Week 811
- 811 6 augustus 2014 EN
What’s this? I’m blogging about my work on a weekly basis – a simple way to track and archive whatever it is I spend my time on.
Part of a tooth in the lower left region of my mouth had broken off, and last week I visited the dentist during a monsoon-like downpour. Soaking wet I took a seat in the dentist’s chair. It could’ve been worse; the dentist said it might turn into a root canal treatment, but it didn’t. On my way home I cycled through knee-deep puddles, as I was already wet, and my teeth were OK again.
On Monday I had coffee with Daniël Verlaan, a fellow journalist. He had criticized the games writing in NRC, calling it “pseudo games journalism” on Twitter. I take feedback seriously, but prefer to talk about it in real life, instead of ‘discussing’ on Twitter. Luckily Daniël turned out to live a stone’s throw away from my house, literally. His criticism ended up to be partly outdated (the “half-baked columns” he mentions were discontinued last year), and partly valid, although some of it comes from practical constraints that I have limited control over, such as space. Above all, it was nice to get acquainted.
On Tuesday, I edited a batch of short game reviews and sent them off to nrc.next: Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty! by Rogier Kahlmann, Ingress by Harry Hol and The Nightmare Cooperative by Stefan Keerssemeeckers. These were printed on Wednesday, along with my long article on escape rooms, which is available via Blendle. I also posted my earlier NRC article on The International on this site (in Dutch): Creeps en helden strijden met elkaar om tien miljoen.
On Wednesday, I sorted out my quarterly taxes, which was riveting as usual.
On Thursday, I visited Two Tribes to play the latest build of the upcoming 2D shooter/platformer that was revealed on Tuesday (announcement trailer below). I rewrote the in-game text for the demo that will be playable next week at Gamescom in Germany. The game is called RIVE, pronounced like ‘five’, which means “to split or tear apart violently”. I like it because it’s short, powerful-sounding and rarely used, which means the game can claim it as its own.
Also on Thursday, I wrote an article for NRC Handelsblad about Threes!, a mobile puzzle game with amazing depth. Months after its release I’m still getting better at it. My conversation about the game with Richard Boeser, a week prior, was one of the reasons why I decided to write about it again.
On Friday, I met up with Suzanne Meeuwissen at the Dutch Foundation for Literature. We talked about Ninja Girl and the Hybrid Writer’s Toolkit, which I’m still trying to find additional funding for. She told me she’d read De verdwijners during her stay on the Seychelles, leaving it at the library of a fancy hotel. Somehow, this awakened an urge to read my novel without knowing it yet. Alas.
On Saturday morning, I took a boat to Terschelling with my family. I’ll stay there for two weeks.