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Blockhead is an outlet for gaming reviews, previews, features, and the occasional interview. It shares the editorial standards and practices of gaming outlets I have worked with in the past: more information is available under Links.
Blockhead is back-ended by Substack as a platform that provides content outside of search engines and social media algorithms. Substack is not SEO-driven and does not rely on traffic from social media or search engine clicks. This content model from the past decades is designed to keep users hooked on a social media app in order to sell the ad space; to keep them clicking and scrolling, not providing them value outside social media. This ad-based model has always rewarded clickbait, publicity stunts, and scams over quality, relevance, and consistency, whether in gaming or otherwise.
Blockhead relies exclusively on quality content. The subscription model is designed to prioritize the quality of content rather than views and clicks. If the content suffers, so will my relationship with subscribers. This encourages me to continuously improve as a writer through feedback and interaction with readers and subscribers. It also allows me to cover only the games that I care about, even if it is not profitable.
Blockhead is not about explosive growth at the mercy of social media algorithms and search engines, but about finding a small, decentralized community of readers and writers who value my work and wish to support it.
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| Language | English |
| Country | Canada |
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesDome: Become Thyself — Akashic Records
The Akashic Records are represented in spiritual literature as a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent that have occurred in the past, present, or future. They include not just humans and our lives, but all entities and life forms to have ever existed. Theosophists and other derived religious movements believe the records are encoded in a non-physical plane of existence: the mental plane.
The Grimdark Aesthetic of Path of Achra
Some games are frustrating more often than they are fun, but we gauge their value by how fun they are only when they are fun. Most of the time, you die a thousand deaths for just one final moment of fun. You put up with many things that can go wrong and learn to deal with failure, but you don’t stop playing. Path of Achra has become my favourite torture and go-to roguelike. I have died a thousand deaths in the past year.
Ode to Everything
This newsletter is growing slowly, but it is growing, so I want to take the time to welcome the new subscribers, and I hope you enjoy the content. I also appreciate those recommending Blockhead to other readers. This is a free newsletter, and there will be no paywalls. All I ask is to share the word and let the blockhead do his thing.
Subnautica 2 — Hello Darkness
I never played the original Subnautica when it was in Early Access on Steam. It just flew under my radar for some reason. By the time I got a free copy from the Epic Games Store in 2019, the game had already been released for a year. I spent too many hours on survival games such as The Long Dark and The Forest in the early 2010s, and so I might have been burned out on the genre at the time. Man, was I wrong.
How Characters Change and Die
Chris Avellone’s characters have been around for decades. They have come alive; they have lived, changed, and died, even if they are still in circulation. You can play Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Prey, and several others. You can interact with his characters and bond with them. They will come alive when you play and engage with them, but the circumstances that kept them alive in popular culture are always changing.
How Characters Come Alive
Chris Avellone thinks in character. Almost everything he writes is rooted in this thinking of how characters come to inhabit people’s minds. There are many great RPG writers, but few writers have embodied this character-driven ethos in their game design as much as Avellone did since his first 1990s credits as a designer and writer at Black Isle Studios.
Demos and Freebies
Demos are now the bread and butter for this newsletter, which means that whenever I can’t drum up a full game review or preview, I’ll cover a bunch of demos, even if they’re not that great. Some are just barely playable. There are only a few rare ones that feel like almost full games in their own right. But that’s the beauty of the demo. It can be complete crap or a self-contained wonder that is still far from a finish product. Let’s dig in and see what’s out there.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II - The Hour of Our Death
The worst thing about Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is that it could be even better; it could have more to explore; other POIs to find and NPCs to converse with; and even other challenges and quests to pursue by the endgame. Warhorse gave players so much, only to keep us wanting more. This was a deliberate setup for the expansions and DLC content released in the past few months. I took over two months to complete the main storyline and optional content for the first time.
Next Fest Demos
Life’s been too busy. I’ve been working very hard teaching and finishing my dissertation, so I had to neglect this newsletter for a few months. Thank you to the subscribers who did not unsubscribe through this short hiatus. I am definitely still here, and I’ll do my best to write at least one post every month, even if it’s just an opinion piece or another short roundup of cool demos, like this post. The Steam Next Fest is over by now, but I managed to try out some demos.
The Alters - Therapy Bros
In my preview last year, The Alters felt handcrafted for a cinematic experience exploring the relationships between you and the alters. The cinematic elements are not that prominent, but I was not ready for how much work these relationships would be to maintain while the planet’s sun was about to fry us all alive. Sure, we’re always on the verge of collapse from radiation storms and just hoping to make it through the day alive, but have you considered that you hurt this alter’s fee-fees today?