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November 2025 media

• Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor: This is the new special exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I only knew a couple of Homer’s pieces from their appearance in the MFA’s regular galleries, and they never really spoke to me one way or the other—but after seeing the larger survey of his work here, I’m much higher on him. (I think it was a mix of getting more context on his work and learning that perhaps the paintings I was familiar with happened to be ones I liked less.) And hey, learning to love a new artist is exactly what I want from an exhibition!

• ‌A Mighty Wind: I like a Christopher Guest mockumentary, but I don’t know if this one has the juice. Maybe the folk music scene isn’t as ripe for parody as heavy metal or dog shows, as well-drawn as the featured acts are. Or maybe they just didn’t push the characters far enough: I found them almost too plausible, to the point that their foibles felt like affectations bolted on for laughs instead of believable extensions of their natures. I still enjoyed it, and the soundtrack is great, but I think it’s the weakest of the Guest films I’ve seen.

I left Epic

Today was my last day at Epic Games.

I haven’t written a ton about career stuff here, so for context: I previously worked at Harmonix Music Systems for thirteen years, from August 2008 until its acquisition by Epic in November 2021; I then worked at Epic for another four years from November 2021 until, well, just now.

I’m not sure I ever quite fit in at Epic. I was happy enough for a while, as I still mainly worked with Harmonix people on Harmonix-like projects (check out Fortnite Festival if you haven’t!). But as Epic’s own values and priorities gradually seeped in, I began to grow alienated. I didn’t want that feeling to corrode my passion for my work or to hold back my team, and so I decided it was time I moved on.

There is another reason: acquisition aside, seventeen years is a long time to stay in one place! Even if things were going swimmingly, I suspect I’d be itching to move on by now and try something else. In particular, one thing I’ve learned at Epic is that my heart is not in big live service games; over the past few years I’ve felt a growing urge to make something smaller that is all my own, and to do that I needed to leave.

It’s not lost on me that it’s a frightening time to willingly give up any job, not least one in as competitive an industry as video games. Pursuing indie development instead is, of course, even more risky. Nevertheless, that’s what I’m going to do! It’s something I’ve always wanted to try, and if I don’t seize the opportunity while I can I know I’ll regret it.

All my best to my former colleagues, who I know will continue to do great work at Epic. I’ll be writing more about what I’m up to soon!

October 2025 media

• Pokémon Legends: Z-A: I didn’t grow up playing Pokémon games, and I’ve mostly been lukewarm on the modern ones that I’ve played. It’s just appealing enough that I keep trying, though, and Z-A is working pretty well for me! I like the Xenoblade-esque combat, the compact wild zones, the fashion, even the single city setting. I don’t think the series got its hooks into me early enough for me to every truly love it, but I’m glad I can like it. This will be the first one I finish in years.

• Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga: Originally a niche PSP game, this goofy crossover fighter has gotten a surprisingly full-featured port to modern platforms. They’ve included everything from improved graphics and framerate to online play with rollback netcode (!) to a message log to match the recent mainline Ys and Trails games. The game itself is nothing to write home about, to be honest, but as a Falcom fan I was happy to see it get an official release at all—let alone one made with such care.

• The Naked Gun: The new one, that is. I guess it makes sense that this exists; no franchise with any juice left is ever off the table for another sequel or a reboot, no matter how many years (or actors) have passed. But man, what a weird thing to see in 2025! They literally don’t make them like this anymore. The combination of Nielsen-style slapstick and contemporary references gives it an anachronistic flavor, but I think it lands. Liam Neeson brings just enough self-seriousness for his Drebin to work.

September 2025 media

• Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter: An incredible remake of one of my favorite games of all time, with combat mechanics cherry-picked from across the series, a light dusting of new sidequests and dialogue, a solid new arrangement of the soundtrack (which can be reverted in the settings), and the most appealing 3D art Falcom has done yet. My only real complaints are localization quibbles; it’s annoying that GungHo changed a bunch of proper nouns and even pronunciations rather than maintaining continuity with earlier releases, as NISA did. But that’s not nearly enough to sour me on it—I’ve played the original Trails in the Sky through to the credits multiple times, and I’m thrilled to do it again.

• Hades II: It’s still early, but I’m not as high on this one as I hoped I would be. The characters aren’t bouncing off each other quite as well; combat feels a little overcomplicated now; I don’t know that I wanted a wider variety of resource nodes to mine; I don’t even like the music as much. All that said, the core is still solid and it’s still a lot of fun to play. It’s just a victim of the incredibly high standards the first game set. If things stay as they are and my opinion doesn’t change as I play more, a slightly lesser Hades is not the worst place to be; even if my opinion improves, I can’t help but think I’d be more excited if a studio as talented as Supergiant had opted for something less iterative.

August 2025 media

• The Magician of Tiger Castle: Pitched as the first novel for adults from Louis Sachar (though personally I think it’s comfortably YA), this is a breezy fable about an immortal magician from a fictional European kingdom. It occasionally evokes Sachar’s magnum opus Holes, particularly in the way the plot jigsaws together, though with its own distinct, slightly sardonic flavor. I read through it in a single afternoon, grinning the whole time.

• The Serviceberry: This is by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who you may know from Braiding Sweetgrass. It makes a straightforward and compelling case against the excesses of capitalism, using the reciprocal gift-giving of indigenous societies as her example and the nonhuman natural world as her metaphor. Kimmerer has a real talent for expressing subtlety with plain language, such that her points shine through without the prose feeling overworked.