There's a lovely little puzzle game on sale now from the Square Enix Collective: Goetia. My wife and I have just finished this beautiful little French puzzle-solver and are thoroughly impressed. The basic mechanic is similar to the Myst games or the Monkey Island series. Tonally, however, Goetia is an artful blend of Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, and Charles Williams. The plot is as gripping as the puzzles and we kept playing as much for the story and the eerie atmosphere as for the mechanic. Those who are squeamish about the occult elements the game's title suggests should know that it keeps a firm grip on Good and Evil and finishes off with a strong (but in nowise preachy) message about human nature.
I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old. That's a couple years after it first came out. The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer. I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit. It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows. With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play. What was that first game? It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge. It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing? There were stretches when I didn't. Many times, I've just been too busy. There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
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