I struggle with “Object Permanence." Basically, the TLDR of it is, “if it’s not in my line of sight, then I forget it exists.” This goes for people as well. Not that I don’t care or think about people, but it’s hard to focus on them for any period of time. Unfortunately, sometimes this is even the case when it comes to people in my life I love dearly, like my son. 

He lives many miles away from me with his mom, and we don’t have nearly as much time with each other as we’d like. We are always thinking of one another to some degree, but we’re both so busy with life: High School and Extracurriculars for him, Work and Side Projects for me. So, we’re not always at the forefront of each other’s minds at all times. As a way to combat this, we talk on the phone, Facetime or play games. The latter has been our favorite way to spend time together. While gaming, we talk Anime, Comics, catch up on daily life stuff, and also some deeper topics. Being able to play a game WHILE Facetiming is our most effective form of communication.

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There are tons of games that allow for this. We mostly play Fortnite together [his choice not mine!]. Although, after a while of getting our behinds handed to us in Battle Royale: Zero Builds Duo matches, we start to get a bit frustrated. We’re both “serviceable” players, but we’re not “sweats” by any means. Once we’re tired of this, we struggle to find something else to play. I, of course, have no issue switching to “Lego Odyssey” mode to continue playing and building my Utopian Lego Empire. Although, he gets bored with that pretty quickly and it devolves into him deciding he has better things to do. 

At Chronicler, we’re solving this problem by building a game that is fun for my son and I to play for longer than a few matches, and also a low enough skill barrier that it doesn’t cause frustration after 20-30mins of intense playtime. I’m extremely happy that we’ll have something we can play together without ending in a reluctant and sometimes dejected “Talk to you later. love you, dad!” after getting pwned for 5 straight matches. 

I told my son about this, and he lit up! He can’t wait to spend more time with me playing a game where we can explore, run and gun, and, let’s face it, totally ANNIHILATE some faceless drone bots for hours. While also getting a cool story and affecting future experiences through our actions and decisions we make now. He said it was a cool concept, and it spawned a pretty decent [and meaningful] conversation about our relationship, the time we spend together and hopes for the future regarding it. I can’t wait to play it with him!

 Joe Wills
Creative Director