I guess this is a portfolio of sorts: a directory of the things I’ve written about video games.
OverThinker Y
I’ve had a few blogs in my time, but this is the one that stuck around the longest and the one that I felt was the most successful. Success, by the way, doesn’t mean that I got a load of views (I didn’t) or made a bunch of cash off it (not a single penny), but in this case that I got to talk about cool things with cool people and to feel that I had a voice to contribute. That was pretty awesome.
There are hundreds of posts on the site, so I won’t list them all, but here are a few favourites.
- Don’t Forget to Stop and Smell the Fire Flowers
- The Metaphysics of Gaming: Schrodinger’s Phat Lewt
- Five Reasons to Embrace Diversity in Fiction, Even if You’re an Incorrigible Bigot
- Kingdom Hearts is Light: The Under-the-Rader Humanist Tale
- A Theory About Games: The Player is Some Sort of Performance-Enhancing Cosmic Abomination
- What Games Can Teach Us About… Us
- On Loss, and Dealing With It
- Games Are For Everyone: What Does Accessibility Mean To You?
- The Most Belts in the Oddest Places: A Treatise
- A ‘Right’ Way to Play
- The Enduring Success of Skyrim: All Things to All People?
Collaborations as OverThinker Y
While running the ol’ blog, I got to take part in a few cool things with other awesome people who were also doing Games Writing Stuff. So here are some of those.
- Kingdom Hearts (for Normal Happenings’ The Games That Define Us)
- Finding Paradise (a discussion with Later Levels)
- Blogger Blitz (Adventure Rules‘ epic tournament-slash-community-fun-time, in which I’ve played a few different parts)
- High Score Haute Couture and Blogovision (gaming fashion events co-created with Shoot the Rookie)
- 100 Games You Must Play Before Game Over (by The Well-Red Mage; I suggested games and edited the final pieces)
- The Legend of Zelda Retrospective and Tomb Raider – Writers’ Raid (collabs MC’d by NekoJonez)
- Final Fantasy: Crystal Compendium (hosted by The Well-Red Mage)
The Well-Red Mage
TWRM is primarily a long-form review site where contributors take on Magely mantles and write in-depth, thoughtful, thorough things. As ‘the Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage’, I’ve written reviews, shared thoughts and opinions, and been a part of big events. I’ve also been an editor, reviewing other contributors’ work before it’s published on the site.
Plus, of course, it was through TWRM that I first appeared on a podcast and eventually ended up making one meself. See the ‘listen’ page for more info on that.
You can find a list of all my posts on the site here, or by searching ‘sometimes vaguely’ (there are some posts in which I appear but I’m not the primary author). Here are a few favourites of mine, though.
- Kingdom Hearts III (with Blue Williams)
- Ring Fit Adventure
- Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
- Untitled Goose Game
- Killer7
- Cultist Simulator
Obilisk
Obilisk is a site all about every aspect of gaming and gaming culture: the titles themselves, news, awards, the state of journalism and games media, and all sorts of things.
I’ve been lucky enough to have had the chance to contribute a few thoughts on big topics within gaming, putting my opinion out there on where games have come from, where they are right now, and where they might be heading.
My contributions so far:
- Are There No More Good Ideas?
- Save Systems and the Art of Game Flow
- Why My Disappointment with Kingdom Hearts 3 is (Mostly) Not the Game’s Fault
- Learning to Love the Dawn of Photorealism
Bonus Stage
For reviews site Bonus Stage, I had to switch gears a bit. My usual oeuvre tends to be long-winded, thorough, exploring a variety of topics; I wanted to try something that would force me to get to the point a bit more concisely.
This basically meant I’d get given a game and have a week to turn out a decent review hitting all the important points without the waffle, which was great experience for changing up my style somewhat.
My reviews for Bonus Stage to date:
Want to get in touch with me about… pretty much anything? Hit me up:
Chris Durston 