The following intelligent thoughts by: Charlie Feuerborn*

A Statement of Abstraction: An Analysis of Titan Souls Pre-reading note: For readers who have never played the game, there is an amazing speed run by Scrublord at https://www.speedrun.com/titan_souls/run/zpqldvny Key art of Titan Souls The story of David and Goliath informs every aspect of the U.K. developed indie game Titan Souls, published in 2015. From character design to core mechanics to its very development and publishing, the game is shaped by this influential story. Our understanding of the game’s experience goals is enriched by understanding the parallels between the biblical story and Titan Souls’ gameplay. In exploring Titan Souls’ cultural background, one discovers that the Protagonist’s journey to defeat almost two dozen supremely challenging bosses is not only a reflection of the human journey of challenge and triumph but also a manifestation of small businesses’ struggle to “make it” in a mega-corporatized economy. The story of David and Goliath strongly info...

Takeaways Combining disparate game mechanics inevitably leads to new and interesting games Memory abilities vary widely between players, making it a useful game component to segment the market (only players with good memory will enjoy memory games) Block towers' aesthetics naturally induce a sense of fear and excitement in players, making it a useful component to be added to other games E.g. Dread by The Impossible Dream Players have a natural tendency toward competition, even within a cooperative game such as this. To combat this, it is useful to have an artificial opponent piece to "compete" with Design Journal - “Off with Your Head” Team Members: Alan Karbachinsky, Ani Devoian, Evan Wright, Charlie Feuerborn Initial Design Designing our board game, we had to keep in mind the certain constraints given to us; 1. A cooperative team setting wherein all players either win or lose 2. Utilizing a “press your luck” mechanic 3. There must be some so...

Takeaways: Emotion is a crucial part of player experience Knowing and understanding how and why you feel things is valuable Always get a prototype in front of a player as soon as humanly possible INFATUATED Game Design Documentation by Charlie Feuerborn My inspiration & background: “Turning Out Pt. ii” by the indie pop group AJR. A sequel to the soul-searching “Turning Out” from the EP What Everyone’s Thinking, the songwriter, Ryan Met, describes it as a tearjerker. “It was the hardest song I’ve ever written. 100%. We don’t even wanna play that one live, ‘cause it’s such a sad, brutal song.” The target emotion of the player experience: Heartbreak Earliest iterations of the game pull some questions verbatim from a psychological study on love and affection, published in the New York Times by a participant in the study. The questions begin as surface-level ice-breakers, but gradually escalate in depth and personal connection. The fir...

Or at least the top 10. 1. Tig Notaro's "Live" -  on Spotify I highly recommend watching the documentary "Tig"  on Netflix  first Tied for 2 & 3. James Acaster's "Recognise" and "Represent" (from Repertoire)  on Netflix 4. Bo Burnham's "what."  on his Youtube 5. Bo Burnham's "Make Happy"  on Netflix Technically not stand up  6. John Mulaney & Nick Kroll's "Oh, Hello on Broadway"  on Netflix 7. Dave Chappelle's "The Age of Spin"  on Netflix 8. Ricky Gervais's "Humanity"  on Netflix 9. Dave Chappelle's "Equanimity"  on Netflix 10. Hannah Gadsby's "Nanette"  on Netflix

Takeaways:  The Sound and the Fury's greatest success is its endurance as a literary work for academic analysis, largely as a result of its experimental narrative techniques Faulkner explicitly made decisions to alienate the typical reader and shroud the story's meaning in such a way that it can be unraveled endlessly Academic criticism of a piece of medium is useless, with the rare exception of driving its persistent sale to academics As a novel, The Sound and the Fury  by William Faulkner is one of the least effective stories of all time. Its fragmented structure, one-sided characters, and sheer volume of near-nonsense makes the story unapproachable and difficult to decipher. A typical novel can be evaluated based on its success in immersing the reader in a believable world and telling an engrossing story, but Faulkner’s “masterpiece” alienates the reader and demands constant rereading to make sense of the novel. Thus, as a literary work for analysis, The Sound and...