First off, the Border House has just published a thought-provoking interview that my friend Denis did with me on the subject of Life Flashes By. It touches on feminist and anti-oppression subjects — it IS the Border House, and all — as well as a bit of interactive narrative theory. Here’s a short excerpt:

It was always in my head that Charlotte had to be a person who feels real, with a complex personality that includes both positive and negative characteristics. Honestly, it’s such an obvious thing to me that I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. I mean, I see a lot of well-meaning male creators in various media who aim for what we call Strong Female Characters, and while that’s way better than using women as decorative set pieces or not having any women around at all, I keep feeling like there’s too much idealizing going on at least in comparison to the variety we have in sympathetic male protagonists. It’s been my personal experience that I can relate better to a socially awkward nebbish protagonist like Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island games than I can to, say, April Ryan from The Longest Journey — and I say this knowing that April’s still one of the best Strong Female Characters we’ve got in gaming. Something’s got to give. (Read the rest…)

Second, I wanted to show off a new project I worked on at my day job: a short animated film called We Used to Sing. It’s a symbolic interpretation of climate change in the Arctic, based on stories told by Iñupiat human rights lawyer Victoria Hykes Steere. I’ve never worked on a proper animated film before, with most of my rudimentary animation experience coming from my game dev work, so it was great to have the experience, and I’m proud of how it all came out. You can watch the video here and read more about the project here. Enjoy!