Active Time Event

Inventio Per Fabula

difficulty

  • Halo: Campaign Evolved-Doing It Looney Tunes Style

    (Companion vid, aka the tl;dr version)- Lamentable as life may seem at times, value is ultimately perspective, and you’re the only person who can ever define what’s good about the everyday for yourself. Whatever you end up valuing, hopefully it doesn’t involve whatever the fuck this show is The general sentiment that has pervaded my… Read more

  • Mina The Hollower: The Legend That Never Was

    It is a cold hard fact of life: one can do everything right and still fail. Or you can be like Arby’s and avoid the anxiety of doing a good job by never trying at all As has been the case this year on Active Time Event, I’ve once again randomly stumbled into a rabbit… Read more

  • Mina The Hollower: Carving Out A Transcendent Niche

    Best not wait to put off what can be done today by waiting till tomorrow…unless one is like, really tired. I’m of the mind courage is the best policy, though I have to admit, staying in bed is quite comfy, too Yesterday ended up being a nice little detour of an article; I say detour,… Read more

  • Mina The Hollower: A Tale Of Two Difficulties

    You never know where the day is going to take you at any given moment. As a cynic, however, my suspicions always remain firmly intact of what to expect from any 24 hour period One of the reasons I feel so vindicated in giving Mina the Hollower so many props where props are due, is… Read more

  • Mina The Hollower: Unearthing The Realm Of Darkened Madness

    Always be prepared to go with the flow, even if that flowing ain’t really where you want to be going. I’m not sure why, but in recent days, when I sit down to put some thoughts to screen, almost always for something video game related, I usually have to start the entire process by having… Read more

  • Mina the Hollower: Escaping From The Oppressive Grounds Of Modernity

    In some ways, writing is one of my love languages, as it more or less represents a desire to give back to both the gaming community, and humanity at large, in a moment of surprisingly non-cynical solidarity. It might also be my way of silently acknowledging that every day somehow grows worse than the last,… Read more

  • Mina the Hollower: Revealing Bedrock Design

    Some days, even getting out of bed feels as if a nightmarish ordeal, and you just have to summon some grit and bear it. Unless your day is going to look anything like that thing above….then the bed is probably the best place to be Yesterday was a bit of a train wreck, not going… Read more

  • Super Meat Boy 3D: Leaving Well Enough Alone

    Sometimes, keeping it simple is all one can ask for. Other times…not so much One of the problems with having to write about the video games you play, and to have to play video games to write about, is that if during a day, you get hung up on something totally irrelevant, or end up… Read more

  • Super Meat Boy 3D: It’s Magic, Tragic, A Loss And A Win

    There’s a deep irony involved with escapism; insofar as to it’s quality at least. As one escapes to escape the drudgery of reality, but then when the escapism is even more drudging, one then needs to escape back to the drudgery from whence they came, The want to angry nap intensifies After spending some time… Read more

  • Super Meat Boy 3D: Painful Reality

    The truth hurts. There’s no punchline follow up to that cold open. That’s it. In an unpredictable bout of what I feel is justifiable ire, I’ve more or less been “on one” the past few posts, thrashing about in anguish at the thought of some of the more lamentable aspects of the gaming industry, with… Read more

  • The Conversations About The Conversations About Games

    Often times, it’s the small things that count for the most. Whatever it takes to keep one sane In a movement reminiscent of my recent work on GoldenEye 64, where I got completely “derailed” right from the get, and needed to take a temporary hiatus before continuing, so too did my progress on Super Meat… Read more

  • GoldenEye 64: One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

    Though this next bit of darkly shaded humor may mean nothing to you at the moment, after reading this write-up about one of the final missions in GoldenEye, I urge you to go read The Myth of Sisyphus (or at least a tl;dr summary), to truly appreciate the idea behind the premise of this article,… Read more

  • GoldenEye 64: Ubermensching Through The Undergrowth

    We get by with a little help from our friends… …no matter what’s on the agenda for the day After admiring some trans-continental bilingualism in the form of broadcasting self-aware meta media-literacy on a train yesterday, we move on from a proper derailing and find our selves in the Jungle, as our replay of GoldenEye… Read more

  • GoldenEye 64: Speaking The Language; Faux Pas Be Damned

    Sticking the landing is key in any good routine We often end up being victims of our own success After a dreadful mucking about in a metaphoric desert, one overflowing with conceptual sand of a coarse and irritating nature by even the roughest of standards, we gasp dryly for some kind of refreshing sense of… Read more

  • Words Of Wisdom: The Truth About Fun

    To be silly is to be wise: when one gooses; one rebels. To wit; goose as hard as you fucking can I’m not at my most refined or heightened sense of thinking and writing this week, but all the more reason to try my hand at producing something of value, as the idea of only… Read more

  • Silent Hill: Analyzing Metaphysically Encoded Identity Issues

    Among the many horrors I continue to confront during ‘spoopy season, one of the greatest of the bunch is low key just how fast the passage of time seems to be moving to me now a days. Is this somehow Covid’s fault on some level? Let’s just blame Covid and call it a day One… Read more

  • Silksong: The Cost of Faith

    I will always advocate in the name of honesty, no matter how painful the truth may be. The truth shall set you free I’ve often discussed that my approach to the everyday, at least, in my estimations of what it takes for one to be successful at surviving, depart drastically from common wisdom. I am… Read more

  • Silksong: Color Me With Expectation

    I usually advocate for Occam’s Razor, in shaving away all of the excess of complicated theories and leaving the simplest explanation left as the correct deduction. Always trust in the simplest reasoning As I detailed in my last post, I was finally able to reach the first “not true” ending of Silksong, after weeks of… Read more

  • Silksong: Nothing Beyond The Rainbow

    One person’s ending is another person’s beginning, true both in the fight of the every day, and the absurdity of what constitutes the reality of virtual battlefields. What I imagine most Silksong bosses eat for breakfast every morning And…credit roll… Fully aware I still have yet another full act of content to see before the… Read more

  • Words of Wisdom: Idealizing Idleness

    Sometimes, you’ve got to slow down, consider your options, and know when to let go. Some realizations are more painful than others Which is why the words of Wisdom for today are idealizing idleness, which might come as a shock to some of you, if you’re at all familiar with some of my own notions… Read more

  • Silksong: Clambering For The Climax That Never Comes

    We live in hypocrisy, and are often the makers of our own doom. I’m reminded of this sentiment these days, usually when I’m reading about others who lament the difficulty level in Silksong, as if they are tragically unfamiliar with the very nature of difficulty involving video game design since time immemorial. A lot of… Read more

  • Silksong: In The Land Of The Thoughtless, The Thinkers Rule As Kings

    As I always say: in a recession of shits to give, know how to budget accordingly. If time is money, then proper shit allocation is generational wealth. Yesterday’s post was a bit of an oddball attempt of mine at providing some wisdom in the realm of the strategically practical, with some D.I.Y tips on how… Read more

  • Silksong: Mastering Metaphysical Mahyem

    Life is hectic, and it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. That look you get when the boss goes into a surprise phase you weren’t expecting My time with Silksong has provided a lot of engaging sessions, and as many good write-ups to boot, with a surprising number of concepts that have sprung… Read more

  • Silksong: Temple of Dooming Itself Into A New Context

    After being alerted to a theoretical reality of how horses function, I think my advice to Silksong players having trouble would be to start horsing around. Do as the horses do I think it’s fitting that while I write this article, I struggle a bit with mood and energy levels, which is generating a melancholy… Read more

  • Silksong: If Everything is Made Easy, Does Anything Remain Hard?

    Not all will summit Everest. I expounded upon the notion yesterday that many players are destined to bounce off of Silksong, if not before their arrival at the front steps of The Citadel, certainly in attempting to pass the gatekeeper known as “The Last Judge”, who acts as an all important skill check punctuating the… Read more

  • Silksong: It’s Practice Makes Perfect, Not Fun Makes Perfect

    Sometimes, I address harder truths that make people uncomfortable. Others, involving the observations of these same hard truths, just think I’m either telling some kind of queer, long winded joke, or am just straight up full of shit. The reaction I expect out of the majority of you who quit before articles end rolling their… Read more

  • Silksong: The Polyrhythmic Failings of Player Follies

    The silver lining about forced downtime one is confronted with in games, especially the moments of disappointment after losing to a boss, is that anyone who’s lucky enough to have an animal in their life just got an extra minute to enjoy some fluffy company. I’m imagining many Silksong players with cats have spent similar… Read more

  • Silksong: Honing in on Homing In

    I think people beat themselves up entirely too much, maybe possessing absurdist expectations that help totally butcher their mood in the process. Expectations cannot be subverted if one doesn’t have any to begin with I basically didn’t leave enough time for myself today to play around with ideas, thusly this post is probably going to… Read more

  • Silksong: Democratizing Difficulty

    No one likes a tryhard. This notion pushes some even deeper into the realm of absurdity, as they then double down, and try harder to become the “tryhardiest”…a self-damning effort, if I’ve ever witnessed one I mentioned briefly in my last Silksong article, in what I would consider me half joking about putting out too… Read more

  • Soulslike Players Complaining About Easier Difficulty Options: Touch Grass

    One must find enjoyment where one can, though if your idea of an enjoyable dish in the dinning room of life is a bit spicier than others, do not force peppers into your shared preferred dish of choice when cooking for the entire crowd. Spending time with family is a great example of just how… Read more

  • Hoping The Duo Expeditions Update For Elden Ring: Nightreign Will Be My Hakuna Matata Moment

    “Our” trio is down to two Rejoice, Nightfarers! A severely demanded for u yupdate that many players from the Elden Ring community have been clamoring for, and one that is both long overdue and yet at the same time, surprisingly quick in it’s implementation, comes in the form of patch 1.02, aka, the Duos Expedition… Read more

  • Words of Wisdom: Mastering Disadvantage

    Sometimes, it can feel like a struggle to gain the upper hand. This becomes especially difficult when one no longer has any hands I recently wrote about “What is Playing?”, and I used the phrase “proponent of salvaging some value from any given situation”, and while it can feel impossible to keep a level head… Read more

  • Will FromSoftware Stick To Their Guns and Keep Nightreign Multiplayer Oriented?

    Not much time to go indepth on an entire subject with a full length article today due to a busy schedule, but I figured I would take a moment to wonder aloud about whether or not FromtSoftware will in fact, stick to their guns and keep Elden Ring: Nightreign multiplayer oriented? From reading write ups… Read more

  • Looking forward to more pain in Nightreign

    A new Elden Ring game is upon us. What launch day servers will look like when players start logging in After spending a significant amount of time with Doom: The Dark Ages in the past two weeks, and having thoroughly enjoyed what was on offer, warts and all, I am about ready to move on… Read more