Chapter 7:

Sonic ricocheted off another bumper. He was in his element- a big, pinball styled gauntlet- a fortress of bounce-pads and bumpers and flippers. He spun through the air, fighting to contain his glee and keep escalating higher and higher. He had to focus. Focus on keeping his center of gravity in his stomach, treating it like an axis- a fulcrum to rotate around. So the momentum couldn’t hurt the baby. What am I doing? This is trash. But I can’t really stop. Not now. That last chapter finally got a lot of attention- a lot more than I was expecting. These kids posting stories- they’re half my age. Like, hiding my shame is actually taking some effort now. But… I don’t know. Is it shame? Or cowardice. Fuck it. Sonic’s pregnant with twins. Top that, teens!

Chapter 6:

Griff looks up durians (with Willy Roberts). Durians. They’re spiky. They’re smelly. They have a nutty taste? I dunno man. I’ve never actually eaten one. I did have to work on a game about them though. Back before the company, when me and my sister really were just siblings and didn’t have to be business/creative partners. I took this gig to make a phone game for a Chinese software company. The kinda thing that kinda pays for itself, y’know? Like, micro-transactions feel like such a big issue now, but back then it just seemed like a thing you sorta had to contend with if you were a gamer and had a phone. Anyway, the whole deal was very food-based. Like, what else, right? It’s a phone game. They’re all based on food and candy and whatever. But this was specifically about international cooking- going to different places in the world and solving puzzles with local food bits. So, I’m having to look up reference material and graphics for all these foods I’ll never eat in places I’ll never visit. Images of durians splattered across Thai Buddhist temples serving as gigantic monkey buffets. I want to be one of those monkeys. Instead I was just a li’l code monkey and my monkey buffet was a bag of Combos. I do this thing where I squirt Taco Bell hot sauce into the bag and shake it. Anyway. The game never came out. I don’t think they realized how complicated the finance part of that situation would be, since it was meant to release internationally. But at the time, I didn’t think twice about the fact I’d never eaten a durian. Now I want to experience that. It didn’t occur to me that that was a sad thing- making a game about food I’d never had; places I’d never been. Now, that fills me with a melancholy. I want to go to Thailand. I want to eat that dumb, ridiculous fruit. Why was I so different then?

Chapter 5: Griff gets a ring (with Dan Dominguez). You know, a ring? like in Sonic games? Ugh. Like, you get it right? It’s all sort of a silly lark, this mess of pop culture. Like, that’s the joke. I dunno. We all love it I suppose. Like, who didn’t have an account on some fan fiction website back in the day? Or some sort of pixel-based avatar made to look like a Final Fantasy character on some ancient social media account? We’re all taking this pop culture opiate en masse, and dancing ourselves to sleep in the radiant, soothing light of the capitalist aura surrounding all our merchandise- reliquaries of the God of consumerism. Know what I mean, man? You may think you’re hot shit with your college and your hybrid car, but I can see what’s really going on. You’re a bee in the content hive building a wall of sound and fury to keep us all barricaded from the truth. I know bees don’t build walls. I’m a welder. I build bridges, not metaphors. I’m just saying you’re playing right into the cultural Marxist’s hands when you worship the golden calf of pop culture, you know? Making people weak with your post-modernist propaganda of social justice. But you’re a good kid, and I love you. I’ll decide if you’re the enemy or not once your dad returns my calls.

Chapter 4:

“Violence is like a virus of ideas. It compels even the best of us. As man’s problems are defined by murder, torture, and hate, so too are the reactionary solutions- we’re practically defined as a species by our tendency for revenge, seeking justice rather than peace and perpetuating the binary pattern of crime and retribution until the two blend together. Violence is like a poison, acclimating us all to it’s toxicity; introduced slowly to our system until we perish or become toxic ourselves. The pill that carries that tiny bit of poisonous contagion is bitter, but when animals, human or otherwise, are made to ingest something they don’t want or trust, it calls on their master to hide it in a cookie or piece of meat- something they like and trust; something they enjoy. For most human beings, this desirable thing is video games. The bitter pill of violence is masked perfectly by it’s soft, comforting dough, the insidious taste of strife hidden by the dopamine of a job-well-done simulated. This is Crash Bandicoot- A primer for those who would beat flesh until it leaks blood, and bend bone until it breaks. It fosters ambivalence to the pain of others; fertilizer for the aggression previously bred out of humans. The feeling is forbidden, but like most forbidden things, it is sweet, decadent and addictive.

Griff Loses his cool and comes to grips with his own opinions on Bomberman’64. (With Robbie Bruens).

“I would define it as violent and glorious. A trepidatious walk in the shoes of a man who has to bomb.” - Review for Bomberman’64 by Bend Sarcoxi, Reporter, and Critic on Video Games for Iron Pixel

What is Obsession? What kinds of cogs need to come into alignment to drive this force- this deep mystery within us. Where does this trap come from, why can’t we recognize it before we are already ensnared? We have all felt the uncontrollable pull from a song, a color, a woman. Like a parasite inside of our brains repeating this desire over and over again in lascivious whispers. War. Love. The Internet. Father. Bombs. Nature. Sonic. Heroin. Dreams. Violence. Her. Money. Mother. Gold. Skunks. Land. Chili Dogs. Video Games. Perversion. Time. Death. Is obsession something you have or does obsession have you, The Human? If you cannot control your obsessions then clearly they must control you. Your only choices now are to suffocate this deity under the weight of reality or give it the keys to the vehicle and just enjoy the ride.

“Limitations create opportunities for innovations.” - Griff Newcastle, Engineer, and Co-Creator on Video Games for Elseware, Co.

Chapter 2:

The air was predictably dry in Partridge Valley. The cement of the sidewalk uneven, the skyline low, crushed under the grey smoggy air of this tiny berg. Doctor Robotnik walked the streets of his hometown, his arms filled with groceries from the same corner market he often visited as a child. The sticks of celery emerging from the hefty paper bag he carried obscured the grayish pastel sky like twin palm trees, reminding him of Green Hill Zone. But Green Hill Zone was very far away. Partridge Valley had palm trees, sure. But they’d been transplanted from their homes to this new climate, banal in it’s hospitality toward human settlement. The nature Robotnik had become used to was hostile to people. No Partridge Valley palm tree ever brained a passerby with a falling coconut, for example. Robotnik laughed at this thought, distracting him momentarily from the burning in his arms. He was annoyed in the face of his weakness and aging. He was never fit, but he could at least carry groceries, surely. There was a time when he never walked, and only drove himself on specific occasions- he had people for that after all. But he told himself that he wouldn’t grouse at normalcy. He wouldn’t balk at the opportunity to be common. He was extraordinary once. Now, he is something else. Now, he was going to make a meal for the woman who stayed the whole night. He felt a kick, even hearing it against the crisp brown paper of his grocery bag where it rested against his egg-like body. ‘One day, you may be extraordinary too’ he thought, smiling to himself.

Chapter 1:

Doctor Ivo Robotnik looked for a long while at the tattered photo sitting on his wooden nightstand; transfixed, eyes seemingly locked in place, almost crossing, maintaining non-focus with the photo. Even looking at it, he couldn’t see it. The photo slightly curled in the middle, gravity barely holding it to the nightstand, moving ever-slightly with the oscillation, threatening to blow away. It dared Robotnik to feel, and despite himself, he refused. The subject of the photo couldn’t matter, not with the light grasping in from the blinds reflecting faintly off it’s greasy, glossy texture. No, he couldn’t abide a memory projected from this insulting paper- a frame holding a facsimile of the past; an unconvincing lie. The doctor felt a sneer bend the flesh on his face, the utter ambivalence contorting his mouth while unobserved. He shook himself. Was he always so cynical? He wanted to feel what he knew he must feel. He didn’t want to resign himself to this apathy. He wanted to love, and remember without bitterness. Sitting on his sex-tossed bed sheets, careful not to disturb his still-sleeping guest, he reached to pick up the relic he struggled so much to properly recognize. He scanned the surface of the polaroid, feeling the pouch of chemicals at it’s base with his thumb, searching his chest for a feeling of warmth- anything. “Knuckles” he said aloud. “What’s that, baby?” Tiffany cooed, sleep in her throat, turning to meet her lover. “Nothing. Sorry. Go back to bed” Robotnik replied, impotently.