Monday 28 May 2012

What's Your Story? - The Trickster

It's only fair that if I start a new feature on The Adventure Gamer asking readers to tell everyone a little bit about themselves, that I go first. Quite a few of you have already sent me your answers, all of whom will very shortly receive 20 Companion Assist Points (CAPs). While I'll be giving points out at the time I receive the emails, I plan to make the What's Your Story posts a weekly thing for as long as I have responses. I've already got over two months of posts covered, so who knows, if the site continues to grow in popularity, it might continue weekly indefinitely. Just in case there was any confusion, if any of the readers that have already sent me their answers do not wish for me to post them on the site, please let me know.


The Trickster

My home country is… Australia. Sydney to be precise.

My age is… 35, as of Saturday. That means I was around eleven when the current games I’m playing came out.

The first adventure game I played was… King’s Quest 1. I’m not actually certain of this, because I was very young when I played my first Sierra games. It could just as well have been Leisure Suit Larry or Police Quest, but I didn’t get very far in any of them. The first adventure game I finished was Hero’s Quest (aka Quest for Glory 1).



The first adventure game I finished and still my favourite

My favourite adventure game is… Hero’s Quest 1. It might be nostalgia, but I loved that game. We’ll soon see whether it holds up. The Secret of Monkey Island and The Longest Journey would be up there too.

When I’m not playing games I like to… write about them. :) I also love spending time with my wife and daughter, metal music, various sports, movies and educating myself in the sciences (I'm currently learning about string theory). If I retired today, I could fill every day with things to do and learn, for as long as I live.


Yes...I love this shit, and a whole lot more of it!

I like my games in (a box, digital format)… if you asked me a couple of years back, I would have said in the box with a big manual to go with it, but nowadays I’m realising the freedom of having pretty much everything I own in digital format. I now listen to audiobooks, read comics online and have my entire music collection in MP3 format. I buy all my games from GOG and Steam.

The thing I miss about old games is… the freedom developers had to innovate. I recall a time when hundreds and hundreds of games would come out every year, and many of them would be innovative and unique. Even in the late nineties, there were games such as Homeworld, Deus Ex, Planescape: Torment and Thief pushing the boundaries in both style and content. These days there are only a handful of games of any note released due to the cost, and it’s just too risky for the developers to try something new. The end result is endless clones and sequels with little true innovation. Thankfully the indie developers seem to be making a big push right now!


Homeworld grabbed me despite having very little interest in strategy games.

The best thing about modern games is… the sheer beauty. I can wander through Morrowind or Oblivion for hours and just look at it! I look forward to the day when developers take the innovation of the eighties and nineties, and combine it with the production value and technology of today.

The one TV show I never miss is…Game of Thrones. It’s been a long time since I was truly excited about a TV show, but I long for each episode to come out. The Walking Dead and Mad Men aren’t far behind.


Game of Thrones has more than lived up to my lofty expectations.

If I could see any band live it would be… hmmm…there are hundreds of bands I’d like to see. In fact, I’ll be seeing a few of them in France next month at Hellfest. I’ve never seen My Dying Bride live, which is something I’d like to remedy.

My favourite movie is… another tough question as I love so many. I’d have to say The Lord of the Rings trilogy if I had to name one, but The Exorcist, Donnie Darko, Aliens and Se7en would all be up there.


I can't even begin to tell you why I love this movie.

One interesting thing about me is… I’m deaf in one ear. I always have been, so it doesn’t bother me at all. It does make some social settings awkward though when people think I’m ignoring them when I just can’t hear them.

Interested in sending your answers and getting 20 points for you trouble? Email theadventuregamer@gmail.com.

11 comments:

  1. I'm fine with you posting up what I've written; most of it is already out there somewhere or another anyway.

    String theory? Really? *sigh* Might I recommend nuclear physics or stellar formation? Both have considerably more support in the scientific community and are just as interesting. I can give you the name of a really good beginner textbook on the second one if you want.

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    1. Well I can't really make a judgement on whether or not I feel string theory is interesting or valid if I don't know what it is. Don't worry Canageek...I'm a huge skeptic!

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    2. Don't listen to him. Whether or not string theory is true, it's definitely fun! (I say this as a knitter who occasionally reads about science.)

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  2. If I knew you were going to post articles, I'd have elaborated a bit more on my answers. I was trying to avoid rambling!

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    1. You're welcome to send them through again.

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  3. "I’m deaf in one ear." hah! me too! Left or right? I think this has hurt my bar mojo. :).

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    1. Left. Luckily my good looks and natural charm make up for the fact I can't hear a damn thing anyone is saying to me! ;)

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  4. Just sent in my answers.

    A couple of quick responses to Tricker's writeup:

    I loved Homeworld! It really had a great story, especially if you read the manual. Kind of a cross between Starflight and Battlestar Galactica I guess. I'm rarely in the mood for RTS games myself, but I really hold Homeworld in high regard as a computer game.


    I didn't care for Donnie Darko, on the other hand. I just don't care for surreal movies or TV series, although I did at appreciate that they at least bothered to explain at the end why the movie had been so weird. There's nothing I hate more than a surreal movie or TV series that ends with a bunch of ambiguous hand-waving and/or mystical mumbo-jumbo. As an engineer, I just can't take anything surreal seriously unless there's a really good explanation offered at some point.

    To digress: I remember seeing Event Horizon in the movie theater with my brother when we were teenagers, and left feeling a bit miffed because it turned out to just be a cheap surreal scary film instead of being explained by believable sci-fi (a la Alien, which is one of the few horror films I like).

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  5. Oh this is really great idea how to complement your wonderful work with something different but still related to main theme and also interesting for the others. We write and read the comments but we don't know each other, but in real life this is the first thing what the people are interested in, when you come to the new society. So expect my answers... :-)

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  6. Does Baba Yaga put in an appearance in Hero's Quest? I see her house in that screenshot...

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