Hello! I’m Crystal. You may know me from my decade of award-winning podcasting, or my insightful microblogging, but now I’m going to experiment with longer-form writing as well. The reason I like podcasting is that it is a dialogue where people can work through ideas and challenge each other, and that’s the energy I want to bring to writing as well. I don’t want to just talk at you, I want to invite you into a conversation.
I like thinking about video games not just as isolated objects, but as portions of an ongoing historical dialogue. Everyone who has ever made a video game was influenced by something, and everything they make influences somebody else. I want to trace these connections and invite you, dear reader, to think about how your favorite games exist within the waves of history.
I like thinking about the feelings produced by the formal characteristics of a game. What can you do, and what can’t you do? How does the interface of the game world shape your experience with it? I want to invite you, dear reader, to think about the way the game is playing you.
I like thinking about the aesthetics of a game — the way it sounds and looks. These things can be appreciated even when the controller is disconnected, even when the game is not running. I want to invite you, dear reader, to think about the way you interact with games even when you’re not playing them.
But if I fail at all that, I’ll settle for making you smile a bit and maybe getting you to play a retro game you’ve never heard of.
