#dan stapleton

Dan Stapleton is one of those magicians who has seen it all and now in his 60’s could easily set his remaining days on “cruise control” for the rest of his life; however, that is not who he is. He was a cruise magician for 23 years and served as a cruise director, too. Early in his career, he performed in Circus World where he got his chops at performing illusions. But his passion and goal was always to work on Main Street in Disney World as a demonstrator in the magic shop. That opportunity came to him and he loved his days doing it. He also appeared on America’s Got Talent [sic] where he was summarily dismissed, but he has a good story about that. In his semi-retirement he has managed a resort hotel in Orlando and now coordinates the Florida State Magic Collectors conferences.

Dan has so many stories that they would fill a book. He has recounted many of them in VANISH Magazine over the years in his column. But this week he shares some of those stories, and more, as he opens up about his experience being voted off of AGT yet how even today, it still helps him book shows. He chats about the status of magic on cruise ships, magic conventions, and more.

Dan Stapleton's review on IGN tells me he's never tried a Dad Game before. What are Dad Games, you ask? Any simulator that tasks you with doing things most of us could conceivably do with a minimal amount of training, for the most part. Either that, or grunt work. By these metrics, Euro Truck Simulator is as much a Dad Game as Power Wash Simulator or House Flipper. You have a basic set of skills, a single, often repetitive task to perform - and you're meant to mostly veg out with some very occasional spurts of "Oopla, I better start paying attention for the next little while, or else my score's going to suffer..."

That's precisely the niche that Hardspace: Shipbreaker fills. It's a game that's designed for long stretches spent listening to podcasts or just indulging in the Space Bluegrass you're stuck with - even if it occasionally waxes Anticapitalist in the face of the horrifyingly savage take on Late-Stage Capitalism the universe sets its salvaging megacorp in. It's also glad to extol unions, which makes the overall subject matter lean very heavily towards the Left. If you're one of these "Keep politics out of my games!" types, you're probably better off avoiding this one, lest you pollute the game's Steam Discussions page with threads like "This here's a game for commie pinkos, y'all!"

As yes, it probably is. As a lifelong Social Democrat, I can only approve. Worker's rights, people - even in microgravity and even if your employer guarantees you a cloned body and memory transfer for every death.

So, Stapleton argues that the game is repetitive. Fair enough, but so is any factory-floor job. In that sense, Shipbreaker is only providing its own measure of realism. He argues that upgrades are piecemeal and that there's not a lot of excitement to it all. Again - fair enough, but a company like LYNX would quite likely dole out merits in a trickle to keep employees invested, and would likely try and mitigate any fun to be had at work. Fun, after all, isn't productive - or so they say. You want more fun? Spot a pressurized segment and cut into it. Find an active fuel line and sever it. Poke that reactor and just let it sit. You'll have fun aplenty in no time at all. He also clearly hasn't poked at a Ghost Ship before, wherein rogue AIs routinely shut doors and depressurize airlocks on you - when they don't fuck up the thruster nacelles and the reactor core and force you to pick between which ship-rending fireball you think deserves to be avoided the most, and to hope you'll get to make that choice before the sparking power lines burn you to a crisp.

My only admitted criticism is in the game's visuals. Its textures are a little blurry, and I'm hoping mods will help us fix that issue without adding too much of a memory budget on an already simulation-heavy game.