We left off yesterday trying to define “fun”. I spoke before about challenge and expression of mastery, two components of fun, and I want to mention them again briefly. The psychological approach says that the brain likes to learn and the ego likes to be recognized– this is the core of challenge and expression of mastery. To create fun, however, we cannot force someone to learn; it’s very difficult to have fun when coerced, and so rather than forcing players to learn, we merely provide challenges and payoffs for said challenges to encourage learning. Voluntary learning is fun. Expression of mastery is in a similar vein– we have moved past simply telling the player “great job!”, though many older games did exactly this. We instead provide high scores, online play, leaderboards, and other such external functions as a measurable demonstration of mastery. Achievements are an extension of this, and are part of the next part of the equation.

So.

Fun = Challenge + Expression of Mastery + ?

Yesterday, I talked about following the money, as it were. Tracing the paths followed by game devs allows us to see the things that are emphasized, where a lot of effort is put forth. These are not decisions made in a vacuum, nor are they made frivolously. Resources in game development are always tight and games vary so widely that a particular feature or concept that crosses games (like difficulty settings) are worth noting, because they hint at a crucial piece of the puzzle. This next part is what we see emphasized in advertising, with each new console generation, in sequels, in indie games, and even in mobile games and flash games.

I’m talking about Spectacle. The loud, bombastic, explosive deluge of a triple-A blockbuster or the serene, calming meditations of a variety of indie games or the simple, focused pleasure of a match-3 mobile game — even the flailing-in-the-living-room spectacle of games of the Wii, Kinect, PSMove, Dance Dance Revolution, etc. I would have once described this as “exploration of beauty”, which I think is still accurate but isn’t broad enough to cover the entire spectrum. Spectacle is a term pulled from a friend and former colleague of mine, who points out that pressing “the most fun button in video games”* is much akin to enjoying the gorgeous desert of Journey and finding fantastic vistas in Skyrim. Whether that spectacle is a particularly satisfying button, a perfectly tuned user interface, a breathtaking visual, a particularly evocative musical piece, or some combination of all of these isn’t important– whatever it is that makes you stop and stare, or say “wow”, or laugh with surprise and awe, that is spectacle. Spectacles inspire awe, and awe is fun.

Fun = Challenge + Expression of Mastery + Spectacle + ?

The last piece to the equation is something that my aforementioned friend would call “delight”, which is linked to spectacle in the same way that expression of mastery is linked with challenge. I agree with the general concept, but in the same way I think “spectacle” describes a broader spectrum than “appreciation of beauty”, I think that a better term than “delight” would be “catharsis”. Video games offer, in many ways, an emotional release, and work to both inspire and satisfy emotions. If spectacle inspires emotion, cartharsis satisfies it. One builds up, the other pays off.

In the end, we have this:

Fun = Challenge + Expression of Mastery + Spectacle + Catharsis

I think this fairly well covers the spectrum of games that are fun, while realizing and accepting that different people will like different games (but all of those game can be fun!). It also gives us ways of analyzing why a game is or isn’t fun. Fun is obviously subjective, but this gives us a framework to understand how games are fun for different people in different ways. Certain games also focus more or less on these various things.

As an example, three extreme points on the gaming spectrum: Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Angry Birds. All three of these are highly popular games and their players will tell you they’re fun, but why? Let’s see if we can break them down:

Challenge: Call of Duty requires excellent hand-eye coordination and fast reflexes, as well as good spatial reasoning. World of Warcraft doesn’t challenge the same skills in the same way, but does have a broader scope– challenging a player’s long-term commitment, their ability to comprehend and evaluate complex data, group coordination, pattern recognition and execution, and for many, social skills. Angry Birds also offers challenge, focusing heavily on spatial reasoning and pattern recognition as well as iterative experimentation. All three of these challenge different skills (with some overlap), and it’s thus unsurprising that the playerbases for each game differ very widely (again, with some overlap).

Expression of Mastery: Call of Duty allows players to test their skills against one another directly, as well as offering leaderboards and achievements for difficult goals. Its single-player levels also follow arcs of difficulty, allowing players to become good at fighting a particular enemy type or using a particular weapon and then allowing them to show off their skills with that weapon against foes they’ve become good at defeating. World of Warcraft follows many of the same arcs, with rare, powerful items replacing leaderboards and a heavier focus on team dynamics rather than individual skill. It also allows players to easily return to portions of the game they’ve grown past, displaying their power against enemies that once seriously threatened them — indeed, this behavior has for a long time been a cultural touchstone in MMOs. Angry Birds follows similar logic, with easier levels following difficult ones and ample opportunity to use different bird types effectively, often using fewer birds than allotted to win.

Spectacle: For Call of Duty, this is clear. Explosions, massive set pieces, loud music and flashy effects are on display. The game pits you against a variety of threats and offers you the chance to come out on top, showing off a variety of virtual locales and cinematic sequences along the way. World of Warcraft awes with the size and scope of its world– not only is the world large, but the roles a player can play in it vary widely, as do the ways in which mastery can be expressed. A highly skilled PvP warrior has a starkly different experience than a raid-focused mage, who in turn is wholly unlike the socially-oriented guild leader who spends most of their time talking to other players and growing/galvanizing their network. Angry Birds offers varied levels and a colorful, distinct art style, but for that game the spectacle is less inherent to the game itself and more a function of its convenience– Angry Birds can be played anywhere, at any time, quickly and easily, filling time that its players might otherwise spend bored or unoccupied. This transforms otherwise unsatisfying moments (where someone is forced to wait) into exciting ones (I can play Angry Birds!), giving the game an awe all its own.

Catharsis: Call of Duty’s spectacle is clear, and to some extent so is its catharsis– defeating enemies and beating the game is satisfying, but the more notable catharsis is more subtle. Call of Duty provides moments of high action followed by moments of relative calmness (on the player’s part), as non-interactive cutscenes play out, which in turn drive the high action. Cutscenes are a reward for succeeding at the action, and serve to pay off and then further set up the next action sequence. More subtly, the game is responsive and intuitive, two oft-overlooked elements that are very important. When a player’s emotional response is to move, or shoot, the game accomodates them without fuss, building and releasing that tension in every moment of gameplay. Similarly, World of Warcraft distinguished itself from its competition early on by having a highly polished, highly responsive game that enabled players to perform the actions they feel they should need to. It also pays off move execution, major milestones, and other interactions with sharp, clear audio and visual cues — the well-known “ding!” permeates the entire genre. Angry Birds has similar moments in its responsive controls and overall polish, but the real catharsis it offers is in the satisfaction it provides in what would otherwise be a boring moment, which itself is strong enough to inspire players to play at other times as well.

All four of the pieces of the “fun” equation are important, but different games emphasize them differently. It’s important to consider that different thresholds and paths for each of them will appeal to different people, or frequently the same person at different times. As developers, we can be informed by the things we are emphasizing in a game and how they might affect our audience (and how our intended audience might inform the things we emphasize). As players, we can better understand ourselves and make better-informed decisions about the games we like to play, since time and money are both limited resources.

I hope this was interesting or useful to someone. Let me know if you disagree, or if you think I missed something!

*For him, this is the “call assassins” button in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. For others, it’s the last button in that devastating ultra combo. For me, it’s frequently the “oh shit” button in MMOs.

One of the really neat things about having grown up playing games is getting to see the advances the industry has made, and in turn the leaps and bounds by which games have advanced themselves. Watching games evolve from chip-sound and monochromatic graphics to the audiovisual extravaganzas we have today has been a wild ride, to say the least. More than that, though, the ways in which we play games have evolved significantly.

We are long past the days where games were mostly played by teenage boys, and we’ve left the days where games meant a specific, dedicated machine used for no other purpose far behind. Arcades have risen and fallen in most places in the world, replaced by the home consoles and ubiquitous PCs. Solo or small-group multiplayer has given way to online play, and couch-gaming is rapidly less and less of the overall games breakdown as mobile and social games take the fore.

In and among all of this, the games themselves have been rapidly evolving. You can trace the lineage of many games back to their roots, and with any luck, following those paths might hint at where games will go.

We’re on the cusp of a variety of new technologies– Google Glass is poised to either overhaul our relationship with our personal devices or fall flat, while advances in streaming technology get us closer and closer to gaming on the cloud, without specialized equipment or physical software. In the meantime, tools advancements and rapidly developing middleware on the industry side are making it easier and faster to make games, while perpetually driving up the quality bar, and indies are filling in the gaps left by the massive rise in production values.

Whether any of this is sustainable is up for (heavy) debate, but one way or another the future of games should be exciting.

My taste in games has continually evolved, and as games have become more and more varied, I’ve made a specific point to try out new types of games I don’t expect to like, and try to avoid the trap of developing tastes so rarefied that few games meet my hyper-specific standards.

It’s a philosophy that’s hard to maintain– I need to constantly try things I don’t think I’ll like and push myself out of my gaming comfort zone. For a long time, I motivated myself by thinking this was, essentially, a professional requirement of being a game designer. Now, the habit is so ingrained that I do it automatically. It’s done wonders for my enjoyment of video games, because with so many games coming out, there are plenty that I find I enjoy, and it’s given me a better idea of the kinds of games I’ll enjoy.

That being said, I still have my esoteric tastes that I don’t often expect to see, but would love to see more of. I am an avid fan of the Thief series, every game that’s come out, and the most recent one, while panned by critics, was a joy for me. It specifically triggers my love for ghosting through the darkness in games, NPCs around me totally unaware of my passing. I will cheerfully sit on a rooftop for ten minutes watching guard patrols before making a move, which is a particular bit of fun I fully recognize most people think is crazy.

Occasionally, I’ll talk about games that I really want to see, even if I don’t think they have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting made. Every so often I’ll be surprised (Mirror’s Edge 2? What?)

I have a dog. Her name is River, after River Tam, because the pun was too good to resist. Here she is, I’ll get the cute puppy picture out of the way first:

River, my dog.

When I was very young, I was attacked by a German Shepherd, who jumped over a fence to knock me down and bite three-year-old me. Not growing up in a household with dogs, or having any close friends or family with dogs, this initial experience instilled a deep phobia that stuck with me for a very long time. Throughout grade school, I would actively avoid visiting friends’ houses who had dogs, and I grew to deeply dislike and distrust people who would force their dogs on me, claiming that they were “harmless” or “just wants you to say hi”.

This lasted for more than twenty years. After I left Austin, I met a co-worker who would become a close friend of mine. He and his wife were incredibly friendly and welcoming and I loved hanging out with them, even though they had a pair of dogs. One was a large mutt, and the other was a friendly beagle. Both were perceptive and immediately recognized that I was extremely uncomfortable around them, and generally stayed entirely out of my way, either motionless across the room or in another room entirely. This suited me fine, and I enjoyed hanging out despite the dogs.

Over time, I became more familiar, and while the larger dog continued to be ambivalent towards me, the friendly beagle developed a need to make friends with me. As my friend’s wife later put it, “he didn’t understand how there could be anyone in the world who didn’t want to pet him”. Over the course of almost a year, the beagle would sit a little bit closer every time I’d visit. First, across the room. Next, on the floor near the TV. Next, at the far end of the couch. Then, on the couch. Then, a cushion closer to me. Finally, after about nine months of this slow indoctrination, I looked up to see my friend’s wife taking a picture of me and beaming. I had been idly patting the beagle for several minutes without having noticed it. It took some reinforcement after that, but I’d slowly been broken of my intense dog phobia.

River, my shih tzu above, is the final step of puppy therapy. I got her as an eight-week-old puppy and have raised and trained her myself. I am, I think, finally over my dog phobia.

My relationship with alcohol is strange. Growing up, I spent a lot of time visiting my family, many of whom live in the Caribbean. I got to try a great number of various tropical fruits, many of which had been juiced. I grew up on a variety of interesting, flavorful juices, and as I got older that turned into interesting flavored sodas, flavored waters, and other things. In college, I was so famous for my love for “novelty drinks” that people who flew home for breaks would often come back with some exotic beverage for me to try.

Despite, or possibly because of this, I didn’t take to alcohol until well after most people I knew. I had an extreme sweet tooth, and most alcohol was strong and bitter; I didn’t appreciate the taste. The taste of alcohol in a drink was generally enough to ruin it for me, so when my 21st birthday rolled around and my college friends took me out for the traditional pub crawl, I was somewhat worried. I hadn’t really had much in the way of drinks that I’d actually liked.

My concern was dispelled very quickly. A particularly perceptive friend of mine knew about my tastes and knew that a lot of standard drinks wouldn’t go down well, so he carefully maneuvered the party to a place that made particularly good cocktails. The first drink set down in front of me was a Long Island Iced Tea, which I’d never had before, tried, and immediately loved.

I had something like 18 friends with me over the course of the pub crawl, each wanting to buy me a drink, and my first drink was a Long Island. Despite this, I was entirely lucid throughout the rest of the night, despite further drinks numbering in the double digits. Possibly the rest of the evening may become clear at this point, which brings me to my weird relationship with alcohol.

Having had… a frankly ridiculous amount of liquor over the course of a few hours, I was handed several glasses of water in an attempt to reduce the inevitable hangover and eventually went to bed. I slept through the night and woke up… still extremely drunk. What I hadn’t really paid attention to was the fact that my college eating habits had slowed my metabolism down to a crawl. I slept through the night and was thirsty, but still heavily intoxicated the next morning (and, truth be told, through most of the rest of the day). What most of the party hadn’t realized is that what looked like me holding my liquor legendarily well was simply my body processing it incredibly slowly. I took longer to get drunk, and the alcohol took longer to leave my system.

For a long time, this state of affairs continued. I have, to date, never had a hangover, though I’ve woken up a few times still drunk. Kodra will probably tell a story of a time I came back from a party at PAX East and, while he watched, became progressively drunker over the course of several hours despite not actually drinking anything.

As I’ve gotten older (and fixed my metabolism), this alcohol tolerance hasn’t stayed, surprise surprise. I’m very good at knowing my limit, although that limit tends to be fairly high. I’m often responsible for driving myself or others home, though, which means I frequently have no more than a single drink when I’m out. As a result of this, I’ve gone back to my appreciation for novelty drinks. I love a good, interesting, well-thought-out drinks menu, because in much the same way I love food, I love the experience of a well-crafted drink.

I’ve had a few other topics about miniatures, but I feel like the minis games themselves are separate from the artistic side of things. Expect these sorts of posts to be a lot more picture-heavy, with some thoughts attached. I have never been an artist, and I greatly appreciate well-painted minis, so a goodly portion of my personal collection has been painted on commission. I like to collect commissioned minis from friends of mine, as it gives me a great way to remember them.

I also greatly enjoy modifying my minis, to better achieve some look or aesthetic goal. I’m a much better modifier than painter.

Here are a few things I’ve worked on recently:

I have always struggled to paint big models. Something about the sheer amount of surface area to cover intimidates me, and I have issues getting started and getting an idea of how to paint. One painter friend of mine suggested I simply try a bigger brush, and otherwise paint it as I would a smaller model. The above is the result. As the colors took shape with the larger brush, I found myself less worried about an even coat (because the larger brush makes that easier) and I could start focusing on the details. I’m quite happy with the end result. The bright yellow of the swan logo was an enormous pain.

A friend of mine did a very large commission for me, taking the army that this Ravagore comes from and doing it in red and black. After seeing his work up close, I tried my hand at imitating it, getting a sense for how he accomplished the appearance so that as my collection of that particular faction grows, I can keep them painted in the same style. There’ll certainly be a marked quality difference but I can live with that.

This paint job isn’t mine– a good friend of mine painted it, but the model itself is a heavily modified one. The original is on the right, mine is on the left. The character is supposed to be a very earthy, solid sort of character. Another incarnation of his mini has a hood with a beard showing through underneath. I didn’t like the bald, “raging warrior” theme of the original mini, so I swapped the head out for one with a hood, altered his arm to have an open hand instead of a fist, set his sword to rest rather than being ready, and sculpted a giant, epic beard for him. My friend’s paint job really brought the altered mini to life.

I get a lot of my news, as many people probably do, from the Internet at large. Every so often, I will run across something that I think is particularly pertinent or thought-provoking, and there’s a really good chance I’ll want to share and talk about them here.

Here’s the most recent: http://dangolding.tumblr.com/post/95985875943/the-end-of-gamers

These introductory segments are meant to be a brief look at the kinds of things I’m likely to talk about (and why I use the tags that I do), but I really want to talk about this specific article rather than simply talking about talking about articles.

I have a really strange relationship with the “gamer” identity as it relates to myself. I’ve spent a lot of time wearing it like a cloak, especially growing up, because in many ways the thing that set me apart, that made me unique, was my undying love for video games. Being a “gamer” has netted me friends, helped people relate to me, and even sparked a couple serious, intimate relationships.

As I’ve transitioned from playing games to making them, though, I’ve found the “gamer” label has been less and less applicable to me. It increasingly misleads people as far as informing them about how to best interact with me, and the main concept it communicates — “I play games” — has become so common as to be meaningless. When I was growing up and self-identifying as a gamer, I wanted everyone to play games. Now, everyone does play games, and I’ve found I no longer really need the label. I can’t say exactly when I stopped using it, but it’s been a few years now.

Dan Golding’s piece on the “end of gamers” really resonates with me. I am not a gamer, I’m a player, like a billion other people in the world.

I love to read. I’m generally about halfway through three or four books at any given time, and I PROMISE I’ll get back to them at some point. You know how it goes.

Reading, for me, is some combination of inspiration, mental workout, and perspective. I think anyone who reads seriously is inspired by what they read, whatever that may be — I’m certainly neither special nor alone in that regard. So much of my creative output is narrative that books are how I recharge, finding new ideas and interesting twists on old ones. Even though I’ve mostly worked on video games, the core ideas I get from books are still incredibly valuable, adapted to the work I’m doing (or even just providing an idea). I also find that putting mental effort towards visualizing what I’m reading, rather than watching it on a screen, helps me better visualize my own work, and keeps me sharp. The same is true for the perspective that books provide. It’s extremely important to me to continually broaden my horizons and keep looking at things from different angles, just to keep my content fresh. Books are a helpful shorthand way for me to get a different perspective than I might have otherwise.

Here’s a short list of what I’ve been reading (or rereading) lately:

The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch

D&D 5th Edition Player’s Handbook, by Wizards of the Coast

Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

Making Money (Discworld), by Terry Pratchett

The Scar, by China Mieville

I try to keep things varied, although I admit I’m not very good at it. I’m always interested in recommendations, although I’m appallingly bad at getting to them in a timely manner.

I occasionally write some short fiction. This is a piece that I wrote as a wrapper for a set of games of Infinity that I played, personalizing some of my minis and giving some context for the scenarios.

If you’re not familiar with Infinity, this is a good place to start.

With legs that were not his own, Santiago swam.

The tanned, muscular Acontecimento native imagined he could feel the cool waters around him, the warmth of the sunlight giving way to chills more than a handful of meters under the surface. With a thought, he switched directions, following a map, and kicking off towards a small blip, less than a kilometer away. For the next two hours, Santiago’s legs would work once more.

Forty-four thousand kilometers away, under the waters of the ocean planet Varuna’s tropical seas, a Cutter changed course slightly, its legs giving an effective but unnecessary kick as its turbines spun up.

Three surface cruisers and a submarine flanked it, moving towards a small, rocky island. The mission was simple and straightforward: two days ago, a terrorist attack left one of Varuna’s primary orbital elevators damaged, causing quite a few deaths and extensive infrastructure damage, not to mention the lost revenue in delayed or cancelled shipments. The group had been well-armed but sloppy, and a tracking device on their escape craft led pursuit to this island. Yesterday, a strike team had entered, the usual crew for a sweep; three Kamau, one of whom was a hacker controlling a Pathfinder Dronbot, and a Naga.

 

Kamau were Varuna’s standard antiterrorism specialists. Trained in aquatic insertion, they could get in and get out of even the most well-hidden underwater hideouts and flush out any insurgents. Their equipment was expensive, designed to provide superior protection against illegal weaponry, particularly EMP grenades and other devices. It was rare for a terrorist cell to get ahold of such things, but not rare enough to eschew the precaution.

 

Generally, one of the Kamau was a hacker, a battlefield computer specialist trained to use their prowess offensively. A hacker on the team could shut the lights off or slam doors closed from a hundred meters, or stop outgoing communications, or any number of other tricks, both technical and psychological. Having an hacking uplink available also meant a remote could join the team — an expendable robot with a variety of uses. In this particular case, advanced sensors meant no hiding for the terrorists, and saved money on multispectral visors and other tech — the Kamau suits were often expense enough. The Naga on the team was an advanced lhost, a clone specially grown to serve a specific purpose. In this case, the lhost was an infiltration specialist and a scout for the team.

 

Yesterday, the team of five went into the underwater entrance. Yesterday, contact was lost. Two of the team confirmed dead, the remote scrap metal, and one Kamau and the Naga unaccounted for. This was not a simple antiterrorism sweep anymore, and the potential repercussions were severe. The deaths of the Kamau were unfortunate but potentially remediable; much of their mental acuity and personality was kept on a Cube, attached to the brain, that recorded their thoughts and memories. With a Cube, the slain soldier could be revived, his mind uploaded into a new body. The waiting lists for new bodies could be long, but death in friendly territory as a result of a superior’s miscalculation tended to hasten the process quite a bit. The problem was, the Cubes needed to be retrieved. Combat casualties were one thing — securing Cubes after a mission was standard procedure. Losing an entire team was nearly unheard-of, though, and lost Cubes were very bad press.

Luckily, the news crews were delayed, and today Santiago and his team were being sent in for “authoritative extraction,” which was code for “get our men out at any cost, and make an example of los cabrones who made this happen”. Santiago himself was the heavy artillery: his Cutter was a five-meter Tactical Armored Gear armed with a heavy machinegun capable of tearing the average tank to shreds with explosive rounds. Armored, fast, and destructive, the Cutter was entirely capable of standing up to nearly any weapon brought by a terrorist cell on its own. As if that weren’t enough, the entire TAG was equipped with a state-of-the-art thermoptic camouflage system, allowing it to vanish from sight despite its size and move nearly silently, despite weighing several tons. With a pilot controlling in real-time from geosynchronous orbit, it was an incredibly efficient weapon, particularly for a mission like this.

 

This was not, however, a mission about efficiency. Santiago was not a one-man strike force. In the three surface craft above him were five Kamau and ten of Varuna’s Fusiliers, soldiers trained to work as a team and operate as one, armed variously for the situation. Croc Men accompanied the teams, infiltration specialists like the Naga but with superior technology to vanish, much like Santiago’s Cutter.

The submarine was full of ALEPH agents, the AI’s politely enraged response to losing one of its own. The team was formidable, larger than most black ops teams by far. The previous team had been insertion.

This team was shock. Santiago himself was the worst of that, intended to lie in wait until the rest of the force had hit the island and secured exits, then revealing himself as a final psychological assault to break the morale of the terrorists. As such, he crouched invisibly, waiting at the edge of the hideout for a signal to move in and reveal himself.

 

The first wave of Fusiliers were met by a rocket, followed by a withering hail of surprisingly accurate fire. Regrouping quickly, the strike team got a visual on one of the targets. As the visual was passed along wirelessly to the other members of the team, Santiago inhaled sharply. The terrorists were no simple insurgents, they were Druze mercenaries. Druze Shock Teams were infamous for their aggressive, scorched-earth tendencies, and they were no simple combatants. With access to excellent technology and weapons, they could easily be a match for the military forces of any nation, even the wealthy, high-tech PanOceania that controlled Varuna and several other planets.

 

Hidden from sight at the edge of the firefight, Santiago checked his weapon, carefully and silently. With the mercenaries on the scene, he would be needed. Shock and awe wouldn’t work on the Druze, only firepower.

 

***

 

In orbit above Varuna, the tactical support ship Avehielo kept watch over the strike team. The image of the Druze sent ripples throughout the ship, surprise evoking speculation like wildfire. Juliet Aeterra tried to keep out of it. She was an Auxilia, a police force used primarily on the metropolis planet of Neoterra, but also as guards on orbital craft. As reserve forces on the largely peaceful capital planet of PanOceania, Auxilia had a tendency to have little actual work to do, and turned to gossip between training and practice sessions. This was exacerbated on the Avehielo, as a fairly large contingent of ALEPH agents were posted on board. Their alert, professional, tireless security only caused the Auxilia on the ship to be even more bored, and gossip more than usual. Juliet found it tiresome, so opted to spend time working on her own personal remote, a monowheeled Auxbot that she affectionately called Zip.

 

Auxilia were trained to work in tandem with lightly armed Auxbots, and Juliet had developed an attachment to hers, stenciling ‘Zip’ on the lip above the remote’s single massive headlight. She activated Zip and brought it over to Tactical Remote Control, the portion of the ship that bristled with communications arrays and allowed the remote hackers to be present on the battlefield below, in mind if not in body. Guarding the hackers was as good an excuse as any for hanging around in one place, and Juliet figured she could work on Zip in the meantime, undisturbed in the nearly empty room. The only active hacker right now was Santiago Sims, a good friend of Juliet and an excellent TAG pilot. His wheelchair had rolled up against the wall, and Juliet moved it back next to Santiago’s uplink chair to make his life a little easier after the mission. Standing next to the uplink chair, she was close enough to hear him gasp.

 

***

 

The Druze were professionals. Expensive, well-trained, and brutal. Santiago stayed hidden, waiting for orders, but inwardly gritted his teeth as the Druze poured out of cover and opened fire in greater numbers than could possibly have been expected. It was very clear how the initial PanOceanian force had been overwhelmed; Santiago’s tactical map showed at least twenty Druze, many heavily armed.

The PanOceanian forces were far better equipped, however, and had the advantage of versatility, not to mention Santiago’s Cutter. He caught flickers of the Naga well ahead of the force, the almost-human ALEPH construct undoubtedly placing mines. The use of monofilament mines was authorized in certain situations to cut off the escape of insurgents. They blanketed an area with a mesh of monofilament fibers, which would slice through most materials with contemptuous ease. Without special tools, it was very difficult and dangerous to remove a monofilament mesh. Best of all, they had an intelligent friend-or-foe system in place, that would protect friendly fire without compromising functionality. In this case, they would prove invaluable in preventing the Druze from closing the distance necessary to threaten with powerful, close-range weaponry. Santiago appreciated the consideration; for all the armor on his Cutter, it wasn’t invincible by any means.

 

The Kamau, Naga, and other infiltrators moved forward quickly, trying to secure locations. The group of Fusiliers took position behind the mines and laid down suppressive fire, giving the infiltrators more chance to move forward. A silent cue spurred Santiago forward, and he moved into position behind them, waiting for his order to open fire. It almost looked like he would be redundant, as the Fusilier fire and the infiltrators’ precise shots sent the Druze into retreat. The Cutter wouldn’t fit into the tight spaces here; it would be up to the infantry to clean up. The order to move forward came, and Santiago watched as the Fusiliers moved forward. His attentive, mild relief turned to horror as the line of mines detonated, blanketing the area with monofilament mesh that sliced through most of the Fusiliers before they had the chance to react. Most were cut to ribbons in under a second, while those with the presence of mind to dodge were largely unable to escape the meshes. The Kamau and other infiltrators turned in horror, realizing what had just happened, just in time for the Druze to appear, having feigned retreat, and pin the surviving forces in between their guns and the blanket of deadly monofilament mesh.

 

Santiago’s horror turned to surprise, as his Cutter sustained several direct hits. Looking around in a panic, on either side of him he saw two tall, slender women wielding rifles. They casually loaded rounds into their guns and fired directly at the Cutter, its camouflage somehow no defense against their inhumanly accurate shots. Santiago barely had time to register the lithe women in white before their withering fire pierced through the Cutter’s armor, damaging internal systems. The uplink disconnected, and Santiago was unceremoniously thrust back into his body in orbit, convulsing with the shock.

 

***

 

Juliet listened over the intercom as a crew meeting was called. The ALEPH liason on the ship sounded like a normal woman, but her synthesized voice had an edge to it that made Juliet’s skin crawl. Zip was still partially open, and Juliet resolved to take her time showing up to the meeting, to ensure Zip was closed up. She didn’t particularly relish listening to that machine voice talk once more about security protocol or non-disclosure agreements. ALEPH made Juliet and most of her team redundant on the ship, so their continual ‘crew meetings’ tended to rub people the wrong way. ALEPH’s Deva- and Naga-class agents probably outnumbered the security teams on the ship, now that the strike force was on Varuna — they were handling everything. Perhaps the AI thought it would be a comfort to keep the crew in the loop, but it came off as patronizing. Juliet closed up Zip and sent it ahead while she cleaned up her tools, squeezing every moment to keep her away from the unnecessary meeting.

 

Juliet’s delay left her in the uplink room long enough that when Santiago convulsed with shock, she was close enough to startle and drop her spanner. Years of training meant that the startle was paired with the drawing of her pistol, the more at-hand of her standard weapons, but she quickly felt a bit sheepish pointing a gun at the bleary paraplegic, particularly as his eyes widened in shock. Scolding herself inwardly, she holstered the gun and moved to help Santiago into his wheelchair. If the Acontecimentan pilot came, at least she’d a friend there for company. A bit of cheer found its way into her voice at the thought.

 

“Hey, I didn’t expect you back so soon. The AI just called a meeting, figure I can walk over there with you if you like.” Juliet immediately regretted her choice of words, but Santiago didn’t appear to notice, paling at the mention of the AI.

 

“Don’t go to that meeting, amiga. Something isn’t right.” Santiago winced through a sudden pain: the shock of suddenly disconnecting was usually followed by a severe migraine. He had to tell someone what he’d seen, though. “ALEPH turned on us. God only knows why. The entire strike team is dead.” Juliet paled. She had seen the strike team, much bigger and well-equipped than most. If it had been brought down, it wasn’t by some simple terrorists– but an ALEPH betrayal? It was unthinkable. As she opened her mouth to respond, her helmet beeped, an alert from Zip. Still watching Santiago, she picked up the helmet and glanced inside. On one of the graphical panels, she could see the viewpoint of her auxbot, seeing through Zip’s eyes, as it were. Zip was looking through a window, alerted by gunfire, and Juliet had a few seconds to register the scene before the ALEPH forces on the ship gunned down the entire team of security personnel on board the Avehielo, all gathered in one place. She dimly realized Santiago was putting a comforting hand on her shoulder as she watched her team, the other Auxilia and Fusiliers, her friends, gasp in surprise before bullets ended their lives. She had seen death before, but not like this. Her stunned reverie was interrupted by a sudden lurching of the ship. The entire Avehielo shook.

 

“Madre de Dios. Boarding hooks. What idiotas would attack this ship in PanOceania space?” Santiago took Juliet by the wrist, gently shaking her to get her attention. “Amiga, we need to go. They’ll find we weren’t there soon, if they aren’t already coming to kill me.”

 

Juliet shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the faces of her companions. “The escape pods. If we hurry, we’ll get there before the boarders do. Who are they?”

 

“No se. I would rather not find out, no?” Santiago forced a grin. “You have your little buddy, amiga?” Juliet nodded, already plugging in her helmet. The synchronization between herself and Zip clicked in instantly, giving her the momentarily disorienting feeling of being in two places at once. The sensation passed quickly, however, as training kicked in, and Juliet moved down the hall with Santiago. The tanned man held her rifle while she pushed his wheelchair, and Zip closed the distance between them, watching for pursuers. The two humans were down the hall only slightly before the ship’s klaxons blared, followed quickly by an announcement: Santiago Sims and Juliet Aeterra, report to the bridge for processing. The machine voice sent chills up Juliet’s spine, and she saw Santiago shudder in his chair.

 

***

 

The orders were simple: extraction. Interventors had hacked into the ALEPH strategic planning database and discovered the plan to eliminate the PanOceanian crew. A strike team was dispatched to interrupt the ALEPH timetable and extract any survivors. The odds of defection were extremely high, particularly if the strike could occur after the betrayal.

 

The team itself was tight and slim, but very well equipped. Two Intruders, insertion and suppression specialists. Two Spektrs, stealth specialists. Two Zeroes, infiltration and extraction. One Reverend Custodier, the religious representative of the Observance and the overwatch for the team. One Meteor Zond, a remote capable of sweeping the area and scanning for survivors.

The boarding action was clean, airlocks prepped for insertion. Charges placed. Detonated.

 

***

 

As Juliet and Santiago raced down the hall, Juliet heard an alert ping from Zip. Fast, deadly ALEPH remotes were chasing them, followed quickly by the AI lhost bodies. The intent was obvious, and Zip shook from a bullet ricocheting off of its outer shell. Juliet closed her eyes for a moment, crossing a line in her mind, then sent a mental command to Zip.

 

Three ALEPH security remotes raced down the hall, chasing the small auxbot. A trio of Devas followed closely, flanking a slender woman, apparently lightly armored, but wielding a heavier gun than the rest, as if it weighed nothing. She was an Asura, the elite of ALEPH’s agents, and under the guise of the slender woman, she was as well armored as any shock troop, capable of taking direct missile fire and shrugging it off. She gestured forward, indicating to the Devas and their remotes to cut off the fleeing auxbot. When the small, monowheeled remote abruptly stopped and spun around, the Asura stopped, enhanced artificial intelligence warning her of upcoming events. As a result, when a massive gout of flame poured down the hallway, the Asura was already behind cover, shielded from much of the force of the blast. Briefly considering the wrecked remains and charred bodies of the Devas and their Devabots, the Asura calmly returned fire, a single, powerful shot shattering the auxbot into so much scrap metal.

Juliet stiffened as she saw the muzzle flash, a split second before Zip disconnected. As she ran down the hall, fighting tears at the destruction of her companion, she glanced behind her, seeing the Asura moving with inhuman speed in their direction. Santiago let out a shout as the hallway in front of them exploded, an airlock door slamming across the hallway and indistinct shapes pouring out. Juliet mistook the hints of red armor for her lost Auxilia teammates for a brief moment, and while Santiago frantically swung the rifle around, trying to pin down one of the blurry, technologically camouflaged shapes, a voice rang out from the newcomers.

 

“Calm down, mates. We’re gettin’ ya out of here. Hurry.” The voice resolved into a white shape, a faceless mask with a single glowing green eye, above a white-and-orange armored jumpsuit. The Zero gestured towards the hole where the airlock used to be. “C’mon now, we’ve got to–”

The Zero’s calming voice was cut off suddenly, as the Asura rounded the corner. Two shapes in red armor coalesced, six glowing green eyes focusing on the oncoming ALEPH agent. Heavy machine guns erupted, slowing but not stopping the machine-woman. In a moment of realization, the Asura turned with her gun and simply smashed a wall with inhuman strength, ripping through the hull to the vacuum beyond. As Juliet’s ears popped and she felt a trickle of blood drip down the sides of her neck, her last sight before the spots around her eyes enveloped her in blackness was Santiago, slumping in his wheelchair.

 

***

 

Santiago awoke in a cold room, an incessant vibration suggesting a spacecraft, and the deep resonance of the vibration suggesting a spacecraft larger than he had ever been on. A single light illuminated a nightstand next to him, where a Bible and a rosary sat. He smiled to himself, and accepted the gift. It wasn’t the Bible he was used to, but it was close enough.

 

When he had said his prayers and read from the Good Book for a few hours, a knock came from the darkness, followed by a feminine shape cloaked in orange and white. A hood covered her head, and a mask her face, but her voice was soft, almost musical.

 

“Santiago Sims. I’m glad you woke up.” Santiago’s mind caught up with him, and he realized what was happening, and who he was speaking to.

 

“This is a Nomad ship. You’re a Catholic. You’re recruiting me, aren’t you?” The cloaked woman tilted her head.

 

“Is it working? If not, you are of course free to go. Your medical treatment is courtesy of Bakunin. I’d rather not interview you in bed, though. Come talk to me outside when you’re ready.” With a curt nod, she spun on her heel and left.

 

“Madre, wait!” Santiago sat up, pulling himself forward from the bed. Habit sent him towards where his wheelchair usually was, but it wasn’t there. He braced himself to crash onto the floor, but long-lost reflexes kicked in, and his legs swung out underneath him. For a moment, Santiago tottered on his feet, eyes wide in shock. One hand traced his lower back, feeling the sown skin and implanted metal that had repaired his ruined spine. The Reverend Custodier turned back, her mask watching Santiago carefully.

“Madre, you did this? For free?” Santiago took a delicate step forward, his strong legs supporting him. Past the Custodier he could see Juliet, watching excitedly in a white jacket and baggy orange pants.

“Yes, my child. It is what we do. Tell me, do you think you can pilot a Szalamandra?” The Custodier began walking out of the room again.

Santiago laughed at the question. “You gave me my legs back, madre. I will pilot whatever you ask.”

With legs that were his own, new and strong, Santiago followed her out.

I play a lot of games. As previously mentioned, I also really enjoy sharing the experiences I’ve had playing games, whether or not those games were good or bad. I’ve tried very hard to reach a point where I can view games objectively, or as objectively as possible, so that I can understand what would make other people enjoy that game.

On top of that, my friends are various and sundry, with various and sundry tastes in games. I find myself exposed to a ton of different games on a constant basis, and I occasionally find myself listening to a friend who has a particular, unsatisfied taste in games. Often in these cases, I can think of a game that I’ve been introduced to from another friend that would fit the bill, and when that happens I tend to recommend it. I’m like a telephone switchboard operator for my network of game enthusiast friends.

I’ve started to talk about games I find interesting (whether or not I enjoy playing them) in terms that help people determine for themselves if they’d enjoy it. One of the biggest issues I have with game reviews is that they tend to speak in universal absolutes — this game is good and worth your time or this game is not good/not worth your time. As the gaming audience has expanded, I’d like to see more objective, broad-scope reviews. If I review a game here, expect to see a lot of talk focusing on discovering whether or not you personally would like a game, not necessarily if I like it.