For over a year, my website has quietly said the same two words. Coming soon. I am finally able to tell you what it was, and to invite you in before it begins. Between Battles is a letter sent via e-mail and a podcast for anyone living through something hard, a body that fights them, … Continue reading The Fire Is Almost Lit
gaming metaphors for life
Why “Try Harder” is the Wrong Tool for Some Problems
This isn't about games, and it isn't going to tell you to just think positive. It's about the problems that keep beating you, and being honest about which ones you can change and which ones you can't. The games are only a starting point. In games there is a particular kind of enemy that works … Continue reading Why “Try Harder” is the Wrong Tool for Some Problems
The Thing I Do Before the Hard Thing
I want to tell you about the ten seconds in the parking lot. You know the ones, even if yours happen somewhere else. The engine is already off. You have arrived. You are sitting in the building's shadow, close enough to read the sign on the door, and by every practical measure there is nothing … Continue reading The Thing I Do Before the Hard Thing
Why Some Days Become Save Points
Here is a question that sounds simple and is not. Why do some stretches of your life feel enormous in memory, vivid and long, while others, sometimes much longer ones, have simply vanished, collapsed into a blur you could not reconstruct if your life depended on it? A two-week trip somewhere new can occupy more … Continue reading Why Some Days Become Save Points
Games Know Failure Is Part of the Story
Here is something I never questioned until one day I did, and then I could not stop seeing it. Games are built almost entirely around losing, and we play them for fun. Sit with how strange that is. You buy a game to enjoy yourself, and the experience it actually delivers is mostly failure. You … Continue reading Games Know Failure Is Part of the Story
When Rest Means Fighting the Same Battle Again
In a certain kind of game, beloved and brutal in equal measure, there is a mechanic that newcomers find baffling and a little cruel. When you rest at the bonfire, the thing that restores your health and saves your progress and lets you breathe, the entire world resets behind you. Every enemy you killed on … Continue reading When Rest Means Fighting the Same Battle Again