John Walker's Electronic House

I was shuffling through some folders on my hard drive, trying to find a half-finished thing I’m writing for PC Gamer, when I stumbled upon the original doc for an It’s All Over I wrote… over six years ago. So old.

It’s still probably my favourite thing I’ve ever written in the magazine, and the only running gag I’ve ever initiated. So here is a scan of the printed version, as it’s almost as nothing without the drawings by the in-house team of Gamer in 2000. I’ve no idea to whom this copyright belongs. The text is MINE MINE MINE, but the rest is Future’s. But I don’t care, because they are evil.

A couple of explanatory notes: Back in Those Days, PC Gamer had a section called “Grand Designs”, where readers would send in their awful ideas for games and a developer would be asked to try and be polite in response. And all French games are insane. That’s all you need to know. (I’ve no idea why the stupid wobbly lines are all over it – I can’t make them go away).

From the website for Cornish adventure game, Barrow Hill:

“An impressive endeavor for a small group of first-time dev’s, with a shoestring budget…”

PC Gamer Magazine (UK) – Review by John Walker

From the review in PC Gamer Magazine (UK) by John Walker:

“An impressive endeavour for a small group of first-time devs with a shoestring budget, but as much as it feels like kicking puppies to say so, not a product worth your money. 51%”

I think I’m more offended by their decision to put an apostrophe in “devs”.

And Came Down A Fountain

Anxiety disorder is mean. It’s easy to forget quite how potent and controlling it can be during the peace of the downtimes. Back in a peak, and the brain madness steals sleep, calm and most of all, rationality. I’m so much better at cutting it off now, and while flappy, less its slave. The ideal behaviour in the moments of meaningless panic is comforting distractions, and what better than a thunderstorm?

The balcony on my flat provides the most extraordinary panorama for thunderstorm viewing. Offering about 160 degrees of landscape, the bowl in which Bath lays is all mine to view, surrounded by the thunder-capturing hills. Which means, of course, that the focus of a storm is always right on the edge of the field of vision, mostly concealed behind buildings and trees.

Tonight’s storm was too good to miss this way. One bolt that snuck around the corner was an inch thick in the sky, viciously purple, and threaded with cruel tendrils. The rest, while spectacular, were more in hiding.

Remembering my Adventure 200 yards behind my house, and the excellent wall on which I had sat at one point, providing an even more spectacular view of the city, as well as one of those brain-confusing 3ft drops on one side, and 20ft on the other (Bath is steep, people), I ventured out into the peculiarly clear air.

As I walked up, my back was to the storm. Efforts to walk backward were quickly abandoned, and at one point to great effect. The very brightest lightning of the night flashed from behind, and everything in front of me became suddenly ludicrously visible, my arms and legs lit up with a deeply eerie blue. I love lightning’s unique lighting. It’s daylight doubled, able to pick out detail and highlight the gaps.

The hill behind my house, as I might have mentioned, is steep. With the incentive of reaching the top before the sky ran out of electricity, I stomped up at a ridiculous pace, my lungs quickly burning, charged with providing the oxygen for powering a poorly composed body slopping around with less-than-manly muscles. Reaching the top, I had that horrid sicky feeling in my throat from sudden exercise, too much saliva, and a very dark sky.

I sat on the wall and looked toward the point of the activity’s hub, but nothing. A few gentle drips of rain fell, and the sky remained rudely blank. There were not even the after-flickers of its calming down. It had just ceased. Didn’t it realised I’d just walked really rather quickly up a really rather steep hill? Wasn’t it interested in the dedication I’d put in? I continued waiting, staring around in all directions looking for the flashes that had previously picked out portions of the clouds all over. Nothing. And then it rained.

Standing in a t-shirt and trousers, my cap in my hand, I realised that now it was time to get wet. It was the moment when you’re supposed to stand up, tip your head back, and just be rained on.

And it really did rain. It started off gently, then picked up to, “Oh, it’s tipping down outside.” Hefty plops of wet showered down, and it was excellent. More than anything, it was cold. How long is it since I felt cold? Then it started raining properly. The sort of rain where someone feels obliged to make the joke, “I’ll start building the boat, you gather two of every animal.”

It was the right time to just stand still, face up to the sky, and let it rain that on me. To be so wet that I couldn’t get any wetter.

Walking back down the hill (now a bit nervous of slipping and tumbling – it really is that steep, seriously), I walked past a man pushing his bicycle up the hill. He looked up at me, we both grinned, and he said, “This oueuaagghh!” I nodded in agreement, smiling, and thought triumphantly to myself, “I am wet on purpose, and you are not. I am the winner.”

“Our development team, when we saw the various GTA games coming out, thought Rockstar had created a genre.”

As we approach the autumn, Saint’s Row creator Volition isn’t going to be the only development team making this argument. With Vivendi’s Scarface also due out in a couple of months, and also looking remarkably similar to the long-running law-breaking series, upbeat violence in freeform cities is going to be a recurring theme. Perhaps it really is a genre. Perhaps.

Follow-up interview for the Saint’s Row stuff on EG.

There will be a minority of people reading who adore Point Blank religiously, their palms still bearing the imprint marks of a long-gripped light gun. And really, no matter what I say, nostalgia is going to win out.

It’s been said before, but it can’t be said often enough: the reason the DS is great is because you can’t just port your game over to it. The PSP is a remarkable machine, replicating near-PS2 capabilities in a handheld device, but still, only replicating near-PS2 capabilities. The lazy developer wishing to port his tinpot cash-in across all systems gets to the DS and goes, “Oh crap.” Two screens, one of them a touch-screen, half as many buttons as the average joypad, and no analogue sticks whatsoever – it all means that anyone wishing to develop for it has to use their imagination.

I get all excited about the DS again, because it’s just so very, very lovely.

All you need to know about Reflexology.

Found in a shop window in San Francisco.

Rest of pics here.

Ladies and gentlemen, please listen to this short appeal:

Every day a DS game belonging to John Walker goes missing. There are now tens of thousands of DS games wandering the streets, lonely, hungry and without love.

Please, if you know the whereabouts of any of the following DS games that belong to John Walker, then give generously, and return them to a home where they will receive love, and then eventual rejection and dust.

Project Rub (I think that might be Kieron)
Rub Rabbits (And again)
Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land
Lost In Blue

Thank you, and remember, for every DS game you return, you will receive over fifty billion pounds*

Goodnight.

*This might be a lie

My earlier train journey was far more interesting. All the delays were as nothing when compared to the individual I met on the way to Guildford. She looked mid 20s, reasonably attractive but far too much make up, pretty olive skin. The conversation started when she asked if I knew what time the train arrived in Guildford. I showed her my scribbled piece of paper, and she mentioned the hot. I concurred that it was indeed hot, and she told me some nonsense about how it would be 39C the next day breaking records. She asked me how I was to be not working, and then in return I asked about her job.

“I’m a life coach.”

I really had no idea what a life coach might be. I assumed it was a service designed for those with too much money and not enough friends, such that someone could give them some common sense advice. Her description matched up to this, but without the cynicism. And then she said,

“…and TFT.”

Oh lord. I enquired. TFT is the practise of treating psychological conditions with… tapping!

I want to explain that as much as it might appear below that I was very rude to this person, I really was not. I asked permission before every challenge, and checked that I wasn’t upsetting or offending her throughout, and thanked her very much at the end for being prepared to be so frank, and listen to my being so frank. She did 90% of the talking, while I listened. And as harsh as my sentences appear typed out, they were delivered in a friendly manner, always polite (apart from the bit about mediums).

TFT “gives immediate relief for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD ), addictions, phobias, fears, and anxieties by directly treating the blockage in the energy flow created by a disturbing thought pattern. It virtually eliminates any negative feeling previously associated with a thought.”

In other words, it’s a magical way to deal with trauma that requires no effort or therapy! Hooray! It’s obviously instituted throughout the NHS, and has replaced therapy and counselling worldwide! Oh wait, hang on.

It is, of course, the work of con-artists, preying on the desperate or grieving and stealing their money while they’re vulnerable.

She explained it to me in all its complexity (you tap and the bad feelings go away!), and I informed her that I am a sceptic, and I’m interested to ask her questions. She said she was up for this and interested to play. I was given permission to be straight with her. So I said that I cannot give any credence to TFT since there’s no such thing as “energy” flowing in the body, and there are no “acu points” (as demonstrated conclusively in a major study last year). I asked her why she didn’t want to see scientific proof for the practise before being prepared to charge people money for it. (All the sites that have attempted to make scientific justifications for TFT refer to “as yet unpublished” studies, that were conducted a decade ago, etc – all the usual obfuscatory bullshit). She told me that she didn’t need scientific proof, because she sees “results”. Her clients are all the proof she needs, because they have “miraculous recoveries”. I asked whether any apparent results could be a placebo effect, and she said the results were too powerful for that. I told her of the recent placebo studies performed for a new arthritis operation, where some taking part were only given incisions and no operations, and were able to walk afterward, when formerly wheelchair bound. She said, excitedly, that yes! Isn’t it amazing how the power of the mind can heal you, and that TFT channels this mind energy… She appeared unaware of this, and many, many other immediate contradictions in her logic.

So I asked about energy. What is it? “It’s a flow of universal energy in your body.” That clears that up then. Is it like blood, I asked somewhat rudely. “Yes! The oxygen being carried around your body is a part of it.” So it’s my circulatory system then? And I promise she replied, “I’m not really interested in the science.”

She told me at great length how science is overrated, and that these things may not be proved in our lifetime, but there are millions of people involved in alternative therapies, and so on. I pointed out that things being disproved somewhat precludes their being proved rather conveniently after we’re dead. She nodded. She did that a lot. When I said something that diametrically opposed her last assertion, her response was to nod in agreement. It was cleverly disarming. At one point I lost my composure and laughed out loud, which was rude. She was once more explaining how testing and so forth wasn’t necessary when her clients were instantly getting better, and then dismissed the alternative, making air quotes with her fingers, as “science”. I managed not to say, “I think ‘science’ is the term that makes those air quotes flitter away.” (I’m doubly proud of myself, as later in the day a lady selling me a cold drink at a stand said, “Oi’ve ga oran’, aa’le an’ wah’er, wha’ canna ge’ya?” and I didn’t reply, “A consonant?”) But I did giggle at this excellent moment.

When I suggested that TFT was hard to think of as anything but rubbish, with so-called results appearing from both placebo and the simple therapy of sharing a problem with a friendly stranger, she immediately personalised it with her uber-proof. The process claims to remove the emotion from a memory. And her father had died a couple of years ago, and she was so devastated and couldn’t cope for so long, but then she had TFT and now she can talk about him without bursting into tears. “I still have the memory, I can remember every single detail of his death, everything that was said, but I can talk about it without that awful knot of emotion inside me – the pain is gone.”

It’s a common practise amongst such con-artists (unwitting or not) to attempt to personalise something into a territory one must not question. But I’m a prick, so I carried on. I pointed out that what she’d described was the grieving process, but with someone tapping her at some point. That’s what happens when someone you love dies – you can’t cope for ages, and then slowly you come to terms with it, always miss them, but the memory becomes less raw and you move on. “Ok. That’s true,” she replied, “But it doesn’t explain how I can cure phobias.”

Astonishing.

I have been noticing recently that when people believe in one of these “alternative therapies”, they tend to believe in all of them. I explained this to her, pointing out that I was likely being very rude, and she was welcome to tell me to shut up at any point. She again insisted that she was enjoying the conversation and happy to go on. So I asked if I could name some other flim-flam and see if she believed in it.

First, astrology.

We’re living in an Aquarian year! That’s why everyone’s so inquisitive, so keen to learn more about themselves this year. “As opposed to last year when everyone said, ‘Who gives a shit who I am?! Let’s go swimming!'”. “Yes,” she said. “And next year it will be more powerful.” I was told how the position of Jupiter and Mars make a difference. The military planets. I asked her how they were inherently military, when they’d only been named after humans in the last few hundred years. “I know!” she said. “I just don’t know!”

Tarot.

She’s a tarot practitioner. She can tell people things about them that she couldn’t possibly know! “I know how to do that too,” I replied. She was excited. “No,” I said, “I mean, I know how to cold read. I can do that trick. I know how you’re tricking people, and how you make it appear that you’re revealing that information.” At last she didn’t nod in agreement. After a couple of beats she went back to the magic of the universe, and the nature of energy, and how the cards can channel this. “No,” I repeated, “It’s cold reading.”

She then did a little bit of cold reading, not very subtly, as I brought up the next subject. Mediums.

It was fairly obvious I wasn’t about to be very tolerant of this one. She began slowly. “I do… I don’t… I have some. I have quite a few friends who are mediums, but I… I… I don’t believe in it.” I felt like this was permission for me to say, “Good, because it’s the most wretched, inhuman foulness I’ve encountered, preying on the recently bereaved to make money out of their grief. It disgusts me.” This was in no small part a reference to something she’d said earlier about how her clients are often, “Willing to try anything when they’re bereaved so will consider alternative therapies”. She said this as if it were a wonderful thing. I was then told about how she believes that once we “move on” we are completely moved on, and that you can’t speak to the dead. “I mean, I don’t need a medium to do it. I can speak to my dad. Not have a conversation!! But I can talk to him at any time, and he’ll reply. You know, a sign, a really clear sign.”

And then she mentioned angels. Angel therapy! We all have two! Two guardian angels each. Because, you know when you see a little kid laughing to themselves, or talking to nothing, or seeming like they’re listening? You know imaginary friends? They’re not imaginary! That’s guardian angels. But as we get older we are taught that we mustn’t believe in such things, and we lose contact. But she hasn’t – she talks to her guardian angels. And there are arch-angels too! Raphael, Gabriel, etc. “But those are Judeo-Christian angels,” I said confused. “How do you get those names?” “That’s right,” she said in her insane agreeing way. “And there’s Hindu gods too,” and went on to list a few.

And reiki too!

So like I thought, everything.

More than anything she informed me that she has no need for “science, or tests, or such things,” and what amazed me most was her absolute disinterest in learning how her own treatments worked. I asked, “Assuming you genuinely believe in your therapy, why don’t you get it scientifically examined, a solid double-blind test to prove that you are right, and encourage this treatment for others?” She told me that she wasn’t interested. She just knows it works. She doesn’t think it matters how, or why, but she sees those “miraculous results” in her clients. “We’re not allowed to say ‘cure’, but we see amazing change.”

I finished explaining that I worried that her clients would be harmed by not receiving the long-term therapy that someone with severe trauma might need. She agreed with me. It was like an “AWAY FOR LUNCH” sign had been hung across her brain. And now she was off to “meet one of your scientists!” “One of mine?” I asked. “Yes.”

“Well say hi from me then.” And she hopped off the train, accompanied by two angels and an awful lot of energy.

PS. Here is an excellent Q/A about TFT by NPR with Scott O. Lilienfeld, co-editor of Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology.

There’s undoubtedly something of a dilemma when first playing Volition’s Saint’s Row. It’s too easy to yell “It’s a GTA clone!” and be done with it – you want to rise above that. But, erk, Saint’s Row is so similar to Rockstar’s series in so many ways that it’s beyond impossible to ignore. The look, the map design, the animations… the gameplay, all walk that incredibly tenuous and crumbling pathway along the cliff edge of Inspiration above the fetid waters of Copying.

2) And if you do it on next-gen tech, and add in the multiplayer that was so sorely missed in San Andreas, you justify a fair amount of attention.

I love people who are much better at writing than me, and I also HATE THEM.

Jon Blyth, who for some reason writes for that dreadful rag PC Zone, is one such bastard. He makes me feel a bit ashamed that I try. And never more so than with the extra 460% more effort he put into bitching about idiot pedestrians and people who have umbrellas.

I think I might have gone all gay now, and want to kiss him on the lips.