Blogger and lifelong series fan hoping to meet KH fans

[MerelyP]

Hi there KH Insider community,

I'm a longtime KHI reader who's been a fan of Kingdom Hearts since the very first game. I'm also a games blogger looking to engage more with the fans of the games I write about, and also to hopefully drum up some interest in my blog.

I'd love to hear from you all in regards to feedback for my articles, or ideas for future pieces. My main areas of interest are game design, gameplay, interactive storytelling, gaming history, aesthetics, music and composition etc. I'm not massively interested in 'game theories' or examining lore, though I would be open to writing about these topics in a broad sense.

The first piece I wrote which discusses Kingdom Hearts was this: https://merelygamefulplayers.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/little-worlds-within-themselves-part-2/. It explores how islands are used at the start of several games, including Super Mario World and Zelda: Wind Waker as well as KH.

Please do let me know what you think if you have a chance to read! Anyway, I look forward to getting to know people on this site and hopefully meeting some with similar game interests. Again, if you have any feedback or ideas do get in touch.

Cheers,
MerelyP.

 

[Soldier]

Hi there KH Insider community,

I'm a longtime KHI reader who's been a fan of Kingdom Hearts since the very first game. I'm also a games blogger looking to engage more with the fans of the games I write about, and also to hopefully drum up some interest in my blog.

I'd love to hear from you all in regards to feedback for my articles, or ideas for future pieces. My main areas of interest are game design, gameplay, interactive storytelling, gaming history, aesthetics, music and composition etc. I'm not massively interested in 'game theories' or examining lore, though I would be open to writing about these topics in a broad sense.

The first piece I wrote which discusses Kingdom Hearts was this: https://merelygamefulplayers.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/little-worlds-within-themselves-part-2/. It explores how islands are used at the start of several games, including Super Mario World and Zelda: Wind Waker as well as KH.

Please do let me know what you think if you have a chance to read! Anyway, I look forward to getting to know people on this site and hopefully meeting some with similar game interests. Again, if you have any feedback or ideas do get in touch.

Cheers,
MerelyP.

Hello, welcome to the forums, Please read the FAQ.

 

[Zapt]

Hiya!
Welcome to the forums!
Hope you enjoy it here

 

[MerelyP]

Hello, welcome to the forums, Please read the FAQ.

Hi Soldier, thanks for the welcome. I assume in referring me to the FAQ you were drawing my attention to the policy regarding advertising? As it says "advertising your own personal work, such as stories, poetry, or other forms of art, is not considered advertising", assumedly I can post links to my personal blog in this thread?

Hiya!
Welcome to the forums!
Hope you enjoy it here

Hi Zapt, thanks for the welcome :smile:

 

[Veevee]

Hi MerelyP (may I ask for the origin of that name?), welcome to the Forum! I hope you'll enjoy your stay. Your interests sound interesting (lol), I'm pretty interesting in those things myself (planning to get my Master degree in Game Design after I finish my Bachelor degree next year) so we'll probably get along fine I'm looking forward to check out your blog and read your posts here on KHI.
If you have any questions or need anything, feel free to ask, everyone here is really nice and helpful.

By the way, it's pretty cool you are from London. I have been there once, very impressive city, I would love to go there again someday, but it's so freakin' expensive :<

 

[KingdomKey]

Hi Soldier, thanks for the welcome. I assume in referring me to the FAQ you were drawing my attention to the policy regarding advertising? As it says "advertising your own personal work, such as stories, poetry, or other forms of art, is not considered advertising", assumedly I can post links to my personal blog in this thread?

You can post links of your personal blog through your signature, which is what we recommend and works within the rules on KHI.

And it's sort of a requirement to mention the FAQ to everyone new who joins KHI. Sometimes it helps users out if they wanna know something in particular. Therefore you're all good!

 

[MerelyP]

Hi MerelyP (may I ask for the origin of that name?), welcome to the Forum! ... Your interests sound interesting (lol), I'm pretty interesting in those things myself (planning to get my Master degree in Game Design after I finish my Bachelor degree next year) so we'll probably get along fine I'm looking forward to check out your blog and read your posts here on KHI. ... By the way, it's pretty cool you are from London. I have been there once, very impressive city, I would love to go there again someday, but it's so freakin' expensive :<

Hi Veevee,

Thanks for your response both here and in the thread where I shared my article. The name is a shortened version of my blog’s title, ‘Merely Players’, which is itself a play on my joint love of video games and literature. The phrase comes from one of the many famous speeches found in Shakespeare’s plays: if you're not aware of it, search 'All the world’s a stage…' if you’d like to see the full version. In the speech 'players’ is a synonym for actors, so obviously I’ve misappropriated slightly. The second part of the pun comes when you shorten the phrase to its initials (‘MP’), hence the green meter underlining my logo:

Similarly, the hand is meant to allude to the classic menu cursor from many Final Fantasy games.

Anyway, I'm glad to meet a fellow fledgling game designer. Is your current degree in a related field, or would you be transitioning via your Master’s? I did two Music degrees before fully realising I’d much prefer to work in gaming: my gateway into game studies was my MSc thesis, which examined the history and development of music composition within video games. I'll be turning this into a series of articles and videos over the coming year. I look forward to chatting to you about design and development!

As for London, technically I live on the outskirts of Greater London at the moment. I’m actually situated in a town where a notorious UK reality TV show is filmed, hence I don’t like associating with it. London is great in some regards, awful in others. As you say, it is ridiculously expensive: the half-hour train journey I occasionally take to get in and out of central London hurts my income no end. Government policy this decade has also caused London to become a symbol of inequality in the UK, which the recent tower block fire in Grenfell and its fallout highlighted. Still, it's great to live nearby as there’s always a good event to go to if you can afford it. For instance, later today I’ll be heading to a board game café for the first time in my life.

You can post links of your personal blog through your signature, which is what we recommend and works within the rules on KHI.

And it's sort of a requirement to mention the FAQ to everyone new who joins KHI. Sometimes it helps users out if they wanna know something in particular. Therefore you're all good!

Hi Cinder, thanks for the info and welcome. An example situation: I’m just finishing off a review for the Project Octopath Traveller demo, and - given the game's a Square RPG - I would like to share it with the KHI community. Should I start a new thread and post a link to my article in the main text of my post, or should I mention in the post that readers can find a link to my blog in my signature? The second route just seems a bit superfluous and barely different to the first in terms of ethics. Also, where would be best to post this: the 'Final Fantasy' sub-forum, or in 'Video Games'?

 

[KingdomKey]

Hi Cinder, thanks for the info and welcome. An example situation: I’m just finishing off a review for the Project Octopath Traveller demo, and - given the game's a Square RPG - I would like to share it with the KHI community. Should I start a new thread and post a link to my article in the main text of my post, or should I mention in the post that readers can find a link to my blog in my signature? The second route just seems a bit superfluous and barely different to the first in terms of ethics. Also, where would be best to post this: the 'Final Fantasy' sub-forum, or in 'Video Games'?

You're welcome, MerelyP! You would want to post that in the Video Games section! Yup, just start a new thread and put a link to your article with the main post you plan on writing in there and you'll be all set! So I hope this helps! I look forward to seeing your thread.

 

[Recon]

YO, YO, YO

Welcome to KHI!​

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

Heyaz, welcome to the forums, buddy~ Have a nice stay 'round here ^^

 

[Veevee]

Hi Veevee,

Thanks for your response both here and in the thread where I shared my article. The name is a shortened version of my blog’s title, ‘Merely Players’, which is itself a play on my joint love of video games and literature. The phrase comes from one of the many famous speeches found in Shakespeare’s plays: if you're not aware of it, search 'All the world’s a stage…' if you’d like to see the full version. In the speech 'players’ is a synonym for actors, so obviously I’ve misappropriated slightly. The second part of the pun comes when you shorten the phrase to its initials (‘MP’), hence the green meter underlining my logo:

Similarly, the hand is meant to allude to the classic menu cursor from many Final Fantasy games.

Anyway, I'm glad to meet a fellow fledgling game designer. Is your current degree in a related field, or would you be transitioning via your Master’s? I did two Music degrees before fully realising I’d much prefer to work in gaming: my gateway into game studies was my MSc thesis, which examined the history and development of music composition within video games. I'll be turning this into a series of articles and videos over the coming year. I look forward to chatting to you about design and development!

As for London, technically I live on the outskirts of Greater London at the moment. I’m actually situated in a town where a notorious UK reality TV show is filmed, hence I don’t like associating with it. London is great in some regards, awful in others. As you say, it is ridiculously expensive: the half-hour train journey I occasionally take to get in and out of central London hurts my income no end. Government policy this decade has also caused London to become a symbol of inequality in the UK, which the recent tower block fire in Grenfell and its fallout highlighted. Still, it's great to live nearby as there’s always a good event to go to if you can afford it. For instance, later today I’ll be heading to a board game café for the first time in my life.

A shakespeare reference, that's nice. I like that. I knew that I knew the hand from somewhere

Wow, that is some interesting curriculum vitae. Your master thesis sounds pretty cool! It's been similar for me, I started to study English / Sociology first, decided it was too much plain theory for me and tried engineering. I failed for the math part and got into Multimedia Production which was my personal bull's eye. The studies itself teach the basics of producing media in general, but I focused on creating games of every kind as soon as I could. I'm currently thinking of developing an escape room for my Bachelor thesis and write about the process, but I still have half a year left until then, so I'm trying to focus on my current project for now. I struggled with myself for a bit since Germany isn't exactly the El Dorado of video game design but decided that I really, really want to do it so that I don't have to regret later - I will have regrets since it'll probably be hard to get a job, but that's something for the me in a few years. Poor one.

That sounds like it's quite so-so to live there but I guess it's that way for every big town. While it's nice to have everything available and be at a pulsing point in the world, there's a lot of downsides coming along with that. I live in a place that doesn't even consider itself as a town, merely as a commune. You have to drive to the city to have a minimum of similar stores, the buildings are bulky and grey and there's no bus after midnight. On the plus side it's a quiet place where you can have a nice, normal life.