July 2010
1 post
Backbreaker
It seems to me that many games developers nowadays work hard to perfect one or or two levels of agency - most often the input level or the narrative level. And again the developers agency is often felt too strongly in this, too often the decisions that the player makes are next to meaningless. When confronted with an enemy your “choice” as a player is to shoot and kill or the be shot...
March 2010
1 post
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Firstly, this is an incomplete review of Rick Riordan’s acclaimed tween fantasy series. So far I’ve churned through two of the five books in fairly short order, and I feel I’ve read enough to have formed some solid opinions about the work. If anything pressing arises from the remaining stories I will be sure to update this blog.
It’s impossible to find a review of this body...
December 2009
2 posts
Wot I played 2009
In lieu of any sort of best of list for the year, some of the more memorable games I’ve played and why they might make a list of such things. No formal ordering because my tastes are many and varied, so most likely this will be in brain order.
Rock Band: Beatles and Rock Band 2
Turns out, I’m a sucker for fake plastic drums. The guitar element to me is all but vestigial and I rarely...
3 tags
Because I do like to touch...
I’m gonna be honest with you, tumblr… I forgot your name. There, I said it, and now it’s out there and I am truly sorry. Hope you won’t take it personally at all.
We can move past this. Nobody has to know, right?
So basically I just spent ten minutes asking google how to find my own damn blog. In which time I could have set up a new one and this will have become yet...
September 2009
2 posts
Harmonix hates Australia a little less now...
So Rock Band 1 from Harmonix was in release limbo in this country for about a year due to (as I understand it) issues with getting rights to music. Then Activision releases Guitar Hero: World Tour and suddenly it’s not so difficult to release Rock Band. Meanwhile the rest of the world is getting Rock Band 2 already, complete with hardware revisions.
JuJu says to himself: “Self,...
Gaming made me...
Something that hasn’t quite come across here yet is my gaming life. I have a strange relationship with gaming. Whereas I find it difficult to jump into an ongoing comic mid way through a storyline, or read a series of books without recently having read the entire backstory in sequence, I have no such qualms about playing snippets of games and leaving them unfinished.
I never was what I...
August 2009
1 post
Evolution of a Show
One of the aspects of theatre that makes it a worthwhile endeavour (and sometimes a frustrating one) in this age of film and television is its ephemeral nature. This is true in terms of both a season of a play and any particular performance during that season. Whereas when you watch a film you are essentially guaranteed the same sound and vision as any other viewing of that film, theatre has a...
July 2009
3 posts
On A Dark, Dark Opening Night
Last night we opened the season of Neil LaBute’s In a Dark, Dark House at Red Stitch.
It’s been an intense rehearsal period on this show, given that we had about four weeks from the first reading till bump-in, (traditionally it’s five weeks at the Stitch) and if you ask me a week from now it’ll be a far more ripe production.
That’s not to say it wasn’t a...
The Secret Origin of Julian, part I
I knew I was different when I was 10.
Besides my immediate family, I was the only Filipino I knew growing up in Camberwell. For those who don’t know, this is one of the most white-bred suburbs of Melbourne. It’s more diverse nowadays, but it’s still not exactly a cultural melting pot. I was keenly aware that I wasn’t like the other kids at school. Well how could I forget?...
Internets is fail
Turns out all of my problems were caused by one thing. Accidentally setting the windows calendar a month forward. Considering that’s not at all a difficult or unusual thing to have happen I’m actually impressed by the breadth and scale of the issues it presented.
June 2009
5 posts
Damn you Intertubes!
I’m about to revolutionise blogging by blogging about internet problems!
So right now trying to log into facebook results in the login seeming to be successful but going back to the login page saying “you need to be logged in to see that page”.
Trying to log in to Gmail results in seeming to log in but getting stuck on the “Redirecting…” screen. Eventually...
Bored at the Nash
I’m sitting sidestage at the National Theatre in St Kilda waiting for the show to begin in under an hour. Facebook refuses to allow me to log in (I blame Vodafone mobile internet) so as a result, words.
Words, words, words.
It’s extraordinary to me how much quite expensive theatre worker time is spent waiting. But sometimes there’s just not much to do.
The show is the...
Australia let us all rejoice
For we are young and [CENSORED].
Back to Blogging
I’ve lost track of how many blogs I’ve created and eventually discarded over the years since my first one circa 2001. It’s been a few years since I’ve made the attempt. Maybe this time will be different.
So, about me. I’m a Jack of all stagecrafts from performance to production, and as such I excel at very little. People might try to argue otherwise. Those people...
