errantsignal

Gaming in the Quarantine Years

So I'm a little nervous about this one - it's a bit different than the more dry, detached stuff I usually do, and I'm not sure how it'll play (either here or with a general audience).  Vulnerability on the internet is a weird thing, and the lines between self-expression and narcissism, shared frustration and just venting to your audience, and putting yourself into your work and plain old oversharing are all kinda fuzzy.  This video plays in that space a lot, and it's got me anxious....

Blips 8

Hey all!

Here's the next Blips episode!  I'm actually pretty excited to share some of these games, a lot of them are real neat.

Anyways, sorry for the delay. I know it's been two weeks late, but I've had a rough time of it lately.  Still, I want to be 100% clear: this is January's thing.  I'm working on February's thing, but given that production is a bit backed up it likely won't come out dead at the end of the month.  My goal is to slowly claw my way back on ...

Children of DOOM: Descent

Hey all!  Here's December's video: Descent!  Enjoy: It'll probably be up publicly Tuesday or Wednesday, depending.

Playing as Anyone In Watch Dogs Legion

Hey all,

Here's a proper finished draft of the Watch Dogs Legion episode.  Sorry it took so long to get out, but it ran a bit long.  Let me know what you think! On to Descent!

- Chris

Watch Dogs Legion Preview

Hey all!

The final cut of this is still a few days out, unfortunately.  The script for Watch Dogs Legion ended up being a bit longer than normal (and that's after I decided to excise all the thematic analysis and focus just on the character stuff) and combined with using a new version of Premiere (which I wouldn't recommend) productions' been a bit slower than I'd like.  Still, here's 15 minutes of what's there (or about half of the total script) to prove that there is, in fac...

Pamali: Indonesian Folklore Horror

Happy Halloween!  Here's the big deliverable for this month - a video about Pamali!

Be warned - I kinda got scare happy in the editing booth, so this one might be a little more uneven in terms of tone than my usual Halloween fare.  Still, I think it's an even-handed look at a game that is at once educational, properly spooky, and also jank enough to maybe be too annoying for most.  Let me know what you think!

A Not So Spooky Blips Episode (Draft?)

Hey all!

Long time no see!  I'm back! And while we're not quite kicking off Halloween season with the spookies and the scaries just yet, I figured now would be a good time to do a small Blips episode that highlights some not-so-scary but maybe... vaguely spooky adjacent games? None of these games are horror titles proper, but they're all kind of just next door to scary or disquieting stuff.  Enjoy!

I'm also trying to force myself to cover some bigger titles this...

No Charge This Month

Hey all,

I just wanted to announce that I've paused Patreon for the September 1st billing cycle, so you shouldn't be charged.  I have like four pages written on Chris Crawford’s Dragon Speech that I was really hoping to whip into a shape I was happy with, but it’s just not there yet.  And I figured I’d rather take this script, continue to workshop it, and release something I could be proud of later than try to slam something out the door before it’s ready just to meet ...

Marathon: Children of Doom 4 (Draft)

Hey all,

As prophesied, here is the new episode of Children of Doom! I talk about Marathon! And probably a little too much about Half-Life!

I'm a little nervous about this one; I know most of the fanbase for Marathon tends to view the series collectively this far out and I'm not sure how they'll take a neophyte looking at just the first entry.  Still, I really learned a lot from playing through it!

End of the Month Update

Hey all,

Just a quick update since it's the end of the month - July's video, the next Children of DOOM, should (barring hardware failure) be out this weekend. I've got all the audio recorded and all the footage recorded, it's just editing it all together that's left.  

I'd throw up a draft, but what I have properly edited so far is the first few minutes introducing what we're gonna talk about and then last few minutes talking about the other titles in 1994 and what we're doin...

Fortnite: The Party That's a Platform (Draft)

Hey all,

Here's a much much more complete draft of the video! Again, sorry this took so long, but it's... a bit of a doozy, at least for me.

This still isn't *quite* done - there are a few tweaks and minor reshoots I want to do - but I told y'all I'd let you know as soon as I had something that looked/felt complete ASAP, so here's that!

Unfinished End of Month Progress Work Print

Hey all,

I promised I'd drop something at the end of the month so that A) You'd get something to watch and B) You knew I was serious about working on a thing for this month and it wasn't hot air.  So here it is! It's... very much not finished!

This represents maybe ~40% of the entire script (we haven't even finished the first half yet, let alone the flip side of the argument, and there's the entire history section I've cut out here).  But it *is* about 10 minutes of new ...

Just a Heads Up

Hey all,

Just a heads up - this month's episode is gonna be a little late.  I didn't intend for it to end up that way, but when I sat down to write it I ended up with a script that was about 150% my normal length, and it turns out putting that together is just taking more time than I feel comfortable committing to by EOD Tuesday.

Make no mistake - you're still getting a June episode, it'll just launch early in July.  And you'll still get a July episode too! And I'll post...

Children of DOOM: ...DOOM (Draft)

Hey all!

I know I promised something that wasn't Children of DOOM or Blips, but between quarantine pushing out just about all major releases and *gestures around* I found it hard to pull any inspiration in time to write something big and fancy. 

So I decided to bite the bullet and push us past the id software days of Children of DOOM.  Hopefully from here things get a lot more wild, with all manner of shooters showing up (which is what really drew me to this project to b...

Blips Episode 6

I don't really have a good theme for this one - it's kind of all over the place.  But that's good in its own way, right? Lots of variety in there!  I guess there's a vague theme of time displacement, but.... ehhh.

Anyways, I know I'm overdue for a big, old fashioned Errant Signal where I rant about something for 15-20 minutes, so I think that's probably what's coming next.  Then maybe either more Blips (I've been negligent!) or (begrudgingly) getting around to doing the D...

Wolfenstein 3-D: Children of DOOM Episode 2

Hey all,

I hope you're all well - or as well as can be given the state of the world outside.  Here's the latest video: another entry in the Children of DOOM franchise, this time bringing us up past 1992.

What's next is a bit in the air - either a new Blips episode (we're overdue for one) or a look at DOOM Eternal.  While I have a lot of thoughts about DOOM Eternal (and I have an entire playthrough of the game in the can, footage-wise), I'm... kind of id software'd out fo...

Catacomb 3-D (Children of DOOM Episode 1)

So I'm trying something a little different here, and if you follow me on Twitter you may have seen me debating whether to try it.  Basically I'm really interested in doing a riff on a few series the AV Club have done where they've taken an idea and run through each year of it (super hero films, best selling blockbusters, etc).  And I thought it sounded fun, mostly because I find myself some months stuck between feeling pressured to do a Big Smarty Video (tm) or a still-serious-but-k...

Blips 5 (Draft)

Blips 5's draft is now online! It's a draft mostly just because I have to add an ending (it kind of just peters out after the third game, and I need a wrap-up that I haven't written/recorded yet), but aside from that I think this is pretty close to ready.

I will say that time away from working on these has hurt it a bit - this video starts veering a little too far into thematic analysis, and as a result it's almost 20 minutes long for just three games.  That's probably longer than ...

Star Wars: The Franchise Strikes Back

Okay here's a much more finished version that's almost 10 minutes longer!

If it seems okay, it'll probably go public tomorrow!

DRAFT: Star Wars: The Franchise Strikes Back

Hey all,

Here's an early draft of the video on Star Wars.  Originally this was going to be a short thing about the structure of Jedi: Fallen Order, but it kind of ballooned into a much bigger thing (the final version's probably gonna be ~18 minutes long, give or take).  And while I'm not comfortable releasing stuff that is very much Not Done, the first 12 minutes are very done!  So while this draft is missing a conclusion (and one or two key points I want to make about Je...

Blips 4

Hey all! This is a bit of an awkward post because Patreon is not currently parsing YouTube URLs for some reason, so instead of a video post it's a text post.  But a text post will let me provide you with this, the link to the new Blips episode!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4M94e9LiA 

Sorry for the delay in getting this out! (No news on the interview - it seems to have went well...

New Videos Soon!

Hey all,

This is just a real quick update to let you know that November's episodes are still coming, they're just gonna be posted a bit late.  The Blips episode should be up tomorrow or so, and there's a bit on Star Wars: Jedi: The Fallen Order: Return Of The Star Wars Games With Too Many Subtitles that will be up later in December.  I just wanted to let everyone know so the payment date doesn't come and go and people think I forgot to post anything - it's still in the pipe, i...

The Slow Burn Arthouse Horror of The Space Between

Hey all!  Here's the second Halloween episode of the year!  And this time I'm talking about The Space Between, a game released earlier this year by Austrian indie dev Christoph Frey. Like other spooky auteur-types I've covered on this show, he's not only got a penchant for low-fidelity horror but a series of specific design tics that are really interesting to explore. I love how he plays with abstraction and ambiguity, and I love how all of his games seem to... *resist* the player i...

Faith: An 8-Bit Horror

Hey all,

The first of this year's Halloween videos is up for patrons! This time I take a look at the itch.io classic from Airdorf Games, Faith.  It's a fun spooky time!

Anyways, I'm gonna keep this short to get right back to work on the next Halloween video!

- CHris

Blips 3

Hey all! Here's the latest Blips episode for your viewing enjoyment!

Up next, of course, is Halloween time.  I've got a few ideas kicking around: I still kinda want to do that DUSTNET/videogame ghosttown video, but I may just jump straight into Halloweeny spookytimes if there's enough interest to do that instead of another really obscure game.

Either way, though, October is gonna mostly be a series of spooky themed episodes instead of the usual Blips or mainline ES episode. S...

Outer Wilds Part 2: Being There (Spoilers!)

Hey all,

As promised, here's August's video!  Let me know what you think! Also, spoilers for those who haven't played the game yet!  Next up will be a Blips episode!  Lots of cool stuff to share there!

New Episode Later This Weekend!

Hey all,

First, I hope all of you are doing well.  I know it's been a rough week for video games and the world at large, and I just want remind everyone to take care of themselves and step away for a bit if they need to.

Which brings us to the business at hand - I really wanted to get the next ES episode out before the end of the month to all you wonderful people, but between some personal tragedies and also needing some time to process everything that's been going down as of...

RAGE 2 and Game Feel

This month's Thing is up!  Or at least, a draft of it is - it's kinda lumpy, and I'm not sure whether to spend another week chopping away at the script and reworking this to be a little bit leaner and more lithe or to just run with it even though it's a bit repetitive and drags in the middle.

EITHER WAY: Let's talk about how game feel is both a totally real, cool thing and also something that can maybe override our brains a little bit and make us thing interactive systems are coole...

Blips Episode 2

Hey all,

As promised, here is episode 2 of Blips!  There's some fun stuff in here (I hope!).  This one won't be public for a bit - I'm in talks to get a sponsor for the video, and depending on how that pans out the public version may have one of those "Sponsored by so-and-so!" bits in the beginning.  We'll see, though!

After that, I've still got Outer Wilds Part 2, a piece on Rage 2 and game feel, and a script I'm waffling on about the Epic Games Store still in the ...

The Outer Wilds: Part 1: The Kinda Spoiler-Free Part

This game is kind of hard to write about.  Unlike a lot of games where I can sort of talk around major spoilers, The Outer Wilds is a game about learning about the game.  So the more I tell you about the game, the less of the game there is to actually play. It's... it's a conundrum.

So in the interest of covering the game for both people who have and who have not played it, I went ahead and split my script in half (which made more sense than just telling most of the audience t...