#oneaday Day 105: Newbie

It's an incontrovertible and irritating fact that the more means you have to enjoy new and exciting things, the less time you'll have to do them in. As you get older, the days seem to get shorter—or at least fuller—and the weeks seem to fly by. Before you know it, you're dead.

Well, okay, that's an exaggeration. But it's certainly true once you, say, get out of university and start work. I remember the first couple of weeks at university. It was a whirlwind of new shit. Not literally, that would be disgusting. But a bunch of us decided that if there was ever a time to try out some new things, the first few weeks of university was it.

So we did. Shortly after arriving and introducing ourselves to each other (memorably, most of my flatmates' first experience of me was witnessing me cooking a bacon sandwich whilst wearing a lop-sided dressing gown, as I'd been there a few days prior to them) we decided that we'd go along to the various taster sessions that the university clubs offered. Most of them would likely be things we wouldn't want to continue with, we decided, but we might as well give them a go.

So it was that several of us found ourselves lying on the dirty floor of what was basically a big shed clutching large rifles and feeling extremely nervous about what the nice man had said about making sure you don't accidentally shoot it at the floor because it will probably kill you. But then we got into the whole "shooting holes in bits of paper" thing and it all became a lot more interesting. Sure, none of us went back after that, but the fact I can say I've fired an actual real rifle is pretty cool.

And so it was that we found ourselves attending a ninjutsu class, learning the best way to deal with a knife-clutching attacker who is attempting to bum you or just kill you from behind. (Stick your bum out to knock him back, grab his arm, twist it in a smooth but convoluted manner, whip the knife up his arm, shaving all his skin off and causing considerable pain, pull him down to the ground, bash his elbow on the floor to break it in a manner which is difficult to heal and finally kick him in the face. Possibly. I forget.) One of us went back and learned quite a lot about various ways to ninj other people to death. (What? "Ninj" is absolutely the verb to describe what ninjas do. They ninj people. You ninj. I ninj. They ninj. He/she/it ninjes. No? Shut up.) The rest of us didn't.

That didn't stop us trying out the other Ninjutsu club, where most of the session felt like Ninjas' Playtime, as the entire class did forward roll after forward roll back and forth up and down a padded room. It was fun, but unlikely to kill anyone.

And so it was we found ourselves trying out the fencing club and discovering that people who have been fencing for a long time not only are much better than complete beginners, but they're awfully smug about it. And epees somehow aren't quite as satisfying as big, proper, actual swords. But then they'd probably be a bit more fatal. Unless everyone got to wear armour, and then you'd kind of be going into Knight Club territory, rather than fencing.

We continued this pattern for a while. Some of us stuck with the Karate-do-Shotokai club for a while, others (including myself) drifted off. Now, as most of us are pushing 30, you have to wonder if we'll ever have the opportunity to get involved in such a diverse array of new things ever again.

Day 453

#oneaday Day 104: Acrid Black Smoke

Earlier today, a story broke that divided opinions somewhat. The point and content of the story at this stage isn't especially important or relevant to what I'm particularly interested in right now, but the gist of the arguments that people are having is that it was a report based on anonymous sources that sounded like "just another rumour".

And perhaps it was. Or perhaps it wasn't. Anonymous sources aren't the most convincing sources of information to some people, thanks mostly to their anonymity. But these are people who would likely be immediately fired if their names were attached to things which are—presumably—supposed to stay secret for now.

Again, not the point I'm trying to make.

The point I am trying to make is the surprising amount of negativity the story in question attracted, and the subsequent high-school clique-style bitching and sniping that ensued on Twitter between high-profile members of the industry for the next few hours. People laugh and joke about passive-aggressive status updates from people who want to bitch about someone without naming them—"I wish SOMEONE would stop being such a jackass!"—but this was taking it to a whole new level, with, in some cases, high profile representatives of respected publications taking the passive-aggressive approach and arguing with thin air, presumably to try and make some kind of point.

I'm not going to name and shame anyone because there's no point in doing that and it wouldn't achieve anything. All I am going to say is that any time something like this erupts, I'm surprised and disappointed in people. Perhaps the story in question will turn out to be nothing—or perhaps it will turn out to be something big. Regardless, it was a rumour, and an interesting one at that, and people will want to know it. The original article made it very clear that it was a rumour based on things that anonymous sources had said. People can make their own minds up whether or not to believe it, but there's really no need for all the bitching and sniping.

It is, sadly, a hallmark of the Internet, though; comment sections were described on a radio show earlier today as "the bottom half of the Internet" due to their relentless negativity—a fact which made Charlie Brooker sit up and take notice, unsurprisingly. But why? Why the hate? Why the behaving like teenage girls?

Perhaps I'm just too much of a nice guy. I don't hate anyone, and I respect the work of others. I'll slag something off if it's genuinely bad, but I don't hate things for the sake of hating them like some people seem to. And whatever the reason for people's reactions to the story which broke earlier (still not getting into it!) there's certainly no reason for the ugly and thinly-disguised jealousy which has been evident this evening.

If people could just be a bit nicer to each other and a bit less negative about everything, the whole world would be a much more pleasant place.

It's nice to want things.

Day 452

#oneaday Day 103: I Hear the Ticking of a Clock

Certain things are just naturally irritating or set your teeth on edge. That horrible sound polystyrene packing makes when you take it out of a cardboard box. That accent chavs do when it's clear they very much want to be black gangstas but instead are pasty, skinny white dudes from Portsmouth. The sight of the "roadworks ahead" sign on the motorway.

Or having several mechanical clocks in your room, all of which are slightly out of sync with each other.

It's the kind of thing you tend not to notice until you either 1) suffer from insomnia and find yourself fixating on every tiny little sound or 2) have it pointed out to you and consequently find it impossible not to notice.

Regardless, it's a little bit irritating. And sometimes not entirely understandable either, because surely a clock's a clock and should tick at the same rate. But I had two clocks in my room that ticked unevenly and managed to somehow drift apart from one another, then slightly back in sync, then back out again. This is arguably beyond the laws of physics until I tell you that one of these two clocks has a minute hand which is affected by gravity and thus is not the most useful timepiece in existence when stood upright.

Needless to say, I removed the batteries from one of the two clocks (the not-terribly-useful one) and now have no trouble sleeping through the night.

Actually, that's a complete lie. Mis-ticking clocks weren't enough to keep me awake at night—my brain does an excellent job of that itself. But unevenly-ticking clocks are a genuine annoyance and a public menace that would surely be enough to drive lesser men to distraction and/or violent acts involving hammers.

Although if you live with it for a while, you eventually find yourself getting used to it, the semi-predictable rhythm of the misaligned clocks becoming something comfortable and familiar, the sign that you're "home". If you get to this stage, then suddenly upsetting the status quo by removing one of the clocks could completely throw off the balance of the universe and ruin everything in your life.

All right, it probably won't ruin your life. But when you're presented with something as familiar and regular as the ticking of a clock and suddenly that's not there any more, it changes the whole feel of a room. What once had a comfortable familiarity about it becomes something altogether different—and this is where the context becomes important.

It's particularly noticeable if, say, someone close to you has died, and they were in possession of ticking clocks—particularly misaligned ticking clocks. When that person's gone and the sad business of dealing with their possessions comes up, taking the clocks away is like taking the "pulse" of their room away—it's a sign that they're finally gone, and that room is going to find a new purpose, a new future without them.

Of course, whatever songs like Grandfather's Clock that we learn as children try and tell us, people dying doesn't automatically stop clocks or anything—but those sounds that we hear and take for granted or get annoyed by every day? You'll notice them as soon as they're not there any more.

Hmm. That drifted in an altogether more melancholy direction than I intended. I'm very tired, so on that note, it's off to bed with me!

Day 451

#oneaday Day 102: A Hundred and Two

I Googled the number 102. The results might surprise you. If you're really bored and easily surprised.

The first page of results appears to be largely radio stations. Top hit for Googling 102 is Capital FM in Manchester, claiming to be Manchester's Number 1 Hit Music Station and conveniently ignoring the fact that Manchester is not the capital of the UK.

The second result is the Wikipedia entry for the number 102. I wasn't even aware Wikipedia had entries for individual numbers, but here it is—proof. Apparently 102 is special because it's an abundant number, a semiperfect number (its mother must be so proud) and a sphenic number. It is also the sum of four consecutive prime numbers, the sum of Euler's totient function, the third base 10 polydivisible number and a Harshad number. I do not know what any of those things mean and I'm sure that 98% of you don't either.

Wikipedia also tells us that the number 102 is the emergency telephone number for police in Ukraine and Belarus, the emergency number for fire in Israel and the emergency telephone number for ambulance in parts of India. And, of course, everyone knows that the Empire State Building has 102 floors, right?

Having clicked on a few links on that Wikipedia page, I'm genuinely astonished that there does indeed seem to be an individual entry for every single number. At least, every single number in the immediate vicinity of 102. Isn't the collected knowledge of the human race fascinating?

Well, actually, if you are the sort of person who despises maths, such as my 15-year old self (who regularly genuinely got angry at maths homework, despite the fact it was essentially inanimate and couldn't fight back) you probably don't find the fact that you can look up numbers on Wikipedia that interesting.

So for those people, back to Google it is.

Other radio stations that feature 102 include the stunningly boring-sounding "Town 102" from Ipswich, Wave 102 from Dundee (presumably not quite as good as Southampton's Wave 103), Warwickshire's saucy-sounding 102 Touch FM and Salisbury's Spire FM 102.

Google also brings up the IMDb listing for 102 Dalmatians, which has 2 stars or a rating of 4.4 out of 10 from 7,812 users. Because it's a movie and not a video game, we can assume that this means it is, in fact, slightly below average and not OMG CRAP. The title of that movie always struck me as incredibly dumb, however, because it should surely be "101 Dalmatians 2" if you are Disney and you are making an ill-advised sequel to your ill-advised live-action remake of your beloved animated movie. I guess they thought they were being clever. Perhaps they were.

Anyhow. I hope I've educated and informed you about the number 102. I promise I won't stoop to finding out fascinating fact about a number ever again. Unless I get really stuck for ideas.

Day 450

#oneaday Day 101: Endless Punning

Oh, Twitter. You know I love you. But there are times when being with you is like being stuck in a convention of Dads. And then being stuck in a time-slowing-down machine. For several days, in many cases.

I am, of course, referring to the endless streams of puntastic hashtag humour. Now don't get me wrong, some of these collections of nonsense are genuinely amusing—but the fact they seem to go on interminably until they have outstayed their welcome by a considerable margin is something which… I don't know that it "bothers" me as such, but let's just say it sometimes makes me glad of the "mute" function in Twitter apps such as Echofon.

Take today. Someone—I couldn't say who—started a #gamejournalistpickuplines hashtag and proceeded to post a few witty innuendoes themed around the common things games journalists are accused of, issues they have to deal with regularly and things that they often say. Funny—assuming you're in the know. And if you're following game journalists on Twitter, chances are you are at least a little bit "in the know".

Hmm… is "funny" quite accurate? Well, yes. At least until it gets to 10pm in the evening and it's still going, and all the Americans who have now woken up have started making the same jokes that all the Europeans made six hours ago. It's an occupational hazard of dealing with a worldwide service such as Twitter, of course, but it does mean you tend to get bombarded with the same shite hour after hour after hour.

But now wait a minute. Back up a sec, take a moment to look at this from a distance. As woeful as some of the puns and innuendoes might be, it's actually kind of cool to see people from such disparate parts of the world coming together—even if it's just to make a few lame jokes. There have been people from all over the globe contributing to the hashtag—and it's the same every time something equally inane, childish and briefly amusing (such as #replacegamenamewithboner) comes up. Funny for a bit, relatively easily ignored (unless certain people who shall remain nameless are online) and interminable.

I guess, then, we all have to get used to the fact that one joke can indeed be strung out for hours, days, weeks, months thanks to the power of social media. Don't even get me started on the "fake" Twitter accounts for various celebrities, video games, industry figures.

Or, you know, perhaps I should stop being such a curmudgeon.

(Clarification for anyone about to make an indignant comment about their right to indulge in hashtag humour: I don't mind it really. I just find myself tending to observe such things from the outside and not joining in. Largely because I'm awful at coming up with puns and jokes on the spot. You knock yourself out, and if replacing parts of game names with "boner" makes you happy, then you just keep on truckin'.)

Day 449

#oneaday Day 100: What a Novelty

[Side note: Day 100! Yay. This marks my 448th day of blogging every day. I've been half-tempted to start numbering the posts from when I originally started again, but then that will just get confusing. Perhaps I'll put the total number at the end of each post or something. I don't have an eventual goal number in mind—I fully intend to keep doing this until I can't do it any more, for whatever reason. But given that I continued writing through the disastrous events of last year, it'll take something pretty severe to stop me being here every day. Now, on to your regularly scheduled blog post.]

I can't program. Actually, that's a lie; I wrote a very good Treasure Hunt game in ATARI BASIC once. It used Graphics Mode 2, a custom character set, featured a randomly-generated playfield and custom sound effects. Okay, it perhaps wasn't "very good" but it was at least a completed project. Since then, though, my programming knowledge has tailed off somewhat. It's when everyone stopped using line numbers that it got confusing. I know ditching line numbers was actually a good thing in that you could more easily insert code where it needed to go rather than having to resort to increasingly-convoluted GOSUB/RETURN subroutines, but as soon as all these punctuation rules started to come in? Hmmm.

Perhaps it's just that I haven't spent enough time trying to learn one language. I spent a bit of time doing JavaScript and managed to get some fancy DHTML working, but have since forgotten it. I did some Java once, though it didn't do much. I worked my way through the first two chapters of a C# (pronounced "C-sharp", for anyone who had been wondering about it for as long as I had before I eventually found out) book and thought I was doing pretty well until I got to the first "independent project" type chapter and completely failed to produce the program required.

This is why I enjoy tools that allow you to express your creativity without having to know how to write a complete program. Sure, if you need to do something exciting, you can (and probably will) delve into scripting, but for the most part, the built-in tools are enough to get something up and running.

Over the years, I've used many different tools like this. By far my most beloved (and now outdated) is Klik & Play from Clickteam, which later became Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion. These required absolutely no programming knowledge whatsoever and simply a logical mind to figure out a series of "When this happens, make this happen" statements. Winner. And surprisingly flexible.

I'm also a big fan of the RPG Maker series, especially the later ones that do include a scripting language that allows people far cleverer than me to completely replace the game's battle system with something cool.

Most recently, I've come across Novelty, which is a tool for making Japanese-style visual novels. This is a completely free application—though still in beta—and is one of the most polished pieces of free software I've ever seen. It's incredibly flexible and allows for everything from barely-interactive "click to continue" visual novels that don't require any player decisions, to more in-depth Phoenix Wright-style affairs with buttons, hotspots, branching story paths and all sorts. There's not only a scripting language, but also an impressive markup language for creating graphical assets. There's no need to delve into these if you don't want to, of course, but for "power users" they'll be a boon I'm sure.

My only trouble with tools like these is that I have trouble getting started on something. I get some grand plan in my mind and either end up getting daunted by all the preparatory work which will need to be done (gathering/creating assets, planning and whatnot) or find myself starting, getting too ambitious and bumping into an insurmountable roadblock.

Still, it's nice to know these tools are out there for creative types. I have idle plans to experiment with making some sort of visual novel, but whether or not that will ever happen is anyone's guess.

void blog(string bollocks)
{
     Object@ myBlog = GetObject("Blog");
     if (myBlog !is null)
     {
            myBlog.SetText(bollocks);
     }
}

See? No problem at all.

blog("Cock! Piss! Partridge!")

Day 448

#oneaday Day 99: Mein Kraft

Yes, I have discovered Minecraft. Minecraft, despite being an indie game and therefore something I should technically automatically be championing, going by past experience, is something which I've always had something of a curious resistance to. It hasn't been by choice, though—the reason I haven't been playing Minecraft is not the same as the reason I'm not playing Call of Duty, for example.

In fact, if anything, it's more to do with the fact that when I finally gave in to peer pressure and bought a copy a number of months back, I only had my netbook with me and it ran like ass on there. And then it ran like ass under OS X on my Mac at home, too. For literally months and months I'd been saying to myself "I should really install it on the Windows partition of my Mac and try it properly…"

Well now I have. And what do you know? It's rather good, though it's the kind of game that appears to—at least in its current beta stage—be very much "what you make of it".

If you're one of the few people who hasn't contributed to developer Notch's millions so far, here's a brief rundown. You are dropped into a randomly-generated world made entirely of blocks of various materials. You have nothing to your name except a punching fist that can knock down trees. It's up to you to survive, because every night, the nasties come out and will do their best to kill you.

That's about it—but the main appeal of the game in its present state comes from the fact that once you've built yourself a secure shelter, it's time to start exploring the world and building stuff. You can create structures either by hollowing out existing terrain or by collecting resources and stacking them to build things—kind of like pixelated Lego blocks.

Then there's the "craft" part of the title—you can make items. The daunting part of the game for new players is the fact that no help is given when you start the game—without looking at sites such as the excellent Minecraft Wiki, you'd be expected to figure out how to make tools for yourself. And given that even making the simplest tools requires several steps (punch trees for wood, craft wood into planks, build workbench from planks, craft planks into sticks, combine sticks and planks in various arrangements to produce tools) it's arguably something of a long shot to expect people to do this for themselves.

Or is it? Steven Johnson argues in Everything Bad is Good for You that the cognitive processes you go through when figuring out stuff like this for yourself are very beneficial—good "brain exercise". You use past experience from previous games and other things you've done in the game you're playing to draw conclusions for yourself about what to do next. And sure enough, I found that once I'd started playing a bit and got the basics down, I started naturally experimenting with different arrangements of materials to see what they produced. Some things worked, some things didn't. If something doesn't work, you don't lose anything, either, so the game is set up to encourage exploration and experimentation.

There's also an element of risk, though. Death isn't permanent—but it does cause you to drop all your stuff and potentially lose it. If you've spent a long time collecting things, this can be a real pain, especially if you were exploring a long way from your home spot. Then there's the fact that the game's most notorious enemies, the "Creepers", explode when they get near you. Not only does this cause significant damage to you, it also blows big holes in the things you've built.

But rather than being frustrating, most players simply take this as a sign that they need to defend their homes a little better. Perhaps they should make them harder to get to, or plant some cacti to put off enemies, or build some weapons and armour.

The possibilities are pretty extensive, and I'm looking forward to exploring the game further—and seeing where Notch takes it in the future. The game comes out of beta on the 11th of November this year, so if you want to pick it up for its current reduced price (25% off the full price) then get over there now.

#oneaday Day 98: Inappropriate Soundtracks

Music's a powerful tool for emotional manipulation. You can use it to make people laugh, cry, jump, be scared, be excited and get tingly feelings in those hairs on the back of their neck.

You can also misuse it, with varied results, such as this video I made more to test the iPhone's ability to upload directly to YouTube more than anything — hence the crappy picture and sound quality.

Yes, that is indeed Crackdown 2 featuring the Lazy Town soundtrack, a choice which both confused and delighted the YouTube community and has meant that I still get random, sporadic comments on this video to this day.

It… kind of works, though, doesn't it? Happy, bouncy music for a happy, bouncy agent leaping around collecting shiny orbs. Of course, it completely changes the character of the game — but then Crackdown 2 is a game that isn't particularly strong on the narrative front anyway. If anything, it encourages this sort of messing around.

There's certain genres I won't touch with custom soundtracks. RPGs, for example. While RPGs often have repetitive soundtracks that you listen to on repeat for 40-100 hours, for the most part I like to experience them the way the composer intended. It's like a movie; you wouldn't replace the soundtrack from Shawshank Redemption with Kylie Minogue, would you? It would completely undermine the experience. As RPGs tend to be story-heavy, I prefer not to undermine the experience with a custom soundtrack — many of them are more than capable of undermining themselves with ridiculous plot twists, of course.

But driving games are another matter. Ever since the original Xbox launched the custom soundtracks feature, it's pretty rare that I'll play a driving game with the music included on the disc. (This is at least partly because the vast majority of driving game soundtracks are complete garbage, but that's a little beside the point.) I wrote the other day that I wished for a bit more "drama" in my driving games, and that no-one seemed keen to follow through on the idea. What I can do, though, is put ludicrously overdramatic soundtracks over my driving games, producing results like this. Much more epic, I'm sure you'll agree.

Okay, I shamelessly stole the idea to use the Plunkett and Macleane soundtrack from Top Gear, but they used it because it works. Also recommended: Neodämmerung and/or Navras from The Matrix Revolutions, anything from the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack, anything from the Castlevania soundtracks since Symphony of the Night and… well, anything epic, really.

I suggest you try it next time you fire up a racing game. You'll have much more fun and your races will carry that much more "weight". You can imagine that you're racing to survive or something. (Obviously if you're playing Split/Second, which already has an excellent cinematic soundtrack, you literally are racing to survive in many cases.) You can imagine your own reason for driving shiny cars very fast. If you're the sort of person like me who enjoys driving shiny cars very fast but would prefer it very much if there was a reason beyond "to win", then this approach will sort you right out.

Any recommendations for other games with inappropriate soundtracks? I'm all — wait for it — ears.

#oneaday Day 97: The Grindstone

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently writing daily for GamePro. This is, of course, awesome and I'm both happy and honoured to be able to do so, even if it means having to remember how all you Americans spell things and the fact that companies are singular nouns, not plurals.

Having been out of full-time (well, pretty much any work) for the best part of a year, coming back to actually having to do stuff in the daytime is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a system shock. Not in a bad way, though. On the contrary, it's nice to be able to get up and know that I have Things To Do. I don't know if you (yes, you, reading this) have ever experienced unemployment, but while it sounds like the best thing ever in many ways—just not having to commute is heavenly—after a while it does get both annoying and demoralising.

Which is why returning to work—even if it's work from home at curious, PST-friendly hours like I'm currently doing—can sometimes be a surprise. Having had entire days of nothingness to fill with any combination of sitting on the Internet, watching TV, trawling your DVD collection, playing video games or even—shock—going out—having a healthy chunk of your day taken up by Stuff You Have To Do means that you have to rethink things somewhat.

It's a lot more difficult to find the time to go out running, for example. I could go in the mornings if I woke up a bit earlier, of course, but still operating on a slightly-skewed body clock means that doesn't always (ever) happen. There's the weekends too, of course—but then weekends get filled up with socialising and doing things you don't have time to do in the week. You start to understand the expression "not enough hours in the day" all too well.

Don't get the impression I'm complaining—I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing and I hope that shows in what I produce. I like what I do and people who read it seem to like it, too. So that's all good. I just find it quite amusing that when you have the time to do everything you might want to do, you don't have the means to. And when you do have the means to, you don't have the time! Craziness.

I couldn't tell you for sure if things are going to stay exactly this way, but it's certainly better than the way things have been. It's been a long, difficult and not particularly pleasant road to get here, but it's entirely possible that the destination's in sight. What that destination is? No idea.

We'll find out, I guess. Watch this space.

#oneaday Day 96: Don't Take It Personally, Babe

The thing I like about games that are a bit off the beaten track is the fact that they're not afraid to break with every gaming convention under the sun in order to try something a bit different. Objectively, sometimes they're not great "games" in the traditional sense, but they are definitely worthwhile experiences that explore interesting new ways of telling stories.

One "author" who produces such games is Christine Love, who is fond of creating ren'ai titles. For the uninitiated, ren'ai games have strong plot elements of romantic love. They're not necessarily dating sims or hentai games—though some are—but all of them have a narrative which explores love and emotions. Final Fantasy VIII, for example, is regarded as a ren'ai game. Stretching the definition somewhat, you could even argue Silent Hill 2 has elements of the genre.

The appropriately-named Love's titles, however, are much more up-front about their intentions. Digital: A Love Story and the oddly-named Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story are two games which go about telling a ren'ai tale in similar, though markedly different fashions. Both of them revolve heavily around the use of technology and its role in interpersonal relations.

I'll resist spoiling either of them, but I think they're well worth exploring for anyone interested in the "visual novel" genre—anyone who liked games such as the Ace Attorney series, 999 or Hotel Dusk, for example.

Digital: A Love Story sits you at the desk of an Amiga (or rather, a non-copyright infringing equivalent) five minutes into the future of 1988. Purely by interacting with your computer and dialling up a number of virtual BBS systems, a genuinely compelling tale is told without any graphics whatsoever. You don't "break character" for a single instant in the game, and it's this gameplay "hook" that keeps you playing to see what's going on. I'll say nothing else, as that would spoil it. But it's excellent—if only for nostalgia value. It happens to tell a good story, too.

Don't Take It Personally… is a little different. Taking a more Japanese style to its art, it looks like a dating game, though it isn't one. Casting players in the role of John Rook, a 38-year old double divorcee who came to high school teaching in 2027 as part of a mid-life crisis, it tells a tale which explores interpersonal and social issues that you don't generally see in games. It's a relatively simplistic visual novel in terms of gameplay, with only a few choices to make, but like Digital, it's the story that matters. And it's told in a very interesting way through three different "layers". There's the face-to-face action, where the player, as John, sees and hears what's going on in front of him. John also has access to his students' Facebook-like social network, though, and is able to read any of his students' communications—even the private ones—giving an ethically-questionable insight into what they're thinking and what is really going on behind the dramas that unfold. And thirdly, this game features possibly the only time you'll ever see 4chan (sorry, "12channel") being used as a Greek chorus.

Both games have a "message" and while Don't Take It Personally in particular is a little heavy-handed with it towards the end, it's cool to see games trying to say something a little more than the usual melodrama.

So check 'em out. They take, like, two hours at most each. And they're free. You love free stuff, right?