Down the Wall is now officially on hiatus. I leave tomorrow with my backpack and boots for a whirlwind adventure through Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia and won’t come around the world again for a year. I’ll chronicle my trip at a new blog called Where is Jon?, and Down the Wall will have to wait until I return.
This blog has been a great experience for me and a lot of fun. I think I’ve found a good niche for myself amidst all the gaming blogs. Preparations and partings have kept me from regularly updating this site for the last month and a half, but I fully intend to continue writing here whenever I get back.
So salud, adios, goodbye, farewell, and all that jazz. Thanks for reading.
The site has been granted an updated code and layout and new features. (Please notice the new site logo, which took all Sunday afternoon to Photoshop together.)
The new Calendar page displays upcoming releases that have storytelling potential along with information and links. Fallout 3 is the first entry and shows how game profiles will be laid out.
Despite featuring a very mainstream title right off the bat, I’d like to use the calendar to showcase smaller releases and mods. It should be up to date within a week.
The Resources page is a compendium of links, guides, and interviews for aspiring video game writers or journalists. This is a work in progress and so far has links on careers in game development and journalism.
Tags are in place, and the About page has a tag cloud for browsing pleasure. Enjoy.
I’ll be updating the WordPress platform and the layout for this blog over the weekend. A new look and new features should be up on Monday.
Welcome to Down the Wall, a personal blog I plan to focus on storytelling in video and computer games. Not that there isn’t room for the odd review or news commentary, but the topic of choice here is the narrative behind the game.
Posts on this blog are organized into three categories: Analysis, News and Reviews. Analysis articles look at general trends in games or the industry, News posts comment on what’s in the news, and Reviews are self-explanatory.
One thing I want to push for is more professional, in-depth, well-researched and meaningful writing than an average blog. This, and my unfortunately limited time, means posts will be spaced out, but also (I hope) worth the time it takes to read them.
I started this blog because I’m an avid gamer as well as a student looking at a career in journalism, and because I wanted to take a closer look at a topic I’m interested in. I think that games are on their way to taking their seat at the table of artistic media, and one of the main signs of this status is a shift towards greater levels of storytelling.
Many games have had moving and well-wrought stories which are more than just an excuse for the action, but recent technology (graphics and spoken dialog especially) has breathed real life into these stories, allowing new levels of expression.
This is a timely and important topic I hope to explore in greater detail in the near future. And, thanks to recent comments by film critic Roger Ebert, it looks like I have a good opportunity.
Notes
The about page has more information about myself and my goals for this blog.
