Straight From Retro Arcadia
Letter From the Editor – OCGM#1
Dear Loyal and Very Imaginary Readers,
This is Forrest, typing to you straight from Retro Arcadia. I am also known as: The Editor, The Boy, The Idiot, or online as buru5; the latter of which derived from the color, but with butchered spelling resembling poor Japanese-English pronunciation and the number 5 tacked-on at random; an ancient and very-insensitive-inside-joke that is now worn like a scarlet letter of bygone days when ridiculing how people talk was peak humor, or: being seventeen-years-old.
But enough about me; welcome aboard the Pequod, or: the first issue of On Computer Games Monthly. The name “Pequod” feels appropriate here as this magazine has been an obsession of mine since at least sixty moons ago, much to the detriment of my wife and children who have allowed me to build an office-shed in the backyard to contain the clickity-clacking of my absurdly-loud-and-very-mechanical keyboard. But here I am, getting off track again.
Within the wistful pages of On Computer Games Monthly, you will find articles covering computer games released during a specific month and year of the standard Gregorian calendar; be warned, however, as you may find the occasional article that breaks the rules. Outside of my own writing, every issue of On Computer Games Monthly features guest writers of kindred spirit sourced from open corners of the internet; and, in this way, On Computer Games Monthly is a collaborative writing effort; a digital collective of people who take computer games way too seriously.
A core tenet of On Computer Games is that gaming, like most things in this heinous world, is a subjective experience, and even the most poorly 'reviewed' games can produce intense feelings of joy and nostalgia and make you think real hard about serious-real-life-stuff. Likewise, a critically acclaimed “masterpiece” can make you scream in rage and walk into oncoming traffic on purpose. At On Computer Games, we strive to capture this subjective quality of gaming, and as such, you won’t find traditional reviews here – this is not Game Informer – instead, you will find stories about wanting to kill your friends, tanuki lore, karate belt tests, nuclear bombs, religious dogma, and the fishing pond behind grandma’s old house.
The ethos of this publication is straightforward. I have always been of the belief that mixing money with art is a sure-fire way to dilute the artwork; once money is exchanged, the art suffers and, inevitably, money becomes more important than the art itself. As such, On Computer Games will never beg, paywall, or accept money from anyone ever. Neverever. We are self-funded forevermore; some may think this is a noble pursuit, others may think it’s a proactive deflection of the fact that my writing is not good enough to warrant making money to begin with – and, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
If any of this resonates with you and you would like to contribute to a future issue of this publication or advertise one of your own passion projects within these pages, please reach out to me directly on Mastodon @buru5@mstdn.games or through email at f0rrest@protonmail.com.
But without further ado: computer games, or something.