I wanna get drunk I wanna get stoned I wanna give up I wanna go ho-o-o-ome
Chalk Tablet Towers (not all lyrics need to have depth)
I haven’t had a lot of new music on my radar this month, what with the whole moving-back-to-Sydney thing. I’ve been back now for three weeks and have spent the entire time consumed by trying to lock in a home – and being unable to focus on much else. But now that I have a place to move into in two weeks, the excitement of a new life can finally begin. I’ve been waiting over a year for this moment (since I decided I’d move back to Sydney but stuck around to attend two weddings which never happened).
Nevertheless, I’ve put together this month’s dozen tunes. Gorillaz dropped their best album since Plastic Beach with Strange Timez last Friday. It works so much better than I expected, given it’s the first album to be constructed piece-by-piece without an overarching narrative. It even has a couple tracks which sonically hark back to their self titled debut. I’m pumped to see what they do animation-wise with their upcoming tour.
My collection of PC games which still lives at my parents’ home and I can’t bring myself to get rid of them
As I’ve mentioned previously, when I think back to my childhood, two images come to mind – riding my bike around the endless suburban streets of western Sydney, and playing computer games as much as I was allowed. Name a PC game from 1983 to around 1998 and chances are I’ve played it. From Commander Keen to Command and Conquer; Castle Adventure, Descent, Prince of Persia, Scorched Earth, Eye of the Beholder, Lemmings, Supaplex, JetPack, Earthsiege, Alone in the Dark. The list goes on.
But most of all I loved Sierra games. In the 80s and early 90s, Sierra On-Line dominated the PC gaming market. I loved them so much that I had dreams of one day working there. But in the late 90s, as the company deteriorated and eventually closed down, so too my interest in gaming dwindled.
At this time, every other game seemed to be another shooter with little-to-no story nor characters with whom to interact. Funnily enough, one of the last Sierra-published-games I got into was Half Life (which I loved). But mostly all I saw was a sea of sameness and as such I switched my attention to teaching myself 3D animation, website design and coding – all of which revolved around making fan content for my favourite series Space Quest. My goal switched from playing to creating.
Two books (the first two listed above) have been released in the last few months which have given some insight into the history of Sierra On-Line – how it began, how it thrived, and how it spectacularly fell apart. I devoured both books in only a couple of sessions.
At 8 years of age I tried to win over girls as Larry
King’s Quest was always their crown
Police Quest keeping it gritty
Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist
Space Quest. There’s nothing like it.
The Sierra Adventure is a work of love, written by a fan with the backing of a number of other fans via Kickstarter. It chronicles the company from its early days to its unfortunate end, highlighting the key games, designers and technologies along the way. Sierra’s success was found in its designer-driven approach and its technological boundary-pushing. No great work of art is designed by committee. As a Sierra fan, you always felt like part of a club or family, and got to know the game designers in the same way you would the author of a book. In the early days you could even call the designer to talk to them directly when you got stuck.
Unfortunately this approach was also expensive. An adventure game requires, story, dialogue, and characters. A successful game would sell around 250,000 copies and require a budget of around a quarter of the expected revenue. By the mid-nineties these numbers just weren’t competitive. Shawn Mills says it best:
A cultural change occurred in the early nineties that saw computers become a staple in most homes. They were no longer just for the tech-savvy, and as more and more people began using them throughout the decade, games and software were simplified to reach a broader audience.
More importantly, the technological advancement to 3D would become one of the major downfalls of the point-and-click adventure. While fast-paced, action-oriented games increased in popularity, the more cerebral adventure genre no longer dominated the market.
Shawn Mills, The Sierra Adventure
Sierra pushed the boundaries of what was possible in a PC game by embracing new technology. Soundcards changed everything and enhanced the experience. I still listen to these regularly.
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings – written by Sierra’s co-founder and CEO for most of the company’s life, Ken Williams – covers similar ground from the perspective of the ultimate insider. It’s far more business-oriented, which becomes fascinating when considering what led to both the successes and failures of the company.
A few highlights:
Sierra made an offer to purchase id Software following the release of Wolfenstein 3D, which failed mostly due to stubbornness. Pride can be a bitch. Imagine the future which might have followed.
Ken Williams was adamant about games being driven by the singular vision of an individual designer – a belief I strongly agree with for any decent creative endeavour (“if you were to take the two greatest book authors in the world and have them collaborate on a book, the result would not be as strong as their producing two independent books“). When new management took over, they used numbers and spreadsheets to assign people to projects. Original game designers were placed on games for which they had no passion while others were placed in charge of their original creation with little to no understanding of the world which had been created over fifteen years.
Sierra (and Microsoft) benefited from IBM’s fear of government anti-trust laws. IBM wrote into their contracts that each company must make their product available elsewhere. As such, when IBM caught a cold it hit them harder and allowed Sierra to sail off with other manufacturers.
The concept of a game “engine” which could be repurposed for new games without having to be coded from the ground up was pioneered by Sierra’s SCI. It’s what allowed them to push out ten times more titles than their competitors. It was also amusing the see the parallels with my own experience in the VFX industry as creatives would become frustrated with updates under the hood.
It struck me how much the experience of working in the gaming industry at that time lines up with my own experience working in the film industry. Bill Gates is paraphrased in the book: “when you are in a business that depends entirely on having a series of hits, it’s just a matter of time until you fail“.
What other game besides Space Quest III tasks the player with rescuing its own designers from their bosses who whip them as they work
Invariably, in a company that grows the way Sierra grew, innovation gives way to emulation. Whereas Sierra’s management once strove to make it solid, profitable, and yet fun, they now strive to dominate other companies, force annual growth in the double digits, and (Like so many other companies) cut jobs mercilessly to improve the bottom line and thrill the stockholders.
Josh Mandel, echoing a sentiment true of any company
Not All Fairy Tales was written thanks to Ken being trapped indoors during the pandemic. In a similar way, my desire to explore again the possibility of creating my own game has risen with all the time I’ve had stuck indoors this year. I’ve been learning Unreal Engine and making my own digital art again and my mind has exploded with ideas of how one might tackle an adventure game in 2020. I’ll save that for another time.
I’ll never pass a lonely railway line without snapping a shot. They have an old-world romantic mystery to them which gives me a strange sense of calm, hope and wonder. I’m also really just an 8 year-old-boy who loves trains.
Well, I made it back. Six months of isolation (save a handful of exceptions in July and August), two months of sleepless nights and stress, six cancelled flights and 37 hours in a face mask later, I made it to Perth. There, I spent two further weeks isolated in a hotel. Ordinarily such a challenge may be met with anxiety. But when I received the regular mental health calls on my hotel quarantine phone I couldn’t help but scoff. Baby, this part is a breeze. I’m happy to be back.
I’d never spent so much time on my own as I have in the last year. Some of it was helpful for reflection. Some was helpful for learning new things (Unreal), and getting in touch with old hobbies (drawing).
But I really missed people. And it wasn’t until I was back here that I realised how much.
So I was released from quarantine, got in a car, and hit the road. I spent six days exploring north of Perth soaking up the Australian landscape and a Covid-free world with full pubs and none of the pretension I’d become so drained by in Vancouver. Red dirt, wildlife and sunsets over turquoise waters.
Driving around the Peron Peninsula gave an incredible sense of freedomThe Pinnacles. Just myself, the desert and the wildlife.Turns out Pink Lake is actually pinkSomething as basic as this could be the template for a better Aussie flag
I then moved on from Western Australia to Adelaide where I spent ten days exploring the surrounding area soaking up wine and good friends. The biggest surprise was the Adelaide hills – a feature far underplayed in their marketing. It may be my favourite feature of the place.
Sunsets in Adelaide really are something elseClassic mammalian play behaviorThis trail was magic
You got sick from a lolli, lolli, lollipop You feel free when you’re killing me
Tom Fec (aka Tobacco) is a musician whose sound can’t be described by use of comparison to other artists. Instead, I tend to think of a blender in which bubblegum, rainbows, sunshine, lipstick and workout videos are mixed with horror movies, demons, sweat, bodily fluids and acid.
I was familiar with his work as a member of Black Moth Super Rainbow (in particular Dandelion Gum) long before I’d heard of his work as Tobacco. I loved the dreamlike bliss which BMSR captured. Dandelion Gum is 45 minutes of low-fi psychedelic electronic hymns. You could close your eyes and picture yourself laying with the one you love in an open grassy field on a sunny day – a slight breeze carrying the smell of flowers and popcorn – as you held hands and melted into the earth. You melted into each other, and by the end you, your girl, and the field were one and the same.
Well, that’s the imagery I always conjured anyway.
As Tobacco, he takes this aesthetic and adds some crunch. There are blissful moments, but also moments of horror and creepiness. Maniac Meat is Fec’s second album under this moniker, but it was the first I heard (Fucked Up Friends is also worth a listen, and has one of my favourite album covers of all time).
From the first listen I was hooked. It explodes right out of the gate with Constellation Dirtbike Head – a song that begins abruptly as though you’ve already walked in late to a party. Fresh Hex kicks it up a notch with some alliterative imagery and power drums & spiraling synths. From there it goes up, it cools down, you get scared, then a warm synthetic hug grabs you.
Computer corrode connection counting camouflage cash Crystal canary in a coal mine Land a cortex cowboy kaleidoscope Like a concrete cactus cracking in a colosseum
Lyrically, Maniac Meat is more about the imagery that words and sounds create rather than literal interpretation
This is no snoozer. This is an album to get pumped and perhaps a little psychotic. Throw yourself against the wall then lie in a pool of sweat as your mind drifts out of your body. I love it, but it’s certainly not for everyone. I haven’t yet recommended this successfully to anyone. They just don’t understand. But that’s fine – maybe this one feels more special for the fact it’s just for me.
I went on from here to explore a whole world of related acts – more Black Moth, Tobacco, Demon Queen, Malibu Ken. If, like me you’re on board with Maniac Meat, then you’re in for a treat with the rest.
