You can see them from the inner banks of the Athabaskan, a million small flames that shimmer like dying stars just beyond the water. They exist apart from the angry red-lit city of Port Astor, and still in its shadow. They are campfires of the great diaspora that clings to the edges of civilization, holding onto the last vestiges of the world they know. Beyond them, the unyielding wilds holding the unknown. The tents do not move on, and may never do so, forever in a stasis. Decaying tents, ever-expanding middens, and debris of their humanity for them to stew in. They camp alone, together. Not a single force, but a patch-work quilt of desperate vignettes; unable to afford proper housing, lost jobs and futures, those fleeing abuse only to find more over the horizon, and those suffering form their own abuses. They are drawn here, to this place, like they heed an unheard call. A dread horn that calls to those who have known misery in their heart, and cannot dream of better tomorrows

  “ Hello caller, you are on the air. ” “I took this job about 6 months ago, and it’s been tough going. I worked security back east for years before moving out here to the West Coast; apartments, scrap yards, abandoned buildings owned by some investment company that is nervous that someone might have the audacity to go into an empty building. My ops manager said something about ‘liability concerns’, but honestly I chalk it up to old dudes in pinstripes being stingy assholes.” “When I first came here, though, to my new site in town, I knew that there was something wrong here. They got me watching out at a waste dump; you know, like where shit flies outta the water system? It stinks, literally, hah! Slow work; easy work. At first. My first thoughts were that this was another warm-body site at another industrial zone where no one in there right mind, or their little brother’s, would ever think about fooling around. My first clue that this might not be true was in the post orders, whic

               The black, oozing mass undulated out of the crate, with horrid intent palpable in its writhing. Leonard, the clerk of this location of Astor Star 24, screamed in a low moaning fashion, and ran out of the store room, slamming the heavy door shut with force, panting and sweating. In front of him, an older woman, with glassy doe-eyes and clad in pink sportswear with text reading “PINK”.             “H-hello ther-“ he stammered before being cut off.              “I want smokes” the lady interjected sharply.             “Oh, oh” Leonard began, and walked behind the counter.             “W-wh-which—” “What?!” the lady exclaimed sharply, “Speak up!”    Leonard attempted to recompose himself, “Wh-w” he gulped “Whi-which—”   “Stop stuttering!” she shrieked, “I can’t understand you; and speak up!”                 Leonard, red in the face and sweating, tried his best to not overtly glare at the customer, gritting his teeth. His eyes shifted over to the store room do

  “Hello caller, you are on the air.” “Whenever I get on the bus, I get nervous. Am I on the right bus? We’ve all done it—think we are boarding one line, and actually get on another. It sucks! It adds time, stress, and just messes with your entire morning. The worst part is the stares you get from others as you get more and more nervous. You  can always feel their eyes on me, and then the moisture starts, clothes cling, and they just stare. You try to notify the driver, but they just ignore you. Some of the more passive-aggressive drivers even tap the “no talking to the driver while in motion” sign. You just stand there. And panic.” “Sitting there, you think that you can pull the cord, and get off at the next stop. Sure, it’s nowhere near where you are going, where you started, or anywhere else, but it stops you from going farther away. You pull the cord… and nothing. The bus keeps going. You keep pulling the cord, and it keeps making that stupid little ‘ding’, and everything just

 “ Hello caller, you are on the air. ” “I have lived here for about a year now, fleeing the outrageous rent in the Bay area down south. Port Astor? Oh yeah, it’s affordable, but the rent is four-hundred dollars for a fuckin’ reason, pal. This city ain’t right. You ever look at the eyes of people from here? Most of them glassy-eyed, and dead. They wander aimlessly. And the ones that ain’t? There’s something really wrong with them. You got the ones that’ll dome you for looking at them too long, or the real friendly ones. Like, even in the South they’d be pushing it. But here? They stick out like red wine on a wedding dress. I avoid those the most. The angry ones want to attack you, but I don’t know what the hell the smiling ones want.” “Then, once in a while, you get someone that could pass as normal. I don’t get it. There’s nothing remarkable about them, which is what makes them remarkable. Their normality is abnormal. What the fuck is it? I’m driving down the street, and past the usual

                    After some time, he’d lost track, Leon was let out of convalescence. He was not the same as he was when he was put in, nor had he been since he woken up in the first place; his hands would still sometimes shake involuntarily—an after effect of the electrical torture he had endured when he was initially taken prisoner. Pain would randomly shock his body for a moment, and then suddenly pass. His eyes were deepened into their sockets, and cheeks bony and gaunt. He felt as he thought he probably looked; a member of the living dead. After a few more days of observation in a separate cell, which he figured was for checking if he had any sort of communicable diseases, he was released into general population. The prison here, less than a formal penitentiary, was a work camp of some sort. It’s primary purpose was the refinement of various ores mined up by prisoners sent to the mines as a form of execution. Thankfully, although that is only said relatively, Leon had been plac

                  Encounters are the staples of any form of storytelling, interactive or not. They are quite literally what happens, and a story without events probably doesn’t exist. That said, there are many ways that titles found in games have approached encounters, for better or worse. What counts as an encounter in gaming? They can run the gamut, but most revolve around combat, either set-piece and bespoke, or randomly generated in this current age of proc-gen design, which can allow for more dynamic encounters. Here we are going to look specifically at two examples of games that used the two methods above, and why they weren’t necessarily the best approaches for either design reasons, or by their nature.                 The first game we are looking at here is Dead Space 3, which released in 2013, and was developed by Visceral Studios (r.i.p.), and published by EA. Dead Space 3 comes at the end of a development arc which I often call the horror-to-action pipeline, most probabl

 " Hello caller, you are on the air. " "Am I a bad person? I moved back home to Eugene after graduation. I got my degree in pharmacology, and to be honest, I didn't know what I was going to do with it. My mom told me, frequently, that she didn't know why I didn't go for pre-med instead. I told her it was because I just wasn't interested; the real reason was that I just couldn't bring myself to go into something that would eat so much of my empathy. What if I couldn't save someone? What would I tell a grieving spouse? 'I did all I could'? I could not tell her that I was a coward." "Am I a bad person? I couldn't take it anymore. I moved to Portland to get away. I got a job as a lab assistant at one of the universities in the city; better that than some retail pharmacy. I lived in an SRO building for a time. Truth be told, I kind of miss those days; me and the others there would get cheap sake and instant noodles from the nearby

One Night in Astor    Who Can it Be Now?      "Oh shit, oh fuck" Miles said frantically as he put pressure on the wound. The blood surged through his fingers from the gunshot; the red stained his friend's pale skin and clothes. Miles, in his heart, knew it was a failing venture-- he didn't even feel a heartbeat when he started compressions.     Miles had heard a window opening in the living room, and had grabbed his .380 from his nightstand. It was dark, and he only saw the shadowy silhouette from the streetlight that shined through the grimy open window. Afraid, Miles shot the dark figure breaking into his apartment. The flash, the bang-pop, he saw the face of his missing friend, Richard.     He pulled his hands reflexively to his face, not even registering how sticky and wet they were. "I'm sorry" he sobbed, "I'm so fucking sorry". In hysterics, he ran to the bathroom, but vomiting before he made it to the goal. Filled with competing guil

 " Hello caller, you are on the air. " "Every morning, I cross the Nimitz Bridge from North Astor into the city. Every morning, I see the billboard for Mooredock, Donnelly, and Ross; their fake-in-their-perfection smiles. The sign reads that I need to call them." "Every evening, I cross the Nimitz Bridge from the city into North Astor. Every evening, I see the billboard for Mooredock, Donnelly, and Ross in my rear-view mirror; their eyes wide in a savage glee. They tell me that they know what I’ve done." "I drive up the hill that overlooks the channel up to my spacious home, minimalist in design and furnishing. I open the several locks that secure the door of my home, and just as quickly secure them once inside. The dark of the house in sharp contrast to the light peering in from the large bay windows, rendering the space in monochromatic amber and black." "Every night, I stare from my house at the Nimitz Bridge. Every night, I see the

 Hello everyone! It's been a hot minute, hasn't it? Last time I got around to posting anything was about 5 months ago, and let me tell you-- it has been a weird ride. I fell off of making new content because I was (and still kind of am) going through a hard part in my life trying to figure out how to manage as a single person in a late-stage capitalist hellscape .  Good news is, that I recently got out of my rut for a bit, and managed to crank out some new work! Also, as you might have noticed, I did some housecleaning on the blog with thanks to my friend and fellow artist/creator, By Char & Co! They did the new logo/banner/profile, and did a killer job! If you find yourself in need of a talented illustrator, consider reaching out to them at https://bycharandco.com/! Anyway, new piece up on Saturday, with more on the way either next weekend, or the one after that! Be good to yourselves out there.  Zachariah

Hey Y'all, I hope everyone is doing alright this fine February. Things are interesting over here, but we're doin'! I have a list on new content that I am working on, and while it is isn't as often as I'd like, but stuff is being worked on. One of the biggest developments is that I finally got the authors copies of a local journal I was published in, making in the first time any of my work has been put in printed media! I was over the moon when I learned I was accepted last Autumn, and I was just as thrilled when I got the result.   As for actual business, I took down the Investigation series for Tales from Port Astor. There was a plot for those last year, but as time went on from the last entry, I sort of lost what I was going for, and I don't think I really did that idea justice. I plan on reworking the idea, and may reintroduce that series.  It's worth pointing out that TfPA is a sort of anthology series, with the main connector being the city it takes pla

 " Hello caller, you are on the air " "I can't sleep. I see my days play out in my mind; the banality of my life projected like old film upon the canvas of my closed eyes. The fine details lost under patina so heavy as to be entirely lost. And what plays on that movie? Which is so gray and dull as to be worn river rock? The small moments of each passing day, but utterly unable to be separate from one-another. Already lifeless as it is reduced to the mere physicality of brain matter and electrical activity." "But more than that, the failings of my life, none individually extraordinary, consume me in their totality. Lack of family, found or otherwise; the path of my life so lost in the weeds as to make me wonder if it was ever really there." " I can't sleep . As I lay there, watching that film, I fear that it will still be playing when I open my eyes; looming over me as I lay in the dark, illuminated by what little inner-city light that creep-cr

      Leon roared in agony as the smell of burnt chlorine filled the small dank room, the electrical system for his chair restraint powering down. "I'll ask once more; where are you from, and why have you come to Rygaard?" The uniformed officer droned on for what could have been the hundredth time. "I am Leon Hakim, warrant officer in the Interstell--" he began before being cut off again "And I keep telling you" the officer spoke, before then switching on the chair again, producing the same sickening scent and sounds "I do not believe you are a time traveler." The officer sighed, "You two" he spoke to the guards behind him without turning around, "Soften up our guest here, until he's ready to talk". Wordlessly, they began to beat the restrained man. The world once again begins to fade in and out, with fog and muted colors, and sounds becoming distant in his mind. Leon thinks he hears a woman talking about trauma, but h

 Hey Y'all, I hope that the new year has been off to a wonderful start, and that we all had a safe and fun holiday, or a quiet and peaceful one. If not, me too. I just wanted to give some insight to what I have been up to this first and auspicious week of 2023-- for those of you who don't know, I am returning to school this year to begin a path into multimedia, which is both exciting and terrifying to me. As part of that, I am exploring that space and trying to learn some basics to where I am not entirely uninformed. To that end, I have been messing around with streaming and editing videos, and have been putting those up on YouTube. This is primarily geared towards gaming, as that has so far proven to have a low-barrier to entry given my familiarity with a lot of things there. To any who'd be interested in that content, the channel can be found here . In the future, I have the idea for additional media projects that'll be rolled out as time goes by and my comfort with p