Speculative Poetry and Fiction
Awesome news, friends! Monochrome Heights, a challenging platformer with a unique mechanic created by Patrick Knisely of One Frog Games, now has a demo available (which he also updated recently)!
I’ve been working with Patrick to help develop and write the narrative for this game, in which Happy the robot must climb a tower to defeat an old comrade before she destroys the last of humanity. It is so amazing to see Patrick’s hard work as this game comes together.
Gwendolyn Kiste is one of my favorite horror writers — in a large part because of the way she centers female friendships and love. Her characters and their relationships with each other are interesting and complex and messy, and this is equally true with her latest novel The Haunting of Velkwood.
When the block of homes within the Velkwood Vicinity suddenly turned into a ghostly apparition with all of the families trapped inside, only three young women (away at college at the time of the event) survived. The site became a hot spot for occultists and scientist hoping to understand the strange phenomena and how it is tied to the afterlife. Haunted by pestering reporters and by memories they’d rather keep secret, the three young women attempt to move on with their lives, with varying degrees of success.
Years later, Talitha Velkwood is alienated from her former friends and living a kind of half-life in a grungy apartment with a crappy job that barely pays the rent. The dour routine of her life is dirupted, when Jack, a new occult researched of the Velkwood phenomena, contacts her about a new project to investigate the haunted neighborhood. Exhausted by her relentless present, she agrees to return home with him in the hopes of seeing her eight-year-old sister one more time. She steps back into the void of her own home and begin to dredge up the remnants of the past — and act that brings her back into contact with her fellow survivors.
An Apparently Impossible Adventure by Laura Madeline Wiseman is a beautiful collection of poetry that explores the magical and wondrous in everyday experiences. The narrator of this collection processes the isolation of mundanity and personal loss through a longing for magic. And these prose poems feel both confessional and like a kind of spell casting, drawing the reader into their world.
At the free special exhibit opening on contemporary fairy folk art at the university art museum, I’m sure fairies are hiding behind the trees in the photograph, behind the girl, the one like your sister, with the candy cigarette. This is America, the late 1980s of outlandish white ruffles, plastic wristwatches, hair sunbleached and wild.
from “Candy, Cigarettes, and Fairies”
The lake that was an ocean, the coffee can, backseat’s chrome, hours of sun on road, flooded trees, while nude beneath bark, shimmered. The back of her head silvered-blonde, the back of hers fire-streaked, my kid sister’s big eyes, glinted. The dolls unraveled from sparkly clothes, dark self from bright others, one country’s sunrise from another’s sunset.
from “Radiance”
Recently, I had the delightful experience of joining Syd (aka thechosengiraffe) for an interview on her stream (available to watch here). Together, we played Minecraft and discussed game development, poetry, and the writing life. Syd is a wonderful interviewer and her skills led us in a fantastic conversation.
One of the questions asked by the chat was whether or not I would ever consider blending poetry into one of the games I make — and I answered that I had not considered it. As much as I love both poetry and games, I didn’t have any concepts that made sense to me. And I also could not come up with many examples of games that incorporate poetry on the spot.
After the interview ended, I couldn’t stop thinking about the question. What games did I know off that included poetry? I found a few examples that specifically comprised either an interactive poem or the use of actual poetry in the gameplay.
Here’s my month in books, movies, television, and games.
Books
In T. Kingfisher’s What Feasts at Night, Alex Easton is still recovering from the terrifying events that occurred at the Usher manor (in the first book, What Moves the Dead). All they want is to rest and idle away their days in the routine of noise and delights of Paris, but “instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia. In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.”
This is an excellent sequel, and I think I enjoyed it even more than the first book — in part, because of the way the book further expands the characters, explores how Alex is haunted by their experiences in war, and the infusion of folklore, which is a particular love of mine.
Good Bones is the first title from RETCON Games, a one-person game studio founded by Jes Negrón in 2019. The point-and-click adventure game looks to be a cozy horror tale that delves into serious subjects, such as grief, abuse, and revenge.
Negrón has been in the media development game for a long time, with almost two decades of experience as a writer, editor, producer, and designer of various media, including books and games. She has weathered the storms of these industries, particularly following her departure from Riot Games. Negrón and Melanie McCracken jointly filed a gender-based discrimination class-action lawsuit against Riot in November 2018. However, the resulting funds from that suit combined with Negrón’s passion for telling her own stories provided her with the foundation to start up RETCON Games and complete the development of her first solo title.
I had the opportunity to speak with Negrón about her recently launched game, Good Bones, and how she approached the development process.
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