My game Touch Love is in the opening show of a new studio/exhibition space in New York. I was probably a bit demanding for small DIY space, but they’re kindly going to the effort of setting it up with two Wii nunchuck controllers instead of a keyboard :)
I do rough drafts of these kinda posts every year, but this year I’m publishing one! Here’re some things I liked in 2022.
I was given a book for my birthday, which started me reading again after a long break. The one that’s really stuck with me is Border Districts, by Gerald Murnane. I saw a doco on him in 2019, and have been meaning to read one of his books ever since. I’m reading Tamarisk Row now.
None of the films I saw really-really-really stand out, but:— The The Cleaning Company doco I saw on SBS about a trauma cleaning company and the life of it’s owner Sandra Pankhurst. Really heartbreaking in a life-affirming, encouraging way. My favourite thing from MIFF was Demon Pond. The main actor, Tamasaburo Bando, has a background in Kabuki theatre and is mesmerising. There are also some really cool monster costumes in one part. (I thought I’d seen August In The Water in 2022, but turns out it was right at the end of 2021.)
Seems like I didn’t listen to much i really liked, but I found a video for a great Nana Love song I hadn’t heard before called Dancing in the Rain, I think this was the year I listened to a bunch of Yasuha songs for the first time, and I keep getting this Doug Parkinson version of I’ll Be Around stuck in my head. Also finally went through the Talking Heads discography, but my faves are all obvious ones I’d heard before (Lady Don’t Mind, Girlfriend Is Better).
I’ve been playing a cute little game called Tomodachi Life on the 3DS. Since the Wii, Nintendo consoles have these things called Miis—goofy people you design that you can use in some games—and this game involves filling an apartment building with them and dressing them up, making them do songs, keeping them happy, etc. The idea with Miis is that you make one to represent yourself, and yours and your friends’ live in each others’ systems. Tomodachi Life expands on this by making you give them personalities, lets you interact with them, and encourages you to make all sorts of different ones. A little searching will dig up lots of Mii versions of celebrities and things, and these can be shared with QR codes.
So I made Peter Dutton, and decided to treat him horribly. You have to give them a nickname, so I went with ‘Beandick’. Yeah, I dunno.
Here he is getting interviewed on the news:
Here he is looking lonely in a Japanese hotel while I hang on the door doing ninja stuff?
I only fed him once.
This is the time he sold colonial uniforms in the park:
I’ve been trying to make a sequel to my game Castlevania 10, but been struggling a bit. To remind myself of the first game I went looking for the video of it someone had recorded and turned up some new ones (by other people)!
This was the first one I found, and is by a funny Finnish fellow called Kermakastikeritari. Browsing his videos also lead me to Mat Dickie, and I’m looking forward to playing through some of his games some time soon.
This one’s by Noyb, who I know from Glorious Trainwrecks. He runs some nice game-related blogs, too.
And these are both by bankbank, who I’m pretty sure is part of Quimdung. The last video is the current official world record, though I think it’s pretty beatable.
