My early game was In rural England meaning that while most buildings were centuries old cottages and post war terraced houses, all equally degraded, I was never too far from a truly ancient church, cathedral, or abandoned abby.

I saw something in these alien buildings I couldn't find anywhere else. An expression of form and artistry on a canvas so large to be impossible to see in totality. The idea of a canvas or stage that large sorta destroys the concept, ideas of the boundary at which a work ends lost all meaning.

This denial of the “rules” of art silently enforced didn't end with space. Those abandoned abbyes that are SO common in England (thanks Henry) can be some of the most ethical and beautiful places to explore. The stories you can build walking around the sculpted skeletal remains of these buildings is captivating.

Gothic Architecture taught me that anything can be made to be art irrespective of function or scale. It informed my art, every space I create tries to capture some of the nature of a gothic building. Scale, detail, shape, and form are all core to my work. Ogival curves especially.

I started my obsession with this flavour of pseudo immersive theatre the way practically every one does these days. Dungeons and Dragons and a few streamed tables.

My first table was a collage “DM school” run by the programming tutor, we played Out of the Abyss and our own homebrewed stories and settings. Within this setting: creating monsters, characters, quests and campaigns, I fell into the conductive role of a games master.

It wasn't much longer till I would be strapped into that chair for eternity. Immediately after leaving college I joined a new table created by a friend of a friend, it was chaotic and had its growing pains but it was here that I got my taste (however short lived) of being a player. My DM soon went on deployment and with nobody else to step up I became the de facto DM for the next 5 years.

Since the end of that campaign I've had the freedom to explore more TTRPGs: Candela Obscure, Vampire the Mascarade, Kids on Brooms, and my own [in development] system. With each of these I've learnt more about what I like in a system and what style of gameplay is most enjoyable to me.

I'm a sucker for a game with an esoteric exterior and a point to argue hidden underneath it. That's why I'm about to yap about Kojima's most contentious game.

Much like how metal gear looks to be a game about homoerotic action heroes and spies, Death Stranding is on the surface a game about being a delivery man in the apocalypse. And like the rest of his work you can take your brain out, play the apocalypse delivery game and take away a fun (or boring if you've destroyed your attention span) experience.

Ultimately it's a game about co-operation and rebuilding your social circle after losing everything. That's not a surprise to some as there are plenty of video essays and blog posts about how PT Silent Hill and leaving Konami impacted Kojima and therefore informed Death Stranding.

But the reason I love death stranding and the rest of Kojima's work is more than esoteric aesthetics and venting meta narratives. Kojima has repeatedly made his games into interventions on how people play games. Whether it’s changing the controller port, being told to turn off the console to complete the mission, or playing a multiplayer game and never seeing another player's avatar, Kojima has forced us to reinterpret our expectations of what gameplay and mechanics are.

And to me Death Stranding is the most interesting of the lot. The Chiral Network system is the latest and bar far loudest addition to a secret world of asynchronous multiplayer mechanics. By separating each player into their own world in which others' choices bleed in; Kojima created a world where your own selfish actions benefit others. Co-operation is the only possible course of action whether you intend it or simply cause it as a byproduct; you are always helping bring strangers up with you, an antithetical to the “crab theory”.

Practically everyone of my peers both under and post graduate have some love for this game. The lion's share of projects I've been a part of have had this little Dorfic running game brought up during ideation. So I know I'm not particularly different when I say that it is one of my favourite games.

Both Mirrors Edge & Catalyst capture something primal. Like many games before them they bring the player into a flow state allowing for faster and smoother interactions. Something about the virtual running, exaggerated dangers, and constant sounds of breathing that makes these games a special drug to me.

My favourite chapter in the original game is Jacknife, specifically the sections around and within the water infrastructure. The flood water silo with its many staggered pillars looked so cool and like nothing else I'd seen at the time. Knowing that they have a real world equivalent in the “G-Cans” of Japan makes it all the more cool.

My favourite Mission of Catalist is Benefactor, It's the highest you get to go in the game outside of the final mission. It's in the center of the city too so you get a better idea of scale looking around at the top. Climbing and then ruining a skyscraper is fun but getting to stop and take in the view before racing back down makes this perfect to me.