It’s raining and gross outside. Why not stay in and read? The answer is: there is no answer, because you should stay in and read. Or write. Or play video games. Whichever’s your fancy! Today’s Friday Roundup is the lazy edition, so stop what you’re doing, and continue stopping what you’re doing for an extended period of time. Relax. I’m not going anywhere.
Besides, I have some things from the internet to help you get started…
Book War
Webcomic creators and authors Ryan North and David Malki are in the midst of a “book war” on Tumblr. The ammunition: book covers. The idea is to photoshop each other into fictitious, embarrassingly-bad book faces, and the result is one of the funniest things I’ve seen all year.
My favourite of the moment is decidedly this one.
Gods Will Be Watching
Deconstructeam’s Gods Will Be Watching was a submission for the 26th Ludum Dare competition, where developers are challenged to develop a game following a particular theme in two days. The theme of #26 was minimalism, and Gods has it in spades. In it, you’re a space captain stranded on an alien world with his crew. You have forty days to repair a radio and call for help, or help might never come. Survival is the goal here, and you can assign tasks to your crew members including repairing the radio, hunting for food, or developing vaccines for the “medusa” virus that may infect your crew (they’ll be paralyzed for three days before dying if a cure isn’t administered).
Oh, and your crew is slowly being driven mad by their circumstances. If you don’t ease their state of mind, they may go insane and wander off for good.
The game is intensely frustrating, but an absolutely wonderful experience nevertheless. And the music (by Fingerspit) is fantastic.
Hey Hey
A deceptively-beautiful short comic by Japanese artist Oikawa Uso. A translation of its introduction reads:
A father created a living being for his daughter to play with. Despite not looking the part, the creature was very kind and pure of heart, just like the daughter.
…and it’s… well. I can’t say anything. I won’t ruin it for you. All I will say is that I’m truly sorry.
I’m so very, very sorry.
Really, I am.
Fireflies
Photographer Vincent Brady captures time-lapsed video and photography of the plethora of fireflies that live in his area. Using “every trick in the book,” he says, he managed to produce some absolutely stunning imagery of the creatures. The result paints the portrait of an almost-ethereal world of lights and colours. Check out the full gallery, and be sure to scroll down to the end for a relevant poem by Brady’s friend Julie Le Goulven.
Gaming in Color
Gaming in Color is an upcoming documentary looking into queer gaming, and the slow rise of LGBTQ visibility in both games themselves and the community at large. Though games have the capacity for real, progressive cultural change, LGBTQ people still find it difficult in reaching a tolerable level of acceptance across all subcultures, gaming included. All that’s slowly changing, and I’m eager to see docs like these come out and help bring attention to and cultivate the growing visibility of marginalized groups through one of the biggest artistic mediums in our modern society.
That’s it for now! And I’m so sorry for that third one. No, really, I am. Would another picture of Auden cheer you up? I thought it might. Here you go.
There. All better!