March 2019 Patreon Topics!
Godzilla! Arcade games! Aesthetics! Softcore…porn?
A rundown of possible topics to cover in the future. If you’re a Patron of mine you can also vote on which topic you’d like to see me cover first! I’ve reposted it here so that everyone can take a look at the topics and see if they find any of them interesting.
AESTHETICS OF FRAMERATE AND RESOLUTION
A multi-part series about how framerate and resolution can change the aesthetics of games. This would be coming at it from the opposition of the usual demands from the tech fetishist crew that want ever higher numbers and pristine images.
It’d argue for the merits of intentionally using lower resolutions and framerates, while contextualizing them in historical conversations and comparisons to how mediums like film use them to get specific effects.
Check my piece on The Undeniable Beauty of Lo-fi Games on Waypoint for a general idea.
KAIJU CRITICAL: GODZILLA
A multi-part series of essays about Godzilla films, giving them serious analysis for their themes and concerns, while also acknowledging their appeal as absurd genre fiction.
There’s a lot of Godzilla so I’m going to start with the original, then the films afterward that act as direct sequels to it, and their relationship to the themes of nuclear war presented in the first film.
Find an old introduction I wrote previously to get the general idea.
HIJONG PARK’S NEO-ARCADE CLASSICS
A look at developer Hijong Park’s free arcade games, their unique merits and successes, and how they relate and iterate on the classic arcade games they’re riffing on. These are lesser known but still excellent games that I want to give a spotlight to, and are also totally free!
A look at developer Hijong Park’s free arcade games, their unique merits and successes, and how they relate and iterate on the classic arcade games they’re riffing on. These are lesser known but still excellent games that I want to give a spotlight to, and they’re totally free!
To give it focus I’ll be covering the six games on Steam, though there are more on his itch.io pageas well.
MINDWARE’S JAPANESE PC REMAKES
Similar to Hijong Park’s games, I’d be doing a survey of Mindware Co.’s catalog, specifically Alien Field, Heiankyo Alien, Space Mouse, Cosmic Cavern, Cosmic Snake and Dig Dig Dig.
These are interesting because they don’t come from a single source, but are remakes of several old Japanese PC games, with both ports of the original and new veneers and music, sometimes provided by artists who worked on Namco arcade games.
The way they iterate on very simple original works is the most interesting angle here.
NIKKATSU ROMAN PORNO FILM PROJECT
This would take on Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno Revival Project, a series of five Japanese films focusing on sex that use soft pornographic appeal to essentially sell arthouse films by directors, while giving them wide artistic license. These include Antiporno, Wet Woman in the Wind, Aroused by Gymnopedies, White Lily and Dawn of the Felines.
Having seen one of the films there’s definitely a lot of ripe thematic material and visually powerful imagery here. And no it’s not all straight sex.
Find anything that seems interesting to you? Let me know on Twitter over at @siegarettes, and cast your vote on my Patreon page over here!
