#gabe durham

[fictosphere]

(Bible) Adventures in Real Life

(Bible) Adventures in Real Life

This is another post from the Malus and Mayhem blog. A book chronicling the tale of the production of the unlicensed (shitty) NES game Bible Adventures prompted a response in me that was a bit deeper than what was probably originally intended by the author. That said, although it’s half book review and half self-reflection, it fits the theme of “posts written during bouts of mental duress” for…

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[tiatotebs]

Bible Adventures

by Gabe Durham, 2015

BOOK

Bible Adventures is one of many books in the Boss Fight Books series. This one covers the NES game Bible Adventures as well as other games created by Wisdom Tree (and its parent/original company, Color Dreams). Durham weaves an interesting story, chronicling the general trajectory of Color Dreams, interjecting relevant experiences from his own life.

Like making religious video games themselves, writing a book about religious video games is a difficult line to tread. You could err on the side of making it too transparently or overwhelmingly religious, putting off non-believers myself, but you can also treat it with such disdain or irony that religious individuals would be offput. I can’t speak how Durham fared with the latter group, but it struck just the write tone with me.

Durham inserts a religious perspective that is foreign to me, a childhood filled with church and Bible competitions and attempted beach conversions. There’s a sort of voyeuristic quality to reading about his experiences, as they’re experiences that I would not dare, or even be welcomed, to have.

This is intermixed with a compelling story of a bunch of mostly nonreligious people pivoting from making unlicensed NES games to unlicensed religious games, exclusively for the money. It’s a story of a religious individual who goes from being religious to nonreligious as he works for Color Dreams, quitting as the company pivots to a religious nature. It’s a secular game development staff working alongside a religious sales team. It’s a story of a small indie development team that couldn’t help but remind me of that of id software (and I’m sure many others at that time).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

5/5. I loved it.

[fictosphere]

(Bible) Adventures in Real Life

Randall Malus's second #TBT post delves into existential crisis and Gabe Durham's history of the unlicensed NES game Bible Adventures. #bossfightbooks #gabedurham #bibleadvantures

This is another post from the Malus and Mayhem blog. A book chronicling the tale of the production of the unlicensed (shitty) NES game Bible Adventuresprompted a response in me that was a bit deeper than what was probably originally intended by the author. That said, although it’s half book review and half self-reflection, it fits the theme of “posts written during bouts of mental duress” for…

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[nickdouglas]

Lawton wondered if even spitting camels could be too controversial for a sensitive Christian audience. ‘I remember when we were working on King of Kings,’ Huff told me. ‘Dan Lawton was worried that parents would think we were teaching their kids to spit. We had three meetings on this subject.’

Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham

[gigaseifer]

Boss Fights and Bible Adventures

Gabe Durham’s Bible Adventures from Boss Fight Books came in the mail yesterday. I read it today.

I backed Boss Fight’s second kickstarter after I heard it involved a book on Spelunky by Derek Yu. I looked into what the publishing firm was about and loved the idea so much, I bought the first 6 books from the last kickstarter, as well as all the ones in the current, even though I’m not a huge fane of one of the authors in this second round.

I did this because I think what Boss Fight is doing is really important.

So when the first book of the second season, Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham (the publisher himself) finally got here, I was pretty excited. I’d read the first six back during the christmas break and really liked them all. Some more than others (Chrono Trigger by Michael P. Williams is by far the one I like best).

I really liked Bible Adventures. It’s a touching history of a company that broke all the rules to make games Nintendo didn’t want. It motions towards the memories games provide us and impact faith can have on a person (without being overbearing about it). It’s a survey of a company’s library, introducing the reader to games they likely never played, and probably never will (a lot of them are bad, the developers themselves admit, so you probably shouldn’t). It’s sprinkled with interviews from members of Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree that give life to a time and people that you can’t really connect to anymore. A glimpse of early games development and the uncertainty it entailed. It’s also spinkled with the author’s personal experiences, too.

It’s also the only book where you’ll find an epigraph from both the Bible and South Park right next to each other.

Even if you haven’t played any Wisdom Tree games, I recommend you check out Gabe Durham’s Bible Adventures.

In fact, I recommend you check out all of Boss Fight’s books (Especially Chrono Trigger).

You can buy them over at bossfightbooks.com

[probablycryingreview]

FUN CAMP by GABE DURHAM

there's this preconceived notion that adolescence and innocence and all of the childlike qualities get left behind after a long summer at sleepaway camp (not to be confused with the 1983 horror classic 'sleepaway camp' which is absolutely nothing like FUN CAMP by gabe durham. this book is not of the horror genre. it's heartbreaking and insightful, but there's nothing horrific about it. do not be mistaken). parents send their kids to camp and their kids come back with periods and pimples and an extra 4 inches added to their height. they come back with questions.

there's something comforting about the stories and memories one can gain from attending summer camp. it's a place you can always have to think back on and remember the lake you used to skip rocks across at dawn or the mess hall you had your first kiss in front of. being so close to nature and trees and the rest of the outdoors can be refreshing, but the most amazing part of it all is that everything around you is growing, just like you. that's what durham makes us realize with his first full-length scrapbook of prose and letters home.

durham presents the chapters in FUN CAMP by using days of the week to separate and illustrate the different monologues, letters, rules and lists that campers and counselors have complied over the wonder-filled summer. though most of these don't last longer than a page, durham successfully created and wrote thoughtful, hysterical, and sometimes jarring pieces to show the development of his characters. by the time you get to sunday morning and the book is nearly over, you get that 'fuck, it's almost monday' feeling except it's not because it's almost monday (or maybe it is), it's because FUN CAMP has ended.

the many voices in FUN CAMP each have their own stories to tell, like billy, who writes short, almost satirical letters to his mom. we get to see billy's development throughout the pages, from an immature boy booming with questions, to william, a completely new person who writes the most formal letters i've ever seen. one of his first letterings to mom is:

  Dear Mom,

  I've learned four times as many knots in half a week at camp as you taught me in a decade!

              Love,

            Billy

  so, yeah, billy sounds like a little shit, doesn't he? and about halfway through the book, he writes again:

  Dear Mom,

  Though a tactical failure, the Vietnam War really was waged with admirable intentions. Eager to hear your thoughts.

              Billy

  the love's start to disappear and billy begins writing out his full name along with his cabin number. this feels disturbing. this is growing up.

before i read FUN CAMP i think i knew how big of an impact summer camp made on those who were lucky enough to attend it, but i could never picture the changes a camper went through, or understand how they felt about the big dipper. whenever i heard people talk about their experiences at summer camp, i couldn't feel excited for them because i couldn't find a relation between their upbringing and mine. but because of durham's words and imagination, i was able to go there for a little while. i didn't need to go anywhere to experience FUN CAMP because the book was camp, except without the warm fuzzies written to me or sending letters home to mother.

  Dear Mom,

  Let us not fear death. There is too much to do while yet on this earth.

              Billy

   when it's all over, when everyone is getting picked up by their families and saying goodbye to the friends and relationships they've made throughout the summer, there's nothing left to do besides think about where you'll be in 75 years, wondering what that nerd devon is up to, the one who made tad, the coolest kid at camp, laugh his ass off. you think back, questioning your choices and whether or not the girl you fell for during the first summer remembered your name now.

FUN CAMP is valuing youth before it turns into something unrecognizable. it's a daughter asking her mother the best way to get over a crush because unrequited love lasts longer than one summer. it's questioning how deep the deepest part of the lake is and if there's any buried treasure hidden under the surface. it's waiting for next summer, for the new campers and some of the old ones who haven't gone away to college just yet.

    buy FUN CAMP from publishing genious here

find out more about gabe here

  review by: beyza ozer

[therumpus]

I also tried to play with a sort of YA metafictionalness that seems to be absent from both YA and literary fiction—which is that so many contemporary teens have consumed tons of YA. It informs their world, how they act, how they analyze, how they talk, how they represent the narratives of their own lives. And that’s something that the few teenage readers of this book always mention to me but no adult has seemed to notice.

The Rumpus Interview With Maxwell Neely-Cohen

[noojournal]