I wrote a feature for the latest issue of Edge (E353) about boredom, which was a far easier pitch than I thought it’d be. (Thanks, Jen!) It’s about our psychological experience of boredom, and how game designers understand and work with it.
I wrote another book! This time about a bunch of computers, and it came out last week. What a time for a book launch. Gah, let’s not think about that!
It’s called Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation, and it collects 100 machines which tell the story of the rise of the home computer, from the kits of the 1960s to the off-the-shelf all-in-ones of the late 1970s; their entry into living rooms and bedrooms in the 1980s; and then taking a role in everyday life into the late 1990s.
One of the reasons I’ve been messing about with the backstory behind my Genestealer Cults army is 28. This beautiful – and free – magazine was founded to celebrate a certain cadre of players who have emerged from the INQ28 scene, which is based on a much-loved small-scale and RPG-flavoured interpretation of 40K called Inquisitor1.
It’s been a while since I last posted some of the features I’ve written in my Mechanic column on Rock Paper Shotgun. In The Mechanic, I talk to the developers behind a specific feature of a game in an effort to help players understand the hard problems and thinking that lies behind apparently simple things.
Lately, I’ve been building a Genestealer Cults army for Warhammer 40K and a band of gribbly desperadoes for Kill Team. And, well, one thing led to another and now here I am having written a bunch of lore and stuff that explains my army’s roots. What has happened to me. I even designed a bloody cult symbol.