I just released The Friends Issue this past Tuesday, and listen up: I LOVE IT. It’s great. It’s amazing. The games inside are some of my best work yet. Lemme tell y’all why I love it so.
- The three games are so completely different from each other.
- The writing introducing the games is succinct. It’s not anything more than it needs to be.
- I wrote the intro to the whole piece in my morning pages months ago! It was a guide to myself as I worked on the issue and that it works as the cover essay feels really natural.
- I released the issue on time even with taking two weeks off for my wedding and honeymoon! I’m proud of the planning that went into this.
- Orbits is probably the best sound design I’ve ever done on a game.
- Adult Friend Finder is funny! There are parts that legit surprise me and make me laugh, and I love when my work is playful and can joke around.
- Inching Along is the most grateful game I’ve ever made.
- The whole issue feels grateful to me, and that’s one of my goals with my work as a whole. I want to focus on gratitude instead of despair, and I think this issue does a great job of that.
- This sentence: “It’s driving through strip mall parking lots in a minivan, passing a joint around a dorm room floor, and a cross-country phone call announcing a new baby’s on the way.”
- I tell a true personal story about something hard.
- I get to quote Talking Heads.
So that’s why I love the issue. Check it out for yourself, sign up for Wide Open Games, and find your own reasons to fall in love with it.