Answers: Mariano
Introduction and Captions: Will Moczarski
It's time to formally introduce another member of our community who has recently joined our team of reviewers here at The Adventurers' Guild: please give a warm welcome to Mariano!
Mariano has already started to review La abadía del crimen and his introductory post will be up on Friday. And if you're curious what he is doing when he is not busy reviewing adventure games we'll try to satisfy your curiosity below.
My home country is… Argentina, though I’ve been living in the UK for almost three years now.
My age is… 34.
The first adventure game I played was… probably Peter Pan: A Story Painting Adventure, from 1993, which was installed in the computers at my primary school and I remember finishing many times. Later on, my hardcore adventure gaming began with a demo version of The Secret of Monkey Island. I then played and finished Monkey Island 2 before I ever went back to complete the first one. Kids’ priorities are weird.
Peter Pan looks like the true "lite mode" of Monkey Island 2!
My favourite adventure game is… a very hard thing to decide. Loom, for its transcendent beauty. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, for its unrivaled epicness. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, for its story and worldbuilding. Beneath A Steel Sky, for its eerie atmosphere and sudden changes of tone. The first two Monkey Island, for their adventurous absurdity and postmodern storytelling.
When I’m not playing games I like to… spend time with my wife and my black cat, read books and comics, watch TV series, films and YouTube video essays. And write and create stuff.
(Symbolic image)
I like my games in (a box, digital format)… digital format. I actually never had the obsession for the objects themselves when it comes to games, which I do have for books though.
The thing I miss about old games is… the risk-taking and bonkers experimentation, which makes sense for the time, as it was a new medium and everything was being discovered on the go. It’s not that experimentation is not seen nowadays, there’s actually lots of it (browse through Itch.io and you’ll see), but certainly not much in mainstream games. Also, nostalgia is indeed a powerful drug, so I won’t pretend to be above it.
The best thing about modern games is… the diversity of voices, genres and stories being told. Also, the refinement and evolution of some game design stuff, which means, among other things, that I’m really happy we’re past dead-ends in adventure games. And to somewhat repeat what I was saying before, the indie scene is where the weirdness is mostly going on.
The one TV show I never miss is… everything Marvel Studios is producing through Disney Plus, I guess. Some other shows my wife and I never miss when a new season comes up are The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Bridgerton, Doom Patrol, and Ted Lasso.
If I could see any band live it would be… David Bowie, if we’re talking impossible dreams. I was lucky enough to have seen many of the bands I like live already, so if I have to pick one I haven’t seen yet it would be Pet Shop Boys.
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My favourite movie is… well, hard to decide too, but these are certainly some of my favourites: There Will Be Blood, Memories of Murder, Tron, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, North By Northwest, Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame.
One interesting thing about me is… I make adventure games myself! With a friend of mine (lunafromthemoon) we develop stuff under the banner Orbis Tertius Games. The last game we released is Personal Rocket (Steam, Itch), a game about paranoia and the occult, with some humour here and there. We also released Imaginaria (Steam, Itch), which is a first-hand account of my friend’s time living and working in an Antarctic base, and The Fall and Rise of Sadcock-upon-Avon, a free satirical visual novel inspired by the history of medieval penis inspectors (yes, that was actually a real thing in the Middle Ages) that we made with other friends for the AdventureX Game Jam 2020.
Welcome Mariano! :-)
ReplyDeleteWelcome Mariano! (I believe we are now at least three argentinians who are regular readers of this blog. At first i thought you were from Spain, because of the game you choose for your first review. I know La Abadia is a cult classic in Spain)
ReplyDeleteHello Mariano! (I'm sorry, I can't help but think of one of our local grocery stores around here, called Mariano's. No connection, I'm sure!) Nice to have another voice and point of view to enjoy on the site. I'll look forward to seeing your reviews.
ReplyDeleteWelcome!
ReplyDeleteWelcome. Here's hoping you find yourself playing some mighty fine games.
ReplyDeleteWelcome Mariano, and I stand by you with your choices of Mrs. Maisel, David Bowie and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari!
ReplyDeleteThank you guys!! Glad to hear there are more Argentinians around! And I take a strange pride knowing there's a grocery store called Mariano's, too.
ReplyDelete