Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

What Elden Ring is teaching me about stoicism and perseverance

August 29, 2022

On a ruined bridge high above the desolate Lands Between, Margit, the Fell Omen, stood between me and Stormveil Castle once again. The stakes were high: I’d spent £50 on a game months ago and a 20ft death-dealing guardian had seriously diverted my progress away from the main path. I had bounced off Dark Souls […]

categories: philosophy, reflections

Mindfulness of ruined worlds

September 23, 2021

Contemplating the beauty and serenity of Sable’s ruined world gave me some comfort. On one level, if and when Earth is finally desolate it might at least be peaceful, mysterious, and interesting to its surviving scavenger tribes. There’s something awe-inspiring about thinking on that timescale. Would the denizens of a post-apocalyptic world be awake to […]

Personal computing

September 9, 2021

I have conflicted feelings about computers. As a boy, I loved nature and playing in the garden more than anything. I thought computers were sinister, inherently bad, maybe even evil. Then, around 1990, my parents bought my brother and I an Amiga 500. At first, I was disappointed. What did I want with a computer […]

categories: essays, reflections

The Game Decays

July 31, 2019

This is a Quake 2 video I edited. It features some ridiculous and frags and trick sequences performed by my bro. If you’ve ever played an old school deathmatch game you’ll know how hard all this is: anticipating the location of your enemy, timing mid-air rockets, maximising your control of the map and trying not […]

categories: film and video

Playdead’s Inside: what was THAT about?

July 28, 2016

My friend Matt and I were discussing the meaning of Inside, Playdead’s atmospheric puzzle game. Like its predecessor, Limbo, Inside is a masterclass of subtle storytelling in games. There’s no dialogue or narration: the story progresses via ambience, stunning design, and menace. The player is trusted to form their own narrative interpretation. For example, initially, I thought the boy in red was running to […]

categories: reflections