{"id":6123,"date":"2015-04-14T01:22:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T01:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=6123"},"modified":"2015-04-14T01:25:40","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T01:25:40","slug":"writing-hiatus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2015\/04\/writing-hiatus\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Hiatus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/AIGA-Volume-1-cover-v22.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-6126\" alt=\"AIGA-Volume 1-cover-v22\" src=\"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/AIGA-Volume-1-cover-v22.jpg\" width=\"294\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/AIGA-Volume-1-cover-v22.jpg 875w, https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/AIGA-Volume-1-cover-v22-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/AIGA-Volume-1-cover-v22-721x1024.jpg 721w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 294px) 100vw, 294px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As is probably evident by now, I&#8217;m currently on a writing hiatus. I&#8217;ve stopped writing since September last year and will probably remain inactive for the near future. I&#8217;m currently doing a masters so that I can teach Mandarin in Australian schools. I&#8217;m also taking advantage of the opportunity to improve my Mandarin and bring it up closer to a native speaker level. It&#8217;s the right time for me to be taking these steps, so I&#8217;ve had to put writing aside for the time being. Such is life.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that I still have time to play games and take notes as I play. I&#8217;m also sitting on about three issues of copy for the new zine project, <em>Adventures in Games Analysis<\/em>. Daniel (Stolen Projects) and I were ready to release the first issue a bit less than a year ago, but I had trouble banging out the preface (which I&#8217;d left to the last minute) and decided to put it on hold as I stew over the direction of the series. The problem was that in the time between writing the original copy and being ready to publish it, I published <a href=\"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/warioland4\/\"><em>GDC: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4<\/em><\/a>, edited the <a href=\"http:\/\/starseedobservatory.com\/\"><em>Starseed Observatory<\/em><\/a>, designed <a href=\"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2014\/07\/introducing-the-cave-of-atman\/\"><em>The Cave of Atman<\/em><\/a>, and had been working to support a small group of critical gamers. These engagements changed my perspective on my own writing, and that change wasn&#8217;t reflected in the first issue of the zine. The actual analysis in the zine is great and doesn&#8217;t require much modification. Rather, I just need a few weeks to sit down and make some sensible cuts, additions, and tweaks.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of content and copy, here is a list of everything I&#8217;ve finished or have in draft copy for the first few issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a breakdown of arcade racing and top-down racing fundamentals<\/li>\n<li>a comprehensive overview of Wipeout&#8217;s racing dynamics, weapons, and game modes<\/li>\n<li>a design-focused photo diary of God of War: Chains of Olympus<\/li>\n<li>an exploration of the social sim aspects of Animal Crossing<\/li>\n<li>collected insights on Mario and Luigi: Bowser&#8217;s Inside Story<\/li>\n<li>a technical breakdown of DK: King of Swing&#8217;s unique mechanics<\/li>\n<li>a comparison of Other M and the original Metroid<\/li>\n<li>a Let&#8217;s Play take on The Graveyard<\/li>\n<li>a comprehensive breakdown of Syphony of the Night&#8217;s combat system<\/li>\n<li>a look at a small, but hugely destructive weakness in Wario Land 3&#8217;s metrovania design<\/li>\n<li>a 300-word review of Trauma Centre 2<\/li>\n<li>a 300-word review of Bit.Trip.Runner<\/li>\n<li>lots on Uncharted 2 and education and mastery<\/li>\n<li>an experiment in designing games in Twine<\/li>\n<li>a post-mortem of some of my best classroom games<\/li>\n<li>a discussion on learning and the path of least resistance<\/li>\n<li>a poem on LocoRoco<\/li>\n<li>collected insights into Super Monkey Ball Deluxe<\/li>\n<li>a deep dive into Crossword design and the augmentations of Crosswords DS<\/li>\n<li>a complete analysis of classic Resident Evil design through the lens of Code Veronica<\/li>\n<li>a complete analysis on Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros, including map, progression, battle, and RPG design<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And there&#8217;s a few more things that are in various stages of completion. Just typing out this list makes me super excited to get back into the writing game. I&#8217;m doing all that I can at the moment to make my transition into Chinese teaching a smooth and successful one. The way I see it, any effort that I invest now is going to go a long way in freeing my time and energy in the future, so it&#8217;s worth putting in the hard yards now.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re absolutely dying for your fix of games analysis, though, I recommend checking out Joe Rothenberg&#8217;s game <a href=\"http:\/\/joerothenberg.com\/nobodysaid\"><em>Nobody Said it Was Easy<\/em><\/a>. Joe studied <em>Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4<\/em> and then applied the concepts to his own game. Each level is short and communicates its ideas succinctly, so playing with a critical eye is a great way to review your understanding of the concepts covered in the book.<\/p>\n<p>See you soon,<\/p>\n<p>Daniel<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As is probably evident by now, I&#8217;m currently on a writing hiatus. I&#8217;ve stopped writing since September last year and will probably remain inactive for the near future. I&#8217;m currently doing a masters so that I can teach Mandarin in Australian schools. I&#8217;m also taking advantage of the opportunity to improve my Mandarin and bring [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6128,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6123\/revisions\/6128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}