Storing crazy thoughts in an asylum

If you're a Batman fan and are interested in video games, stop everything you're doing and check out Batman: Arkham Asylum. Last week, after feeling totally burnt out and frustrated on Sunday, I decided it was time to play games and I chose this game because it had Game of the Yearattached to it and 2 weeks later after having finished the game, I understand why. This game brought me back to the joyful days of Alone in the Dark. Man, those games kept me hooked for hours and days but were totally worth it. I know I've found a great game when I feel perfectly fine playing it instead of "working".

The coolest part about that Batman game is its mixture of story, puzzles and plain, awesome violence. You get to learn more about each character as well as Batman himself and one of my favorite parts of that game is the Riddler's challenges. They almost always involve Wordplay and it forces you to sit and break down the sentence bit by bit to solve the puzzle. Having played this game, it reminded me of university when I took that game design course and learnt how freaking difficult it actually is to design a fun game. At the end of the day, a game is only as fun as the actual game. Not the graphics, not the cool effects, not the concept, but the actual experience during gameplay. Otherwise why would Alone in the Dark be so much fun when you're character has diamonds for hands?

I'm also almost done with the book I'm Dying Up Here. Awesome story so far, hearing about how the comedians from the 70's united and tried to fight for their right to be treated properly, like any other professional performer! I've been struggling recently to find the mental energy to sit and work at my comedy, partly because all the web projects I have on hand are relatively fresh and that means they all require designing and I've realized that I have a limited dose of creative energy everyday. After around 2 proper designs (I'm talking starting from scratch till I've got something I feel the client is ready to see), I'm done for the day and probably can't genuinely work on something creative for at least 4 hours (playing games works even when I have 0.0001% brain power left, oddly, just like you have space for dessert after a heavy buffet).

After having watched the extremely funny Tom Cotter last weekend, I was totally re-inspired to work at my craft but reality set in and usually by the end of the work day, nothing is funny to me anymore (well except some of Riddler's challenges).

Update: I'm continuing this literally 24 hours later and I actually thought today is Wednesday (when it's actually Thursday). Woah. Somehow this week feels like a  day was lost somewhere... I suppose I must have been enjoying it since the time flew so fast I didn't notice it :P

I guess it's time to enjoy the next 10 days as well!