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2025 has been a different year for my writing, a/k/a “using my stuff.” 2024 made use of The Daily Stoic as a base camp for writing. It worked better than anything I’d tried before to establish and maintain any kind of regular writing/journaling/whatever we call it.
2025 started out with transcription of a long Oscar Wilde poem and that kept the ball rolling well. After that, I did more picking & choosing of what to transcribe or write about. While I liked the sense of spontaneity that offered, the lack of a single focus made it harder to maintain the year’s initial momentum. The ball stopped rolling like it had been and time spent writing decreased, I put more time into things that engaged me in a different way like music, movies and, most recently, video games.
In early May I got a new PC for the primary purpose of playing games and experiencing what the latest generation of technology was brining to the table.
(Note: If you haven’t investigated the pricing and availability of PC graphics cards for a while, I’d recommend maintaining blissful ignorance. I hadn’t been in the market for 7 or 8 years and seeing the current realities was a rather rude awakening.)
The first game I bought to stretch the legs of the new machine was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
My old rig would catch fire trying to render this.
After logging 10 or so hours over a few days, I had solid impressions about the game’s good and bad points thus far. I jotted them down on some scrap paper at the desk and moved on. Later when I wanted to add some more thoughts, I couldn’t find the first piece of paper. Being annoyed at myself for losing the paper helped dawn break over Marblehead.
I’ve got many pens and notebooks so why not just grab one of each and keep them where the games are played. If something warrants writing down then the tools are at hand. This is an obvious thing to do, right? Except I’ve never been a person who kept a journal or ongoing notes related to hobbies and leisure activities. Never made a list of books I read, places I traveled, cars I saw at the local cruise night, etc.
I’ve played video games a long time so why start this now? It’s because if I can’t seem to consistently bring myself to the daily writing exercise like I did last year, then I should bring the writing to what I’m already doing. Play it as it lies. If the things that get your time and attention aren’t worth writing about, if just for your own indulgence, then what would be?
The pen is a Pilot Quatro and the notebook was a gift from my brother when he visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West home in Arizona.
The paper works well with fountain pens so far. I’ve got a Pilot Black cartridge in the Quatro and the paper transmits some pleasant feedback through the fine nib.
It’s been a while since I used the Quatro, longer still since Pilot made them. This one has a nib stamp from 1983.
Pilot, if you bring back this pen and make it 10% thicker, maybe 15%, to increase the grip diameter then I’ll buy one in every color. I love its look.
Where was I? Yes, putting game thoughts in a journal. Writing about the game longhand is engaging and helpful. It helps work out and reason through what the game is trying to do and how that is or isn’t connecting for me.
One note I have in the journal is about the presence of pens and paper throughout the game environments. Maps, books, files, and sketches everywhere.
At one location I found where they hoarded the ink.
Six bottles of violet? Looks like I am in the right place.
If I can pretend I’m writing for PC Gamer back in the good old days, here’s my overview of the game.
Everything looks and feels impressive. The way that facial expressions convey subtle things helps the characters achieve a more human-like depth. Exploring feels like exploring. The first-person perspective reinforces your sense of immersion and not knowing what’s around the next corner.
Certain gameplay issues that you have to control around or put up with, mostly related to NPC behavior, can cause legitimate annoyance. I don’t think they break the game but can intrude upon and interrupt the sense of you dictating the action as the main character. On the other hand, you could see that as part of a more accurate simulation of real life where you aren’t always in control and if you shift attention away from where it should be you might miss things.
Having grown up with the first three Indiana Jones movies, this game does well to convey much of that feeling into a video game experience. Indy’s a cocky adventurer but mortal and always vulnerable to the much larger forces set against him. Small bits of humor are spread throughout to give you a chuckle and nod to the franchise history. If that appeals to you and you like adventure games, I think you should play this one.
The next gaming item will be jumping back into a replay of Disco Elysium. I want to see how low Harry can go. If you know the game, you know what that means.
Past that, I may revisit Pentiment, an Obsidian title from 2022. If you ever wanted a game that revolves around the written word and what calligraphy styles meant in a culture, combined with a solve the mystery story arc and light RPG elements, I strongly recommend it. Yeah, that’s a narrow window but damned if the developers didn’t throw a perfect strike right through it. It has a pleasing art style and nice soundtrack as well. You also must like reading in a game because there’s a lot of it in Pentiment, but that’s where you will appreciate the detail they put into the game’s presentation. It also doesn’t hurt if you like and/or studied Medieval and Renaissance European history.
*Raises hand*
Lastly, I am reminded that increased gaming time is more screen time and sitting still time, which I found harder to regulate when diving into a new game. I’ve tried setting timers and limits, with only occasional success in adhering to them. What do you do to keep game time from extending too far?
