Status Update

I don't usually do these, most posts on 8bc are on topic. But who cares? This post functions as an explanation for the recent lack of posts.

So the website hasn't been updated in a long time, does that mean 8bc is dead? Of course not! Running this site has been nothing but a blast, and I love exposing lesser-known games to more of the internet. The problem? almost everything has been written on, therefore, to realistically run this blog I have to explore lots and lots of obscure video games, and it can take an enormous amount of time before I play one enough to thoughtfully write about its intricacies.

Also, I've reviewed most of the games I have been playing lately. New games are released, but I feel less and less interested in the major console releases. I actually saw a commercial last night for a game bragging about how "movie-like" the game was. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of art. Modernist painters like Picasso were concerned, among other things, with treating paint like paint. Poets, like Wallace Stevens, used words as words, wrote poems about poems. Therefore, make video games like video games, and not like a Hollywood blockbuster. So what is the essence of video games? Well, partly, that's what we explore on this blog, and it's a question worth asking and discussing.

Part of that answer I've said on many occasions: almost nothing worthwhile comes from the mainstream game industry. Even if the games are fun they aren't new. They aren't original, they don't make the player question the nature of video games, and they certainly don't encourage the player to make their own game (who could possibly program a major-release on their own?).

A little-known game named ZZT, however, consumed a good chunk of my weekend. I'm pushed for time so just go here and download it, read about it, love it.

Eschewing all transitions, I update you on Star Quest: most of the world is complete, and about 70% of the art is finished. All that remains is the script, a major project that I have been postponing for months. Star Quest is not canceled, production continues, and I'm pretty pleased with what I have accomplished so far.