I’m Writing for “The Know”

I guess all those years of faux journalism on GamerSushi paid off. For the last few weeks, I’ve been writing for Rooster Teeth’s gaming news channel on YouTube, The Know. I’m filling in for a bit while Ashley Jenkins is on a trip that is totally not a big deal.

So far the experience has been a total blast. It’s cool to dip my toes into these waters again, and I actually love seeing this side of the process. Meg and Ashley are total pros, and really know how to add color and energy to a script, especially considering how many bad puns I like to sneak in. It’s also nice to write something and then have an audience see it almost immediately for a change, compared to most of my projects which have to slow cook for months on end.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of video games and want to stay up-to-date on the industry, you should check it out. So far, only one person has called for me to be fired in the comments, so maybe I’m doing alright.

Here are some of my favorites from the last couple of weeks:

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My Favorite Episodes of The Leet World

7 years ago, which is forever in internet time, my friends and I produced a ridiculously stupid show in Counter-Strike: Source called The Leet World. A show that we’re bringing back, fully animated in Source Filmmaker either late this year or early next year.

I really do say ridiculously stupid in the most affectionate way I can here. In a lot of ways it’s totally immature (especially in the earlier episodes), but I sort of look back fondly on those rough edges, and that we put out content for people to see without over-worrying about how to hone it to perfection. Over time, the show improved in basically every area, and I’m really proud of how the later episodes balanced story and character. It essentially became a Counter-Strike soap opera.

For all its ridiculousness, The Leet World actually managed to tell a decent story (albeit a silly one). At the time, it was one of the more well-watched machinimas, and many content creators have told me it was the reason they started making videos in the first place. And as absurd as it is that we decided to make hours of content using Counter-Strike: Source as the canvas, it actually lead to us doing bigger things and gave me some of the opportunities I’ve had in my career as a copywriter and a writer for Rooster Teeth.

So here are some of my favorite episodes of The Leet World, presented in a completely arbitrary order. Continue reading →

Leveling Up in Writing

scott pilgrim level up

There are quite a few ways that video games are better than real life. For one, there are very few consequences for your actions. Want to eat mushrooms? Snack away, Mr. Plumber. Want to try to defeat the world’s most evil wizard with a bunch of Deku nuts? Have at it, Hero of Time! Pretty much anything goes.

But one of the things I really love about video games happens to come from role-playing games in particular — the idea of leveling up. Continue reading →

How to Write Epic Fantasy

Lodoss

I’ve got a strange love-hate thing going on with epic fantasy, guys. In some ways, it was my first love. High tales of chosen one heroes and grandiose adventure-taking is what spawned my love of reading in the first place. Things like Record of Lodoss War, the Wheel of Time, Final Fantasy games and the like. Despite the genre’s numerous downfalls, it’s the thing that I still want to write again someday, even if I’m a bit burned out on epic fantasy as a whole for the moment.

So, in preparation for that day of passionate reunion, of once again walking the fields of Middle Earth or a loving rip-off of it, here are some of the best tips I can give you on how to write the most amazing, generic epic fantasy of all time.

Note: And for the record, none of this is serious. It’s so hard to tell over the intertubes, sometimes.

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The Rockstar Equivalent

The Toxic Avenger

This weekend, Jen and I went to the Alley Theatre to check out the much celebrated Toxic Avenger musical. While that might sound strange or awesome to you depending on whatever whacky lens you use to view the world, rest assured — it was one of the greatest live performances of anything I’ve seen, ever. Continue reading →

Prior Incantato: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Part 6

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Prior Incantato: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Prior Incantato: In Harry Potter, a spell that can reveal the last spell performed by a particular wand. In other words — magic revisited.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Several months after part 5, here we are at Part 6 (of 7) of my re-read of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. And here I thought I’d knock this thing out in just three short essays. I apologize for the delay, but Jurassic Park knows best when it tells us that “life finds a way”, and that includes interrupting all of our plans to write about wizards.

In this edition, we talk about Ridgebacks, centaurs and the stars. The end of our last session found Harry spying on Severus as he threatens Quirrell for the Sorcerer’s Stone. Or so it seems. Dun dun dun, and so forth. Continue reading →

Why I Love the Internet: The Tale of Qwikster

There are some things that are so Internet that you can’t even begin to describe them. I’m sorry not to have a better word for the bizarre organic phenomena that occur across this vast network of tubes, but I’m sure someone smarter than me will come up with one and make a billion dollars while I cry into my Voltron blanket.

In case you aren’t a Netflix subscriber, or you didn’t read that weird personalized e-mail from CEO Reed Hastings, you might have missed out on the news that Netflix is splitting DVD and Streaming not only into two plans — but separate businesses. Continue reading →

Prior Incantato: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Part 5

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Prior Incantato: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Prior Incantato: In Harry Potter, a spell that can reveal the last spell performed by a particular wand. In other words — magic revisited.

HP Mirror

After a long Labor Day weekend, Prior Incantato is back, with the piece of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that I’ve been waiting to cover ever since I first got the idea for this thing. We’re going to talk about mirrors, desires, phantoms and Flamels. At the end of Part 4, Harry vanquished a troll and got his Quidditch on. What’s next? Continue reading →

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