I am being terrible about getting The Prophecy out in a timely manner, I know. Apologies! I have about 2/3 of the current draft done and out to beta readers, in the hopes that feedback will help inspire me to get my backside in gear and finish revising the last 1/3.

In the meantime, here are a few entertaining things I’ve come across since my last post.

Until Dawn is a survival horror game for the PlayStation 4 that I found to be a whole lot of fun, and creepy as hell! There are eight playable characters, and you cycle through controlling each of them at different times. As you play a certain character, the actions and dialogue you choose for them lead to different outcomes and affect their relationships with the others (through the game’s “butterfly effect” scheme). It is possible to reach the end of the game with all eight of them still alive, everybody dead, or anywhere in between. In my first playthrough I only managed to keep three of them alive until dawn. I did a second playthrough, this time using an internet guide to make sure I kept everybody alive, and right near the very end of the game the power went out in my house and fried the console 😦 The hard drive was salvageable, but we lost all save game data. I do plan on trying again, but it’s taking some time to muster up the morale to start all over again when I was so close to my goal!

The game tells the story of a group of teenagers returning to a mountain lodge on the first anniversary of the disappearance of two of their number at the same location. This may seem like an odd thing to do, but the reasoning behind this move is revealed later in the game and makes a very compelling kind of sense. But whatever happened to their friends the year before seems to be happening to them now, one by one. Is the horror here slasher in nature, or something altogether more supernatural? I highly suggest you play yourself and find out!

Another fun and impressive aspect of this game is the way it was created using full face and body motion capture. That means live actors performed all of the scenes wearing the bits and bobs (yeah, I don’t know the technical jargon) for the cameras to catch it all and computers to bring them to life on screen. The cast includes such notables as Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek. And I’ll admit, I love me some Rami Malek…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also on the video game front, Jonathan Boakes and The Darkling Room have released a delightful way to pass some time, a short interlude of a game called The Last Crown: Midnight Horror. Its predecessor, The Lost Crown, was a full-length enchanting ghost-hunting adventure game released in 2008. Production value may have been a bit low (the voice acting in particular leaves something to be desired), but it was beautiful to look at, fun, and wonderfully creepy! The team has been working on its sequel, The Last Crown: Blackenrock ever since, but alas, fans of the franchise are still waiting. Boakes assures us the release date is coming soon, but in the meantime, we have been provided with this fun miniature adventure to enjoy. It came out for Halloween, and in fact the story takes place during the week between All Hallow’s Eve and Bonfire Night, that night which marks the failure of the gunpowder plot attempted by Guy Fawkes and his collaborators. (Remember, remember the fifth of November!)

 

Last, but certainly not least, I have FINALLY “discovered” Felicia Day. This after being told by multiple people over the past year or so that I should check out her work. I at last picked up her memoir, “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)” and realized not only that she is hilariously entertaining, but also that we share many of the same interests: namely books and video games (and a history of violin playing). I have since been watching the live streams of her playing the same sorts of games I play, sometimes along with her brother (who is just as amusing as she is), and have also joined her online book club. The club, with the charming moniker Vaginal Fantasy, has its base over at Goodreads and reads primarily romance novels (often SFF) with strong female protagonists. Once a month there is a live club “meeting” on the web, where Felicia and three other lovely ladies (Bonnie Burton, Veronica Belmont, and Kiala Kazebee) discuss the month’s pick, and anyone watching can use the chat feature to type in their own comments or questions. (Felicia addressed me and answered one of my questions and I totally fan-girled all over the place!) You can find the Vaginal Fantasy Goodreads group at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/62938-vaginal-fantasy-book-club

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sad truth is that I don’t know many people IRL who enjoy the same games I do, and I miss terribly the days when my sister and I would play them together. In a way, watching Felicia play them live over the internet helps fill that missing piece to a degree. Watching her and her brother play together is bittersweet, too. Although usually I’m too busy crying from laughter to feel sad. For example: