Origin Story
I always loved games. OK I know everyone says that. And growing up, everyone did play games. It just seemed like some people stopped, and some people didn’t. I guess I just…didn’t.
I started out on The Screen Savers, a daily live show about technology on the dearly departed cable network TechTV. I was doing windows tips and answering phones for the call in portion of the show. On Thursdays, we had LAN parties, and I admit I did some serious damage with the lightening gun in UT. I remember the day I overheard one of the producers say when I hear that *&$# lightening gun I know I’m already dead. He sounded pretty pissed about it too. That’s when I knew I had won over the boys — and I was hosting X-Play soon after.
I was with X-Play a long time. I’m so privileged that I got to write about and review games for those 1500 episodes. I got to meet and work with the people who made the games I loved, and I got to learn from incredible and passionate journalists from so many different outlets.
Of course it wasn’t all easy. We had a change of ownership, and people and trends and companies came and went. I had to interview Stevie Van Zandt for some reason. E3 was big then small then big again. If you wanted to see a press conference you had to go in person — because they couldn’t stream video online. Now I watch in my PJ’s while making snarky comments on Twitter. And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is progress. We are but a hip hop away from the singularity.
The language of games has changed too, and I got a front row seat to the evolution of design. There were weird offshoots and games that didn’t quite make sense. Puzzles that weren’t clear, and paths that weren’t marked. I’m glad that games are more consistent and polished now, but I do miss the days when you’d pop in a disk with no idea what you were going to get. I miss the chaos, and I miss the surprise.
I mean, all I have to say is:
Though I suppose if I’m ever feeling too sad I can just play some Early Access game on Steam. That’ll keep a girl from being nostalgic for the rosy time before day-one patches.
But through it all I loved my Pirate Crew.
The people who worked on X-Play were better than everything. They were not-enough-money, never-any-permits, always-make-it-work kind of people. They were smart, and funny, and creative, and fun to hang out with, even under the most trying conditions. We knew we had something special, something that couldn’t last forever, and we cherished it.
But then X-Play was done. And it was OK. I traveled. I worked. I swam with sharks. I lost my father. I climbed termite mounds as hard as concrete. I had health issues. I plucked ice cubes out of the sea.
But now it’s time for a new chapter, and I am honored to say I work at Bonfire Studios.
Bonfire is a special place. Small for now but growing slowly, we are an independent game studio that puts our cultural values first. We work hard, we play hard, and we take care of each other.
I will be talking to you about what we’re doing — but we’re a small team, so things will take us a bit longer. Please have patience with us. We want to build amazing things for you, and that takes time.
You can get in touch with us on Facebook, and Twitter, so please stop by and say hi, we would love to hear from you.
We’re at the beginning of this adventure, and there are so many paths we could take. But as long as we treat our players, our partners, and each other as we would treat our friends, we’ll know we did the right thing. This is the point of Bonfire — our guiding principle. We are here to build friendships, between gamers, and between each other. And if we all work together, we just might make it to the top.
D&D fun with Acquisitions Incorporated:
