Tag Archives: writing

The Android's Favorites, The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Favorite Video Game Quotes

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None of our readers will be remotely surprised to find out that most of my favorite quotes come from SMAC. I mean, really, were we expecting anything different? No. No we weren’t.

This is my all-time favorite quote:

I haven’t a clue why I love it so much. It tickles me in just the right way, though. I quote it on a near-daily basis (just ask Mister Adequate for confirmation on this.)

On a more serious note, have another quote from that game. I dare you to read it and not get chills:

I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld.
When I die, they will put my body in a box and
dispose of it in the cold ground.
And in all the million ages to come, I will never
breathe or laugh or twitch again.
So won’t you run and play with me here among the
teeming mass of humanity?
The universe has spared us this moment.

Anonymous

Beautiful, no?

Now it’s a little unfair to every other game to have have a blog post called “Favorite Video Game Quotes” and then spend the entire time lovingly quoting SMAC, much in the same way that it would be unfair to blog about the “Hottest Places in the Solar System” and then focus on the sun. So let’s talk about some other games.

For starters, Blizzard games have given us a multitude of memorable quotes, between “Stay a while and listen”, all the unit quotes from Starcraft/Warcraft, and, of course, so much stuff from WoW that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

More recently, Deus Ex: Human Revolution has given us “I never asked for this”, another quote that I find hilarious for some reason.

This leads us to our obligatory pony image.

Video game writers have truly given us some great stuff, whether humorous or thought-provoking. What are some of your favorites?

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

In Which Video Games Make Me More Productive

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Anyone who knows me at all will know that I write a lot. Writing at least one novel a year– for NaNoWriMo— is standard for me, and this year I decided to bump it up a notch and write TWO novels, so before November hits this year I am plinking along in Camp NaNoWriMo.

Between odd work schedules, the possibility of moving (again) and the way writers’ block loves to time itself so it hits when I actually have time to write, it’s been slow going. I’m a good five thousand words behind or so– not a thoroughly insurmountable gap, but still a sizable one. Anyways, I was really having a lot of trouble motivating myself to do anything, but then I hit upon a brilliant plan. Basically, I’d force myself to write a good sized paragraph (or the equivalent of it, should I be writing dialogue or something), and then I’d reward myself with ten turns of Civ.

…I was not expecting this plan to work as well as it did.

I think I’ve written more in my current book since implementing this plan than before I did, and I just started doing this a few days ago. I’m knocking out a thousand words an hour– a very high rate for me– and that includes spending a good chunk of time in game.

Playing Civ like it's my job.

The best part is that once I really get going with writing, I don’t have much trouble continuing. This is something I learned back in the day when I used to trick myself into writing by setting a “one sentence a day” goal, knowing full well I’d write more than a sentence. The same thing is happening here; I’m frequently writing two or three paragraphs in between my ten turns of Civ. But the one rule remains steadfast: I must write at least one paragraph before I let myself play more Civ. You wouldn’t believe how fast the writer’s block dissolves when I’ve got Civ an alt+tab away.

I feel really good about this. What’s that you say, world? Video games are a waste of time and are keeping us from being more productive?

Come back and talk to me about it after video games help me motivate myself into writing a novel.

Well, I’m off to do more writing and Civ’ing. I eventually plan to extend this to other turn-based games as well, should I tire of Civ. I’m excited. I can’t wait to SMAC and write.