OLI STARK

This is my family watching the sunset on the Isle of Man. My son was born in Belgium, my daughter in France, but currently, we all live on the Isle of Man.

I have never lived in the same place for more than 5 years since I was born. Initially, I had no control over it (I followed my parents who were transferred to various places) but later, not staying around for too long became our family’s lifestyle.

It helped me understand a key distinction between visiting a place and leaving in it, apart from the obvious. Once you visited a place, it becomes a blurry memory. Once you lived in a place, it becomes part of you. I am far more excited about moving somewhere new rather than going somewhere for a trip. Living somewhere is like reading a whole story. A vacation is barely reading the synopsis, although reading the synopsis is what leads you to read the book. Nowadays, people seem contempt reading lots of synopsis because they’re scared about reading entire stories...

You might go on holiday and discover a place that you love and feel connected to. Sometimes you love it so much that you wish you could stay forever. Yet, you come back home and stay there instead. 

What you need to understand is this: the place you live in shapes your entire life. It is that important. Year after year, it dictates what you see, what you smell, who you meet, how you feel. It influences your mood, creativity and ambition. It models how you  think, how you speak, how you interact with others. The place that you choose has a major impact on your destiny.

When we started Royale Maps, we looked at what the competition looked like, primarily to make sure that we were doing something truly unique. 

Turns out humans basically stopped designing maps, because, well, it has been done already so why bother? The aim of this post is not to answer that question. It’s about a “cheeky” industry I uncovered. One that I feel, might be the easiest business in the world to start, and then to run.

Vintage maps are popular. They can add character to home offices or produce beautiful statements in dining rooms. Maps are intimate links with places we love or stories that fascinate us. They're often a central piece for home decor enthusiasts.

Fortunately, there are a lot of vintage maps prints available on the net. These reproductions come in all shapes and sizes. What I find interesting is how easy it is for anyone to start such a business and make a profit right away, because vintage maps are free. 

Basically, what you need to do is find vintage maps that are not copyrighted anymore because they’re old. There’s plenty available and someone even already scanned them for you. Have them printed. Sell them. You’ve got yourself an automated business with 0 overheads.

I worship Naughty Dogs for the Uncharted trilogy and TLOU games. To me, even a single game from them makes it worth buying a Playstation 4.

I've been overwhelmed by the quality of the trailers so far, and hyped about the gameplay and story.  But there’s one question I couldn’t get over: “What happened to Joel?”  I was frustrated not to know, but then an idea struck me, or rather a revelation triggered by this photo.

Neil Druckmann posted it on his twitter account last February, but I only saw it yesterday. My theory: you’re looking at Joel’s successor.

Think about it, Naughty Dog’s ought to feature a dog as a central character at some point! That’s a weak argument, I know.  More importantly, they worked a lot on the cooperation dynamics between the 2 characters during the first game, and I don’t think they’re going to trash that away, quite the opposite, they probably worked on improving it, because that’s what Naughty Dog do. They develop something good, and make it even better for the following games. So I bet there will be some sort of cooperation. Then, for story’s sake, they apparently decided that Ellie would be separated from Joel. It will serve the story for sure, bringing new emotions and characters to the table. So they must have thought “Right, we’re keeping Ellie as the central character, but who’s going to replace Joel so we can keep using the duo dynamic thing we developed so well in TLOU and Uncharted?”

They thought it would be difficult to just replace him with some else, disappointing even. Players are emotionally attached to Joel, it would be very hard for any new character to fill his shoes. So the thought must have crossed their mind: how about a dog?

Imagine how emotional the bond between Ellie and her dog would be. This would be innovative enough to help us accept that we’re dealing with a new duo and that Joel’s out.

Remember Will Smith in “I am legend”? I was heart broken when his dog fought to death to save him. Or what about the horse in Shadow of the Colossus? In both occurrences, I had to blame allergies for sudden excessive ocular moisturisation.

Now imagine that you're Ellie, fighting your way through the end of the world, surviving extreme situations, assisted by the most faithful and innocent friend a human can have: a dog. You work things out with him but eventually, things go bad for Ellie, only to allow for something magical to happen. Ellie is in trouble, she needs help more than ever, but she’s incapacitated (just like in the first game between Joel and Ellie). That’s when the camera slowly shifts sideways before our incredulous eyes, and stops behind the dog. You don’t dare thinking what you’re thinking, so you gently push the controller stick forward. The dog moves accordingly. Game on.