It has been almost a year since I wrote anything game-related on this blog. Although this blog hasn’t been active, I have been doing things. Here’s a rundown.
Conventions
This past March, I attended the Game Developers Conference. I had an amazing time at GDC 2014. I say this almost every year, but this was probably the best and my most favorite GDC to date. Many of the high moments for me happened outside the conference itself, at parties or other events. My favorite party happened early on during GDC week, and it’s there that I met and spoke to many awesome feminist women in games. It was wonderful to meet women whose writings and brains I admired from afar through the internet, a well as hang out with people I only get to see at conferences. Another highlight was being able to attend the Microsoft Women in Games Awards Luncheon. Two panels that stood out for me were #1ReasonToBe” and “Misogyny, Racism, and Homophobia: Where Do Games Stand?” Both were powerful and necessary in their own ways. The #1ReasonToBe panel was incredibly moving. I encourage everyone to watch both panels. They are viewable to the public for free at the links above.
I spoke at Emerald City Comicon, reprising my presence at the “Looking Past the Target Audience” panel. The panel was pretty well-received and my co-panelists had a lot of great things to say about inclusivity in popular media.
I spoke on three panels at GaymerX2: “Coming Out in the Game Industry, “Creating Character: Exploring Queer Identities Through Games,” and “Hiring in Games.” The panels went over quite well, in particular the one about queer identities and the one about how to get hired in the games industry. My favorite panel to speak on was definitely the second one. I was so happy and honored to share the stage with a bunch of smart, insightful, and awesome women. I had such a great time at GaymerX2. Like GDC, my personal highlights often happened outside structured convention events. I got to meet and hang out with wonderful people who I hope to cross paths with in the future. I’m sad that there won’t be another one, but looking forward to whatever they cook up next.
Gaming
I completed The Last of Us and its downloadable prequel, Left Behind. I also completed Gone Home. I had been meaning to finish both since last year, but didn’t get around to it. GaymerX2 gave me a good reason to do so because my queer identities panel featured two panelists who work at Naughty Dog. I knew that one of my co-panelists would be speaking extensively about Ellie, one of the main characters in The Last of Us. Aside from the games mentioned, (mostly) regularly playing Guild Wars 2, the time I played Animal Crossing: New Leaf for six months solid, and a period when I played the mobile game, Threes, a lot, I haven’t been gaming much.
Films and Television
What I have been doing is watching a lot of post-apocalyptic films on Netflix and watching a lot of streaming television. The post-apocalyptic films are of varying quality, of course, but there are some hidden gems. Some of these include: Contracted, The Road, Hell, and The Returned.
Last year, I watched all nine Hellraiser films. Although some of the films are quite bad, I did enjoy several of them. The Hellraiser universe has some pretty cool lore. I’m planning on reading the graphic novels written by Clive Barker, which are canon and continue the story. So far I have read the first volume.
I’ve also been watching a lot of television via streaming platforms like Hulu and Netflix. Shows I have enjoyed over the past year include: Lost Girl, Orphan Black, Once Upon a Time, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Parks and Recreation, The Borgias, 666 Park Avenue, Orange is the New Black, Hemlock Grove, Portlandia, Being Human (UK & US), Downton Abbey, Sherlock, and Sleepy Hollow.
Web Development
I’ve recently been brushing up on my HTML through online courses on Codecademy. I am nearly through the basic HTML course, and I’ll move on to the CSS course after that.
I attended an event, run by General Assembly, where people could go and create a Tumblr theme from scratch. That was a lot of fun. I was able to put my HTML knowledge to use and learned new things about Tumblr-specific code and syntax.
Sports?!
This isn’t game or technology related, but I started indoor rock climbing at a nearby gym in April and I am quite enjoying myself. I even squeezed some climbing time in while I was in San Francisco for the weekend of GaymerX2.
So yeah: I’ve been doing things, but blogging regularly hasn’t been one of them.