Tag Archives: life

Ossuary Now on Steam

Ossuary is on Steam! It’s been a long road getting there, but a game I wrote and designed is finally on the largest online game store.

So far the game’s been selling well compared to its previous performance, but it’s not been anything lifechanging. I’m very thankful to all the fans and journalists who have helped us get to this point.

If you haven’t played the game, pick it up on Steam! If you have played the game, you should have a Steam key waiting wherever you bought it. Please leave a review on the Steam store page saying what you thought!

Ossuary occupies a complicated head space for me. It was developed during a very difficult couple of years in my personal life, and it’s releasing right when I’m struggling the most to support myself. I hope that in the years to come I can look back on this release fondly, but right now I’m not quite sure how I feel.

Discordianism is a major influence on Ossuary, and I’m reminded of its Parable of the Bitter Tea. The Parable of the Bitter Tea teaches us to accept the nature of things. You can work to improve the world and you can see the flaws in it, but it’s harmful to struggle to change that which is already set in stone. I’ll work to be mindful of how I am right now and move toward the future.

Games Are Better Than Life

I’ve been sorting through my inbox lately in pursuit of the elusive zero. As I’ve done so I’ve come across some disheartening things: business opportunities I missed or let languish, messages from people who played my games whom I never responded to, and personal communications that (with hindsight) I would have handled differently or continued longer.

At the same time, I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed II (which I put off for a long time due to the awful DRM, now improved). Its sidequests have grown tedious, so I’ve been soldiering through the game just to complete the plot, despite the fact that the story would be a disappointment even if I got it in a 25-cent used-book-store paperback.

So much of my real-life time is taken up with things that don’t leave me with anything lasting, while things that are actually important have languished. What does it mean when I can focus on the important part of a game, but I let life’s sidequests distract me from the central plot?

It means that games are better than life.
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