Easter Beans

What time is it?

It's the holiday time.

Everybody is at home in London, especially my lovely cat. Today she has been extra nice and even very nearly sat on my lap.

This blog post is probably going to be a little pedestrian.

[Drum Snare]

 I mean, it's been a long time since there was any activity here, which means that a lot of exciting things have happened, but I tend to only remember exciting things that have happened within the past seven days. Thus far, the Easter break has been relaxing, but not really very eventful. 

Here is an event: I went to Alex Du-Gal's birthday. Top boy Du-Gal recently turned twenty, and it was my privilege to attend a celebratory meal with him at the Harvester in Enfield. Also in attendance were Will 'Illicit Dealer' Barrett, Emma 'Good Girl' Biles and Andy 'My Cousin' Lovell. None of those nicknames are for real. There were also some other people who seemed nice but whose names I cannot remember. We hung around outside for a while after the meal and talked about scat, imagining a utopian society where a higher public understanding of music would lead to 'scat battles' taking the place of present day rap battles.

While I'm home I've picked up my rather neglected trombone and taught myself to play the backing bit to 'Stand by Me', which goes like this: 'Bom bom bom - bom, bom bom bom - bom...'. It sounds even better on trombone than reading 'Bom' in your head, and I feel mildly accomplished. Of all the (few) pieces I've learnt, it's probably one of the higher ranking pieces in terms of difficulty to reward ratio.

That's about it. Tomorrow I set sail for Wales to help with an exciting camp for private schooled kids, which will probably involve all kinds of things to write home about. That spells good news for you, target audience.

I've had a really good idea, which is to fill space at the end of this post with a review. 'Review' is just a word you can use to make your own opinion sound reasonable and qualified. What better place for such a thing than on this website, which is basically already dedicated to feeding my self importance? You can only really review things well whilst you are experiencing them, so I am going to review this (unfinished) game that my sister is making, which she says is called 'A 3D Game Designed for Teaching Kids to Control their Powered Wheelchairs in a Fun and Safe Environment' or 'Explore the Castle'. 

Explore the Castle's most prominent feature is undoubtedly its control scheme. The game is designed to be played with a joystick similar to that of an electric wheelchair, which limits the player to rotating or moving forwards and backwards in a straight line. Whilst the inability to strafe seems inconvenient, so does the prospect of being wheelchair bound in general. Like all good simulators, Explore the Castle's control interface lends itself to realism over convenience. The realism, however, begins and ends there.

From being telepathically greeted by an anthropomorphic balloon to finding yourself held hostage in the kitchen of a featureless, ovoid 'chef', the entire game is basically one massive trip.

"Let's Cook"

The full game title states that this game should simulate a 'Fun and Safe Environment'. Having experienced the in game environment for myself, I can say with confidence that it is both terrifying and dangerous. There doesn't seem to be any overarching quest or narrative, only an eclectic mix of disjointed and threatening scenarios. Whilst completing tasks in exchange for the promise of cake is enough to invoke anxiety in most gamers, the award for 'most inexplicable and terrifying scene' goes to the episode in which the player glides through a door in a castle and then appears in some kind of underground maze / lava pit. Imagine that bit from Half Life where you're traversing across an ethereal inter-dimensional void, only this time you're in a wheelchair and you're even less sure of why you are doing it.

Pictured: Life as a Wheelchair User

In summary: Unless your recently paralysed child dreams of being a volcanologist or running errands for a man with no mouth, you should probably wait for the full release.