After writing The Aberrant Gamer a couple of weeks ago about my indecisiveness in choosing a Harvest Moon bride, I'm happy to report that Celia has happily and blushingly accepted my Blue Feather marriage proposal. At which point I retreated to my bachelor island home to sleep alone, ahead of the ceremony to take place next in-game week. I'm taking bets on whether or not I'll play through that week to get to the wedding. She's a great girl, but you know me.
Funny I chose the most "traditional" bride out of them all. The sexy blonde bar chick, the exotic mermaid, the sleeping princess -- and I picked the cute little farm girl in an apron. I still wonder whether I'm secretly a chauvinist.
In other news, I wonder if I'm not working too hard. Last week, I had a "romantic" dream about Guitar Hero, and last night, I had a semi-romantic dream about Masahiro Sakurai. Yeah. Well, he is pretty cute, as game developers go.
Finally, the semi-satirical Metal Gear Solid drinking game brought more traffic to SVGL than possibly anything I have written to date, which brings up an interesting point in our discussion about incentives for game writers. I chastised some blogger types I've seen who post low-brow or sensationalist dreck to get attention, and lamented the general inability for people in my field to get significant attention for content with depth. Don't I wish the editorials I spend the most time on got that kind of readership!
Anyway, given that so many people were interested in the drinking game, I feel compelled to point out it was, as I said, intended as semi-satire; it is, after all, a bit too complicated to complete with ease, as many people have pointed out. Many people complained about my recommendation of sugarless Red Bull, and still more wanted to know why I recommended American beer.
Well, as a counterpoint to Russian vodka, of course, and as a liquor tableau representative of the game's political conflicts. Still other people think that I've mandated so much liquor consumption as to make the game impossible to complete without dying. Well, most of the time you're drinking American beer -- not the whole thing, of course, just a swill or so. And most of the drinking prompts revolve around the cutscenes, and not so much the gameplay. If you take your time to get through the levels, you'll probably find you're not drinking all that much. Still, thanks to all the good sports who promised to give it a shot. And given that many did, I'd like to take this time to disclaim any liability!
And to wish, again, that people were so enthusiastic about rest of my work! Ah, c'est la vie.
