been bothering me for years. When I put the Fairfield together, I planned to use white trim, so I painted the interiors of the doorways white. Then I decided to stain the trim instead, so I ended up with a weird stain / white / wallpaper layered effect that was driving me nuts. If the doorways were rectangular they would have been easy to fix, but since they have rounded tops, I figured I was stuck with it.

Today as I glued in the baseboards, I realized the strip wood I was using, which was only 1/32″ thick, was really flexible. I made a quick trip to the dollhouse store around the corner to buy some more, stained it, and managed to glue it in over the white. Used skinny sticks to hold the curved part in place while the glue dries. I can’t believe I never thought of this before!

I haven’t decided yet if I should do the same thing in the dining room, since the kitchen doorway on the other side does have white trim around it…

Years ago when I was first building this house, I bought a lot of resin furniture I planned to use in it, but lately it seems too small to me. (The couches barely come up to the bottoms of the windows, etc.) So once the interior trim is finished, I might end up redecorating. For now, I tried playing around with some dining room furniture in the so-called living room, and I actually like how it fits in here better than in the other room, so I may leave it this way. (But then I don’t know where I’ll put the grand piano…)

The next challenge will be the second floor bedrooms. Crown molding’s up, and the door trim is ready to go, so all that’s left are the windows, floors, and baseboards. Earlier this week I tested my electricity, which still works four years later, but initially I had to fiddle with some of the connections. Since the connections for the first story lights are on the floor of the second story, I’m nervous about covering them up permanently, so I’m trying to figure out how I can do a removable floor (carpet, probably) and still have it look good with baseboards. The floor in one of the rooms is pretty warped which might complicate matters.

Then comes crown molding in the upstairs hallway and bathroom… then flooring and baseboards in the attic… and the kitchen trim and flooring and pantry… and then the interior will be finished. Want to take bets on how many more months it’ll take me?

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Categories: Dollhouses.

By Emily
— January 23, 2010 at 9:35 pm

lobby