Satirical Essay: How to Design Games for Boys
Chicks Dig Gaming anthology: Apocalypse Ink Productions.
[A] knife-sharp satire of the sexist and fallacious assertions that are often made about why girls aren’t interested in games. Glasser delivers her first coup de grâce before the end of the first paragraph. Later lines about “trashy boys’ romance” and tribble petting will likely make many CSZ readers laugh out loud.
-Victoria Elisabeth Garcia
Highlights of this collection include: a satirical look at the lack of boys in video gaming and what we can do about it[.]
-Prof. Jenn
[S]cathingly clever social criticism.
-John Seavey
How to Design Games for Boys is a subtle piece of social criticism about why types of games are considered normal, as well as the approach to making these so-called normal games appeal to girls.
The essay is structured as how-to for making games palatable for boys, focusing on what are currently girl-dominated genres, like makeup games, cooking games, and pet-raising games.
The arguments and advice gently echo the well-meaning (but misguided) advice women in the industry have heard over the years. This light satire demonstrates how superficial approaches will always be mired in benevolent sexism, but how holistic collaboration and consideration creates actual change.
Script Doctor Treatment for Wonder Woman '84
A personal writing experiment: assuming several studio must-haves and minimal rewrites, could I doctor the cohesion, pacing, and lore of the DC movie, Wonder Woman 1984?
This improvement includes both a loose outline and an added scriptwritten scene.
Generally, this was achieved by making scenes pull double duty: establishing and/or answering both plot and emotions at the same time, allowing massive cuts for time while improving narrative cohesion.
•Better mythical lore
•Better villain setup
•Better Steve Trevor
The following snippet is an example of this: it invents a new mythology that links the origin of the Wishing Stone to the Lasso of Truth, which explains both origins at once, establishes Wonder Woman’s responsibility over both as linked artifacts, and contrasts Wonder Woman’s childhood growth against Max Lord’s unchecked greed.
YOUNG DIANA
But I don’t care about the victory, I just want the prize.
HIPPOLYTA
The prize? Does wielding a godly gift hold that much appeal to you, my child? Then let me spare you the contest and give you your spoils.
Hippolyta holds out the lasso of truth.
HIPPOLYTA
Our most prized gift: the lasso of truth.
Forge of Hephestus, interior. Hephestus is hammering a lump of glowing rock, with inscriptions. Zoom in on the forging.
HIPPOLYTA (Narrating)
Hephestus took Language itself and stripped from it the lies.
Close-up shot on anvil’s base.
HIPPOLYTA (Narrating)
The lies we tell to protect…
A chunk of white-blue rock drops, then goes mostly transparent. (Note: This will be later revealed as the source of magic that creates Wonder Woman’s invisible plane.)
HIPPOLYTA (Narrating)
… the lies we tell out of fear…
A chunk of shale rock drops. (Note: This could become the Dream Stone at some future point.)
HIPPOLYTA (Narrating)
… and the lies we tell to take from others…
A chunk of obsidian rock with a distinct shape drops. Zoom in on this with ominous smoke or effects coming off of it. (Note: This will be revealed as the Wishing Stone.)
HIPPOLYTA (Narrating)
… leaving nothing but the truth.
We see Hephaestus set down the hammer. All that is left is language: glowing symbols and letters. He threads them together, forming threads, then strands, then… a glowing rope. He coils it, and loosely ties it into a lasso. He contemplates his creation.
Hippolyta holds the rope out similarly. Then lightning quick, she wraps the lasso around young Diana.
Short Story: Guardian of the Gate
Haunted Futures anthology: Ghostwood Books.
Short story. Otherworldy creatures who terrorize humans for own protection.
The emotional core of the story is that of regret and anguish, on eternal repeat, doomed to never learn or grow.
Short Story: Service
Cthulhu Lies Dreaming anthology: Ghostwood Books.
Short story. The unequal burden of both worldly and otherworldly horrors. An unsettlingly enjoyable experience, with a new vision for a reclaimed future of Lovecraftian horror.
The story pays tribute to the supporting class of workers who helped maintain and enable a larger body of research and knowledge-seeking. It is also a story of misplaced confidence and selfish arrogance.
With Service, I especially wanted to focus on what it meant to be a disempowered woman living in a society with unknowable, otherworldly horrors, and what that might mean to her.
Web Designs
Consistent quality, accessible design, and a clear path to fun.
Designs have focused on:
•Reducing clicks while improving navigation confidence
•Engagement tiers:
1. Immediate visual hooks
2. High-concept summaries
3. Learn-more options
•Descriptions, diagrams and pull quotes that accurately represent me
•Improvements for mobile devices
As a big fan of the RTS game Populous: The Beginning, I joined the community and, looking for a challenge, I found the brutally difficult mod Populous: Age of Chaos. The best walkthrough for it at the time only discussed the first 3 levels, so I took up the challenge.
•Step-by-Step Level Guides
•Straightforward Site Navigation
•Thematic Iconography and Design
I created not just the first comprehensive walkthrough for the game, but an entire website with its own approachable navigation system, extra resources, and imagery that paid homage to the game itself.
While it now only exists in screenshots and the Wayback Machine, this website featured tips and tricks, multiple strategies, and (when created) screenshots and maps to help illustrate concepts. It was incredibly popular with the community, and I did get emails asking for help with difficult levels.
•Straightforward Site Navigation
•Simple and Fun Art Style
•Occasional Bonus Content
My first hobbyist website using HTML/CSS skills I learned from print books on my commute, Dry Ice Snowmen had a cute theme, silly jokes, and fun extras (including merch!) on a regular update schedule.
The Bottom Line Newspaper
The Bottom Line UCSBConsistency, accuracy, and good promotion were all massively important to a successful launch of the fledgling college newspaper as a trusted, professional, and responsible source of local and global news.
•Regular Columnist
•Additional Reporting
As the PR and Distribution Manager, I worked as a go-between for printers and editors to promote respectful and timely deadlines and pick-up times, organized contributors into distribution teams, and even networked with the campus recycling program to secure a bicycle-based eco-friendly distribution system.
As a regular columnist and investigative reporter, I diligently collected and checked facts, focused on areas of interest or importance, all while hitting and helping enforce strict deadlines. My articles documenting pride rallies, holocaust memorials and a human interest piece on a trans professor, all while promoting professional and responsible reporting.Health Technical Writer
Authoring for soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo, I created researched, factual, and sociologically helpful articles about topics that could be embarrassing to discuss or difficult to access.
•Reorganized and refreshed layout
•Rewrote the Contribution Guide
•Personalized FAQ Systematized
I helped increase website accessibility by taking on the tedious task of hand-sorting 1000+ Q&A's into sections and subsections.
I added alt text to images, cleaned up any grammatical, factual or formatting mistakes, and increased the number of inter-site links. I also created a system to respond to frequently asked questions in a way that still felt personal while best utilizing pre-existing work with a personalized blurb and link to existing similar questions.
Beyond my own contributions, I ensured quality and consistency for the site going forward by editing the official class syllabus to better cover article writing standards, uploading procedures, expected HTML, and accessibility concerns.
Sunless Sea Shanty
I love Sunless Sea's combination of unsettling horror and beautiful descriptions set in a universe that's also delightfully inclusive - a design that I love to both enjoy and create myself. This sea shanty about the Unterzee for FailBetter's Zee Shanty competition is my small tribute to that universe.
Old Chef's ZzoupWhat would the old chef add to the zzoup?
Rats and bats and things that squeak,
Snips and scraps and Lorn-Fluke peak!
And what would they do when that ran out?
Jelly and mush and cleaning slop,
Scrape off the hull and wring out the mop!
What would they do when the crew got sick?
Chunks and bile and congealed spew,
Salt and pepper for all-new stew!
And what would they do when that ran out?
Make new zzoup of flesh and bone,
Souls for the crate and hear them moan!