Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Ron Welch
Nicodemus: Coming Home
Editor's Note: This story has been lightly edited from its original publishing in summer 1993. Each year, on the last weekend in July, Nicodemus stages a homecoming celebration to commemorate the largest, organized, post-Civil War, emigration movement in America. African Americans from across the United States gather the last weekend in July in the small Graham County community of Nicodemus (population 48) for a very special homecoming.
Speed dating with House Republicans part 1, Financial Services Republicans want a new CFPB Director, Congress backs Trump on Colombia, and more!
Interview: Speed dating with eleven House Republicans on their priorities, the economy, foreign policy, the Super Bowl, and more Heard on the Hill Financial Services Republicans want new CFPB Director “as soon as possible” “Wake up and smell the coffee”: Congress backs Trump on Colombian pressure campaign Rep. Stephanie Bice introduces bill to cut back regulatory apparatus DNC chair front runner: “white silence equals violence” Rep.
From the Archives: A Slice of Rural Life
The Kansas Sampler Festival, the annual two-day gathering hosted by the Penner family on their farm near Inman, has grown beyond its founders’ wildest dreams. This article was originally featured in the fall issue of 1995, and has been lightly updated. In 2023, the Kansas Sampler Foundation celebrated its 30th anniversary. The Kansas Sampler Festival ended in 2017. Since then the Sampler Foundation has hosted the Big Kansas Road Trip.
From the Archives: Prairie Preserved
Photography, Kansas Tourism The 10,894-acre Z Bar Ranch in the Flint Hills of Chase County - purchased in 1993 by the National Park Trust – is America's future tall grass prairie preserve. Editor's note: This story was originally published in the fall issue of 1995. The ranch and prairie discussed in this piece are now the Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve, operated by the National Park Service.
Brutus: A Novel: Welch, Ron Fuller: 9781701818422: Books
This is a very well written story, very tight no padding just to get the page count up. Ron Fuller Welch is a first time author and this is great first story. He set the story in an area that he knows very well, and he kept the subject matter in an area where he was comfortable and could do research to sprinkle facts in with the fiction to make the story logical and therefore believable. I knew this would be a good story due to Ron's experience in wrestling.
10 Years of Minecraft: Now and Then
Eyck, I feel old. I wasn’t quite in high school when Minecraft launched back in 2009. It was such a novel concept at the time, a fun way to play with friends without the competitiveness of a shooter or an action game. You have to remember that survival games really weren’t a thing before Minecraft and most building games made you an omniscient god. Minecraft is the first game I can remember to embrace true creativity.
Post-Climate Change Adventure The Climate Trail Now Available for Free
Fighting climate change is a global emergency. As the planet gets warmer, sea levels will rise, and food yields will dramatically decrease. To raise awareness about this issue, veteran developer William Volk has released The Climate Trail, a free downloadable game exploring the long-term consequences of climate change. The Climate Trail got its inspiration from The Full Life by Paolo Bacigalupi, a short story about a girl living in post-climate disaster Miami.
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince Makes Puzzling Relaxing
Puzzle games are difficult to get right. Make them too easy and you alienate puzzle fans. Make them too hard and regular players might not reach the end. The key to making a middle-of-the-road puzzle game is to provide a unique toolkit, multiple solutions, and more difficult side puzzle. Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince does exactly that and comes off as one of the more relaxing puzzle games in recent memory.
Hunt: Showdown Review - Bayou Bounty Blues
I’ve long thought the battle royale genre would benefit from a blend of PVE and PVP. There’s a certain charm to fighting monsters, only to get blindsided by a random player. That style brings a lot of tension, perfect for a horror atmosphere. The folks at Crytek agreed and have spent the past two years getting Hunt: Showdown ready for the big world outside of Early Access. You play a randomized bounty hunter exploring corrupted Louisiana swamps in the late 1800s.
Knights and Bikes Review - Friendship is Magic
I think Stranger Things’ biggest contribution to fiction is repopularizing the Spielbergian “kids on bikes” trope. Now we can all revisit that innocent time when unsupervised children uncovered lost treasure, discovered government conspiracies and caused massive property damage. Knights and Bikes follows the tire tracks of those who came before but has the charm of a kid-friendly story and the spark of child-like imagination.
Little Nightmares 2 Announced
Put on your raincoats and turn out the lights because developer Tarsier Studios and publisher Bandai Namco have just announced Little Nightmares 2. The sequel to the claymation-stylized indie horror title will be available on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC sometime in 2020. Little Nightmares 2 offers a new setting outside of The Maw (the ship from the first game).
The Settlers Building Up for a 2020 Release
After almost a decade, The Settlers has announced a triumphant return during Gamescon 2019. The newest entry from the civilization-building real-time strategy franchise, developed by Ubisoft Düsseldorf, will release on PC sometime in 2020. Preorder options are now available via the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store.
Gamescon ONL - Remothered: Broken Porcelain Announced
Developers Darril Arts and Stormind Games, along with publisher Modus Games have released a teaser trailer for the second entry in the award-winning Remothered trilogy. The sequel to Remothered: Tormented Fathers, originally titled Going Porcelain, now goes by Remothered: Broken Porcelain.
RAD Review - The Nuking of Isaac
Let’s face it, a lot of post-apocalyptic games look alike. Lots of murderous, leather-clad bandits driving around the desert in armored cars, trying to be Mad Max, but lacking the panache. It’s the post-apocalyptic equivalent of the generic Tolkien fantasy. Then something like RAD comes along, mutating our concepts of the apocalypse with uniquely satisfying visuals and lore. You play a teenager living in a bombed-out mall.
Silver Chains Review - Spooky Scavenger Hunt
Wake up in a dusty house on a stormy night. Struggle against amnesia. Find stray journal pages. Pick up a gas lamp. Explore a haunted mansion. Chase scene with a deformed humanoid. Second act raising of stakes. Complete a ritual. The end. If you’ve played any first-person horror game in the last ten years, you’ve essentially played Silver Chains. You play Peter, an amnesiac who crashed his 1920s car near a Versailles-style manor.
Coverage Club: LISA: The Painful Will Break You
It’s the closest thing I can think of to post-apocalyptic perfection. LISA: The Painful takes the traditional elements of a post-apocalypse (mutants, raiders, drugs) then wraps it in a bundle of human suffering and ties it off with a ribbon of offbeat humor. It seamlessly merges combat and story, intertwining them and even fusing them together. Moreover, LISA: The Painful has some of the most emotionally impactful moments I’ve experienced in an RPG.
The 6 Weirdest Licensed Games Ever Made
Licensed games are weird. Low risk and cheap to make, they were basically easy advertisements throughout the 8-bit and 16-bit era. Then came a Cambrian explosion of movie tie-ins during the PS2 era. It seemed every movie and every junk food product, no matter how irrelevant, needed its own game. It didn’t matter if the license fit the gameplay. While the 90s had plenty of licensed shovelware, the 3D era brought about a unique brand of strangeness in terms of gameplay and theming.
Driven Out Makes You the Ultimate Underdog
A lot of action games have this weird disconnect between loot and skill. Loot tends to overshadow skill to the point where optimized builds can crush powerful bosses through wild flailing. The opposite is true of Driven Out. There’s no armor to lighten blows, no flaming sword to increase your damage, no magic to take out enemies from afar. Driven Out only gives you a sword, a save mechanic, and a reassuring pat on the back before throwing you to a horde of towering knights and armored bears.
Shadow Fencer Theatre Review - En Garde!
My favorite thing about indie games is that you never know what you’re going to get. Indie developers take big risks, having no inkling if their crazy ideas will pay off. Take Shadow Fencer Theatre for example; it’s a bizarre combination of QWOP-style dueling and physics minigames set to the backdrop of an immersive, photorealistic shadow puppet show. Developer ShuddaHaddaLottaFun comes off as modest. Truth is, I did have a lot of fun. Shadow Fencer Theatre throws you right into the action.
Coverage Club: The Caribbean Sail Treads Familiar Waters
It’s #loveindies time, which means that TechRaptor is going all in on indie game coverage! That means previews, reviews and a bunch of new Coverage Club entries from our review team all week. Keep checking the site for a slew of articles talking about smaller releases that need more attention. What do we do with a drunken sailor? In The Caribbean Sail, that’s entirely up to you. You could let him sleep it off. Maybe you restrict the crew’s rum rations.
Kurr Snaga Review - You Not Gorn
I really don’t know what I expected. I saw Kurr Snaga and thought, “this looks like Gorn.” When I realized it wasn’t a VR game, I thought Kurr Snaga might be an interesting take on the same kind of gameplay. While Kurr Snaga is thematically similar to Gorn, it plays like a slower Skyrim, and ultimately just made me want to play Gorn instead. You play a lone Orc in a fantasy world. Your goal in each level is to kill the designated number of humans. That’s it.
Coverage Club: Jump King Takes Frustration Platforming to New Heights
Say what you will, but I like frustration platformers. There’s something immensely satisfying about breaking through a seemingly impossible challenge and mastering difficult controls. Then you have something like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, where you’re only one false move away from losing everything. With that in mind, Jump King’s gameplay is a lot like Getting Over It, but more methodical and precise. You play a knight with thighs like tree trunks.
10 Years of Minecraft: Now and Then
Eyck, I feel old. I wasn’t quite in high school when Minecraft launched back in 2009. It was such a novel concept at the time, a fun way to play with friends without the competitiveness of a shooter or an action game. You have to remember that survival games really weren’t a thing before Minecraft and most building games made you an omniscient god. Minecraft is the first game I can remember to embrace true creativity.
Coverage Club: Jump King Takes Frustration Platforming to New Heights
Say what you will, but I like frustration platformers. There’s something immensely satisfying about breaking through a seemingly impossible challenge and mastering difficult controls. Then you have something like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, where you’re only one false move away from losing everything. With that in mind, Jump King’s gameplay is a lot like Getting Over It, but more methodical and precise. You play a knight with thighs like tree trunks.
Pasternack's Bizarre Adventure
I think most people would agree that office jobs are terrible. You sit in one place for eight hours doing a highly repetitive task, occasionally breaking the monotony by grabbing a cup of coffee or a bagel. Maybe you wear a suit or a dress, the stiff collar pinching at your neck just enough that you never forget where you are or what you’re doing. Of course, it could be worse. You could have to deal with all that and your coworkers going insane or mutating into Cronenbergian abominations.
Coverage Club: Round and Round The Kingdom
Welcome to Coverage Club, the weekly series where we shift our critical eye towards smaller games that deserve some attention. Each week, our editors select two titles and provide honest first impressions in the style of our full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preferences, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here.
Forager Review - The Waiting Game
I liked A Kingdom for Kelflings. The 2008 fantasy city-builder was my first dance with the resource management genre. You took the role of a giant who would assign smallfolk to collect and deliver resources while you planned the kingdom’s layout. You always knew where you were going and there was a great sense of pacing. Plus, it was fun to watch complex supply chains in action.
Unheard Review - Sound Design
Have you ever noticed that NPCs usually don’t interact with each other? You might spill someone’s deep dark secret, but no consequence ever comes of it. If it does, it usually happens off screen. Addressing that concept and making sure every character has a role to play in the story is a key pillar of Unheard, an audio-based detective game from NEXT Studios. You play a detective in a police interrogation room.
Where the Bees Make Honey Review - Terror and Madness
Indie games are a mixed bag. Pick one at random from the Steam Store and you’re just as likely to get a Papers, Please as you are to get a Thief of Thieves. Indie games have enormous variation in style, concept, and especially quality. That’s where the truly terrible come in, the endless horde of Unity engine asset flips stumbling through Steam Greenlight. I’ve sampled all these flavors at one time or another, but Where the Bees Make Honey is different.
Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements Review: Back in the 90s
In some way, every adventure game tries to do something new. Whether they bring impressive writing and characterization, clever puzzling, new systems, or an excessive amount of minigames, modern point-and-click titles need something to distinguish themselves from the sea of shovelware adventure games left over from the Windows-95 era.
Dark Hill Museum of Death
I get it. You’re probably busy this week. Slaying mutants in Metro, hunting down orbs in Crackdown, or living out your anime fantasies in Jump Force. You could even be playing Far Cry: New Dawn or flying around with the Dragons of Dreamworks. There are lots of games to play this month, but we’re here to present more options. After all, no game lasts forever, and you’ll always find more fun a little off the beaten path.
Beholder 2 Review - Where’s Your 27b/6?
Did you ever play Papers, Please? Did you wish there was a little more political sabotage and a little less paperwork? If so, you should play Beholder 2. It’s essentially a grimdark Papers, Please adventure game that has it all. Paperwork, traditional point-and-click adventuring, dialogue puzzles, and executing your coworkers for minor misdemeanors! You play as Evan Redgrave, a newly minted bureaucrat of the Great State.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus Review: Turn-Based Perfection
In the grim darkness of the far future, there are no men of science, only priests serving the immortal machine. To unlock lost technology and achieve spiritual purity, these tech-priests forfeit their humanity, replacing flesh with wire and steel. They are the Adeptus Mechanicus, guardians of mankind’s legacy, and they finally have their own game.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus Review: Turn-Based Perfection
In the grim darkness of the far future, there are no men of science, only priests serving the immortal machine. To unlock lost technology and achieve spiritual purity, these tech-priests forfeit their humanity, replacing flesh with wire and steel. They are the Adeptus Mechanicus, guardians of mankind’s legacy, and they finally have their own game.
10 Years of Left 4 Dead: Hunters and Boomers and Smokers, Oh My!
The mid 2000s had a lot of great zombie games, but none pushed the envelope like Left 4 Dead. Not only did it influence the future of asymmetrical multiplayer, but it simultaneously innovated in the realms of AI and cooperative game design. It’s hard to believe 10 years have passed since our first encounter with the Green Flu. Left 4 Dead tells the story of the four unluckiest people in the world: a Vietnam veteran, an office drone, a college student, and a biker who hates everything.
Gaming Obscura: Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland
Goosebumps was an incredible thing for ‘90s kids. Now, 25 years later, the children’s horror anthology is still growing. While the original series ended in 1997, the Goosebumps franchise has expanded into a hammy TV show, merchandise, more books, and two theatrical films. While there have been a handful of Goosebumps games, none of them approach the delightfully obscure 1996 Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland.
10 Years of Saints Row 2 - Anti-Charles Bronson
Saints Row 2 represents a different time, not just for Volition, but for games as a whole. Just as other open-world crime games were turning gritty and realistic, Saints Row 2 had the gall to tell a B action story set in a unique city full of color and life. Just as cheat codes and secrets were on their way out, Saints Row 2 gave us a last hurrah of esoteric treasure hunts and obtuse unlockables. The characters are fun, but not overblown. The story is hammy, but never falls into self-parody.
10 Years of Spore - A Reputation Well-Deserved?
It is better to innovate and fall short than to stagnate and succeed. Every misstep is a small success, a burst of inspiration telling us what can be improved. That’s why it’s so peculiar to see something flop without other innovators coming to pick up the pieces. One such case is Spore, which by most accounts is a mediocre game, but a great tool. Is that a fair assessment though? After all, hindsight is 20/20. Let’s dive into the primordial ooze to see if Spore deserved its ho-hum reception.
Saints Row IV Five Years Later - Hail to the Chief
Every Saints Row game, I think, represents the commercialization of both the 3rd Street Saints and the franchise itself. Saints Row 2Â hit the sweet spot, balancing wacky diversions with a hardcore b-action story. Saints Row: The Third took the insanity of the previous game and ran a marathon with it. Suddenly, a grounded gangster series featured KGB clones and flying aircraft carriers. Then there’s Saints Row IV, kicking its feet up on the desk of the Oval Office.
Thief of Thieves Review - Post Mortem
The protagonist of Thief of Thieves is often insulted for being a jack of all trades, master of none. That phrase also describes the game itself and carries the same negative connotation. While Thief of Thieves: Season One wants to be a hybrid between Hitman-style stealth and Telltale-style storytelling, it’s far less than the sum of its parts. Playing Thief of Thieves is like walking into a frat house after a party; everything is broken or sticky and there are bugs everywhere.
Five Years of Papers, Please - Glory to Arstotzka
Mass Effect. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. Saints Row. When a game’s title music puts you in just the right mood, you know you’re in for a good time. Then there’s Papers, Please with its iconic, pounding rhythm. You can almost feel an enormous hammer hitting your head in time with the beat. There couldn’t be a more fitting theme song for a bureaucracy simulator. It’s hard to believe five years have passed since Papers, Please hit Steam.
Beholder 2 Will Make You Empathize with NPCs
Adventure games are evolving. The days where bestselling titles like Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max Hit the Road reigned are long behind us. While Telltale is still king of adventure games, they’ve shifted toward powerful narratives with less emphasis on puzzle solving. Today, the traditional point and click genre is more often associated with pixel hunting and ridiculous leaps of logic. That’s why it’s always exciting to see an indie studio step up to challenge the status quo.
Look, But Don't Touch (PC via Steam)
It’s hard to recover from a bad first impression. That’s the story of Pool Panic, the newest title from Rekim and Adult Swim Games. From the announcement trailer, you might think you’re in for a comedy adventure game with hats, but that’s not the case. Everything from the trailer is in the game, but not in the right context. More than anything Pool Panic is a puzzle game, a spin on traditional billiards. You play a cue ball with legs in a world of anthropomorphic billiard balls.
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis Rewind Review - Dinosaur Therapy Simulator
Who wouldn’t want their own Jurassic Park? Who wouldn’t their own island paradise filled with ancient reptilian beasts, viewed from the safety of an electric fence? To close that gap a million centuries wide and gaze back onto an ancient forest untouched by man. It would be a sort of genesis operation in a Jurassic Park setting, or more aptly, Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis.
Gaming Obscura
In a world of AAA franchises and smash hit indie titles, a lot of games get lost in the shuffle once released. Some games are small fish in a big pond, using experimental mechanics or art style to get attention. Others are long forgotten franchises that have been swept under the rug over the years. Many of these games have a story attached to their development, and a history waiting to be uncovered.
Season One Tries to Redefine Adventure Games
How do you keep adventure games fresh? How do you push the limits of point and click puzzle solving? Simple. Have multiple solutions to each puzzle. That’s the philosophy behind Thief of Thieves: Season One, a new stealth adventure game based on publisher Skybound Entertainment’s Thief of Thieves comic series. The game takes form as an episodic heist adventure with a heavy emphasis on stealth mechanics, lockpicking minigames, and social manipulation.
Gaming Obscura: Trespasser
The Jurassic Park franchise has a love/hate relationship with its video game tie-ins. From fantastic park builders and arcade shooters to the lesser known barcode collector and DVD board game, Jurassic Park games have been pretty hit or miss. Among the lesser known titles, one very special game stands out above all the others. The game was Trespasser, an overly innovative and ambitious title that aimed for the moon and crashed somewhere near Costa Rica.
Jazzpunk's Comedy
Comedy is hard. Making a good comedy game is almost impossible. Writers, artists, level designers, and game designers must work in perfect harmony to create a cohesive, engaging experience. It’s not enough to be funny; comedy games need to have the variety, freshness, and interactivity to make players want to finish the story. Enter Jazzpunk, a spiritual successor to spoof comedies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun (minus Leslie Nielson).
The 6 Best Presidents in Gaming
The President of the United States of America. A position of power. A position of honor. The highest office of public service in the Union. The president highlights issues, sets the national agenda, and exemplifies American values to the rest of the world. With the exception of political strategy games, the mere inclusion of the President of the United States in a video game is the equivalent of having an evil overlord in a fantasy setting. Video game presidents are universally corrupt and stupid.
Gaming Obscura: Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge
It’s 1998. My uncle has just handed me a wrapped package roughly the size of an encyclopedia. Beneath the shiny red paper is a cardboard box depicting a roadkill koala. Inside the box is Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge, a game that would grab my interest and has refused to let go for the past 20 years. The game’s obscurity is equally matched by its uniqueness as both an adventure game and an intellectual property.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Ron
Contact Ron, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack