WEEK IN GEEK: This week, our hosts dive deep into the video game pool as Andrew gets his caveman farming on with Soda Den’s Roots of Pacha while D. Bethel finds a lot of adventure and fun in the deeply Lovecraftian adventure puzzle game, Call of the Sea by Out of the Blue.
RELEVANT EPISODES:
“Your Cursor is My Prisoner” (19 February 2016): Where D. Bethel talks about another fun walking simulator, Firewatch.
“Love the Stank” (30 December 2016): Where Andrew begins his long love affair with Stardew Valley.
“Starting By Starting” (3 January 2020): Where D. Bethel plays a different––in many ways––Lovecraftian adventure game, The Sinking City.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
BLOOMING WILLOW: D. Bethel takes a minute to share his excitement for the new Willow show on Disney+
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew gets surprised by the dark remake/sequel of Kamen Rider Black Sun while D. Bethel rides the ups and owns of Netflix’s Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
IN REMEMBRANCE: Our hosts take a moment to honor the sad and surprising deaths of Kevin Conroy––the inimitable voice of Bruce Wayne and Batman in Batman: The Animated Series and many works afterwards––and Jason David Frank, most well known as Tommy the Green Ranger in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
RELEVANT EPISODES:
“Films in Quarries” (18 June 2021): Where Andrew dips his toe into the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers pool.
“Doctor Ennui” (27 August 2021): Where Andrew goes waist-deep into the Zyuranger pool.
RELEVANT LINKS:
Though not (legally) freely available, you can find the Batman comic written by Kevin Conroy (with art by J. Bone) in the DC Pride 2022 anthology published by DC Comics.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
KOTICK TOCK TIME’S UP: This week, after a scathing report, employees of Activision/Blizzard walked out calling for the expulsion of the company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick. Our hosts examine the situation and how it symptomizes larger aspects of video game culture.
DIAMOND ANNIVERSARY:Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim turned 10 years old this week, celebrated with yet another re-release of the game across all gaming platforms. Andrew and D. Bethel talk about this milestone for a brief bit.
PLEASE STOP: NFTs continue to rear their ugly heads as major gaming publishers announce their interest in integrating blockchain weirdness into their games. After an explanation of the whole mess, D. Bethel and Andrew discuss NFTs’ possible impact on video games.
RIP DEAN STOCKWELL: After a long and storied career, actor and writer Dean Stockwell passed away this week. Nerds know him best as Al from Quantum Leap, but his strange choices and charismatic performances made him an actor everybody surely has a fond memory of in some way or another.
RELEVANT LINKS:
A screenshot from Reddit outlining the hit cryptocurrency may take after the institution of the recently passed legislation (via the Twitter account @CoinersTakingLs):
WEEK IN GEEK: As is often the case with our hosts: everything old is new again. Andrew plans to take on the psychological strangeness ofAtlus’ Catherine in the recently released “definitive” version of the 2011 game called Catherine: Full Body. D. Bethel actually steps outside the realm of Xavier’s School for the Gifted to try out a different Marvel hero, The Silver Surfer, in the 2019 limited series, Silver Surfer: Black, by Donny Cates, Tradd Moore, and Dave Stewart.
THE PROBLEM WITH LOVECRAFT: A lot of controversy was had (mostly on Twitter) over the last few weeks with the release of Evil Hat Productions’ Fate of Cthulhu, a new table-top RPG integrating the systems of Evil Hat’s Fate Core and the Lovecraft mythos. Evil Hat proudly declared that it was bucking tropes of other Lovecraft-inspired games––mainly how it addresses Lovecraft’s prejudices head-on and it doesn’t include sanity meters for its players––and that, for some reason, made a lot of people upset. Andrew talks about the subsequent furor while D. Bethel shows up as our resident Lovecraft scholar.
*Show image is a screenshot of Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley from the 1970 film, The Dunwich Horror.
Evil Hat tweets about how Fate of Cthulhu bends the traditional Lovecraftian gaming experience:
There are no sanity rules in Fate of Cthulhu. We don't require anyone to play or perform mental illness. (If you choose to, we have guidance on how to do it respectfully.) Instead your PC gains Corruption, a potent, alluring slice of the Elder Gods' power.https://t.co/v0F853zsM0pic.twitter.com/13tLqmE3wR
“Episode 89 – High-Five Forever” (25 March 2016): Where D. Bethel discusses the Lovecraft revisionist novella, The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle.
“Starting By Starting” (03 January 2020): Where D. Bethel talks about Frogwares’ Lovecraftian adventure game, The Sinking City, which also openly addressed and push against Lovecraft’s racism.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew and D. Bethel start the new year with some things they have only light knowledge of and experience with. Andrew starts watching Netflix’s The Witcher and only briefly plays Haemimont Games’ Surviving Mars. D. Bethel has fun playing detective in the disgusting Lovecraftian world of Frogwares’ The Sinking City.
Silva, Kyrun. “2019: Reigniting Geekdom.” A Website [ , ] For All Intents and Purposes. 31 Dec. 2019.
RELEVANT EPISODES:
“Episode 44 – Man Band” (10 April 2015): Where Andrew shared his experiences with another, more terrestrial-focused, city simulation game, Cities: Skylines.
“Episode 89 – High-Five Forever” (25 March 2017): Where D. Bethel talked about other Lovecraftian revisionist literature with Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: As 2019 hurries to a close, our hosts kick up their feet and just chat about the things they’re doing to occupy their time until the new year rolls around. They talk about everything from the winter Steam sale, to finishing Outer Wilds (no spoilers!), to Lovecraftian tabletop games (Fate of Cthulhu), video games (The Sinking City), and novels (Winter Tide), to developing for web browsers, to––of course––Doctor Who and Star Wars.
RELEVANT LINKS:
“Weird World News“––a module for Fate Core by friend-of-the-show, André La Roche.
La Roche, André. “Spotlight: The Joke’s On Us.” A Website [ , ] For All Intents and Purposes, 27 October 2019––André’s critical look at one of the most divisive movies of the year.
“Shortcast 03 – Interview with André La Roche” (31 December 2014): When we actually had friend-of-the-show, André La Roche, on to talk about writing for tabletop games, thus becoming a friend-of-the-show.
“Episode 89 – High-Five Forever” (25 March 2016): Where D. Bethel talked about the revisionist Lovecraftian story, The Ballad of Black Tom.
“Shortcast 77 – Smash Talk” (14 December 2018): Where our hosts talk about Series 11 of Doctor Who, which introduced the world to Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor.
“End-Of-Year-Cast #001 – #WIN” (28 December 2018): Where our hosts go over the things that defined 2018 for them.
“Plants Having Sex” (05 April 2019): Where Andrew first talks about playing No Man’s Sky.
“Threadnaught” (13 September 2019): Where Andrew talks about the big No Man’s Sky update, No Man’s Sky Beyond.
“Tile Pile” (22 November 2019): Where D. Bethel discussed his first impressions of Outer Wilds.
“Universe of Nonsense” (06 December 2019): Where the trailer (and release date) for Series 12 of Doctor Who was discussed.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
WEEK IN GEEK: While still playing Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Andrew tries to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) while D. gets excited by the Lovecraftian undertones found in Get Out.
D. Bethel dives into his history with the Mass Effect series and why he found a lot to enjoy in Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Imposter Syndrome is a natural psychological consequence caused by breaking free from personal norms. Trying something new can be scary. For those already beset with anxiety issues, the Imposter Syndrome converts us to flagellants, knowing simultaneously that these thoughts are bogus while also knowing they motivate us to push through the arbitrary and unconscious barriers we set for ourselves.
In graduate school, I had a bad case of Imposter Syndrome––one of many manifestations of my anxiety. The anxiety caused me to eat and drink a lot; it tickled my health in various ways; I lost a lot of sleep. I often woke up at one or two or three in the morning, spinning my impending failure through all possible scenarios or, if it was a good day, trying to harvest and codify all the ideas bouncing off each other like balls in a bingo spinner.
Eventually, I trained myself to just get out of bed. Go do something. Distract yourself. In the case of distraction, I learned that video games did that best.
Most of these nights happened after Nicole and I moved into our second Sacramento townhouse, away from the social thrum of midtown, which left us with mostly quiet nights; so, what sleep I could get would be uninterrupted and pleasant. On the anxiety nights, however, I crept downstairs, headphones already on and listening to podcasts––some video game commentary, some comedy interviews, some political debate, some history––and I’d fire up my Xbox 360 for hours of distraction, getting a good chunk of game in before the world even woke up. When I look back at these nights, the games that I see most in my memories are the Mass Effect series, specifically the two sequels.
Scanning planets captured perfectly the strange, silent calm of what we understand of outer space. Unlike humans…there’s nothing fragile about the cosmos. It simply is, existing slowly toward some end that is neither frightening nor threatening.
Since I was playing with the sound off (so as to consume quality audio entertainment), I rarely worked through story missions during these insomnious sessions. Instead, I searched for the mundane in the games’ side missions: fetch quests, collection runs, delivery missions. The most calming task I could do, and what I did most often, was planet scanning.
I can feel myself calming down already. (Mass Effect: Andromeda screenshot courtesy of USgamer.)
