Yesterday, I used the word sisyphean. Wasn't trying to be pedantic or anything, it just felt like the best descriptor of my general environment and obligations at the time. Last year came to a close with a hard December finish, and 2011 kicked off directly into my bathing suit area, and it all has seemed more difficult than usual. I tell you this not to complain or make a play for your sympathies, but because sometimes it can be helpful to think about the choices you made at some point that got you to your present location. A Recognize Your Agency exercise. And this brings me to a fabulous woman named Deirdra Kiai.
I met Deirdra through HONK! Fest West. She plays sousaphone in Orkestar Slivovica, a mighty fine balkan band out of Vancouver, BC. In addition to her bouncy anchor work in the OS, she's also a programmer who recently leveraged kickstarter to fund an independent game called Life Flashes By:
Charlotte Barclay, a novelist of moderate success, one day finds herself in a car accident while on her way to the next leg of her book tour. She then wakes up in the hazy world of her own memories and, accompanied by an impish pixie-like creature called Trevin, finds herself whisked away on a whirlwind journey to relive various vignettes of her life so far. In doing so, Charlotte attempts to make sense of who she is and who she’s become, as well as who she could have been had she done things differently.
Life Flashes By is a video game about success and failure in following one’s dreams, about finding love and losing it, and about feeling isolated and out of step with the rest of the world. It is a story that is at times clever and fun and at times melancholy and introspective. Most notably of all, however, it is a story best told non-linearly, which lends itself uniquely to the interactive nature of games. As a player, you won’t just be watching a plot unfold, you’ll be shaping and affecting it in a way unique to you alone.
She sent out a call for voices a while back and I responded with an audition tape for several characters. I was selected for Dr. Stewart. That's right. Somewhere right now I'm giving a very dry reading as a snobbish therapist in a game about life choices, and if I was a person who believed in signs it would be very hard indeed to ignore this one. Mostly though I'm glad for the opportunity to be a poor man's Dr. Katz.
Many thanks to Deirdra for that. Give her game a whirl and the next time you're up in B.C. go see Orkestar Slivovica. They're amazing.
