Pens and Post-Its

flashes of another life by the fireside 

Thank you so much! Your ask inspired me to do a little exercise in shape (this, reducing to two tones) and light (next post).

What's your favorite creature from any video game world?

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This is tough, especially since the Witcher world is full of all sorts of fantastic creatures. I'm going to have to zoom out here and say Sackboy from Sackboy: A Big Adventure (2020). He's just awfully cute and you can customize him with different fabrics and costumes.

What was your first video game?

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The first one that actually got me into playing video games was Fallout 4. (Surprise! It wasn't Witcher 3!)

How many video games are in your backlog right now?

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I have God of War in the drawer untouched. I'd like to play Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei sometime, maybe, but I've already watched most of someone else's playthroughs. I started Stray but got stuck in one room and haven't figured out how to get past it yet.

What is the scariest game you've ever played?

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I have a pretty low tolerance for horror so I avoid that genre! Overall, out of the games I've played, perhaps Vampyr has the most consistently sinister atmosphere (it's always night-time, there's the Spanish flu, and also a vampire epidemic…). Its opening scene was slightly terrifying to watch with the lights off!

But there are moments in other games that have unsettled me quite a bit - the Ladies of the Wood in Witcher 3, for example. And I've quite literally turned around and stopped free-exploring in certain places in Red Dead Redemption 2 when I lost my nerve upon seeing sometime that just looked wrong. For all the humor and hope in the game, it doesn't shield you from the fact of life that sometimes you will come across some very messed-up things.

What's the best video game easter egg you've ever found?

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Sadly my memory is really bad so I remember being delighted at finding some easter eggs in various games I've played but not what exactly I'd found. So the following is probably not the best easter egg I've found, but I did like exploring a sandy island in RDR2 and finding a pirate hat and pirate rum. Very cool.

(Of course I had to get a picture of him wearing the hat while sitting in a boat.)

Which video game character do you most identify with (and why, if you like)?

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This is going to sound odd, maybe, but I most identify with Dr. Jonathan Reid from Vampyr (2018). The feeling of being in over your head, maybe. And tired in a way no amount of sleep can fix (comic).

I also relate in some way to his feelings about his family (art with Mary Reid).

Name a video game song you still have stuck in your head.

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Lullaby of Woe from the Blood and Wine DLC, Witcher 3. Specifically the way it plays on the game loading screen with Orianna walking in the background.

Most of Witcher 3's soundtrack is stuck in my head, including the boisterous tavern music.

From RDR2 I can immediately name "Cruel World" (sung by Willie Nelson) if asked for the name of a song from the game.