“Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry”
-Pink Floyd, Breathe
“The time has come,” the red mage said, “to talk of other things! Of games and tips and writing fast, of element analyses!” Today we’re announcing the return of a retro blast from the past. Those of you out there who are veteran NPCs will remember that last summer we put together a team project we titled the 31-Day Mage Challenge, wherein we answered daily questions in daily posts, encouraging our readers to engage with the queries and share their thoughts as well.
This year, we’re pleased to announce the 31-Day Elemental Challenge (click the link to view the entire series), beginning tomorrow on July 1st and ending on the 31st. Now you’ll have something to look forward to on every single hot day of July! You can put away the beach towels and the sunscreen. I know what you’re doing this summer.
Here’s how it’ll work: by “elemental” we’re referring to video game genres, so each day there will be a different genre and the challenge is to name your favorite exemplary title in that classification and give a little background on why that’s your choice. We’d be delighted if any of our readers opt to join in and share their daily favorites with us. We’re going to try to post as consistently as we can on this but 31 genres is a lot of flavors!
Can we do it? Is this arduous task worth it? Think it’s a colossal waste of time or are you happy to jump in on the festivities for our latest community-emphasizing project? Some of your favorite bloggers are going to participate here as magely co-authors! Also, I do need to take special note of someone dear to my heart who indirectly had a hand in all of this.
Father’s Day was already two Sunday’s ago and I promised my old man something unique as a gift but I didn’t end up finishing it on time. I had planned to dedicate my review of The Last of Us to my father. I just finished it two nights ago. In retrospect, it wasn’t the right subject to dedicate. I thought the character of Joel would turn out to be an actual father figure, albeit rough-edged, and not some kind of malicious, selfish, sadistic, twisted, psychopath.
Therefore, I’d like to dedicate this month of my writings to my father. I lovingly thought of him while putting together the image heading up this post, since he’s been a fan of Pink Floyd since I was a kid. He helped me to think about the world with wonder and inquisitiveness from a young age. I remember asking him about math problems and he told me about how the ancients built the pyramids. I certainly wouldn’t be the person I am today without him. I probably wouldn’t even love video games if he hadn’t been one to take me to rent cartridges for the weekend from that one gas station up past Panaewa.
So thank you, Papa Gray Mage, and happy belated Father’s Day. I’ll be thinking of you with every word I write through July. Wish you were here.
-The Well-Red Mage
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Yaaaay! Let the commenting commence!!!
Reblogged this on Sublime Reviews and commented:
Prepare yourselves for the 31 day Elemental Mage challenge! Many contributors at The Well-Red Mage will be posting their favorite games in 31 different genres, one for each day of the hot hot Month of July!
Looking forward to watching this community project play out!
Thank you! We look forward to seeing what your favorites might be, too! There are a lot of games out there so this may be a real challenge.
When you get to platformers, I hope The Great Giana Sisters, or Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams make the cut. The series is pretty much to me what TRUXTON is to Mark Bussler (of Classic Game Room fame). Though come to think of it, TRUXTON is indeed one of the best shmups to ever grace the Sega Genesis. So maybe that’s another one to highlight on shmup day. But now I’ve begun to ramble.
Welp you’re free to tell us all about how they’re your favorites when we reach those days!
I can’t wait to see what the 31 flavored, er, genres are! Off the top of my head I could quickly name five. If presses, probably ten. If threatened, twenty. If I were writing a thesis 500 đŸ˜‹
Tomorrow can’t come soon enough!
Showing the ignorance of my youth here, but what do you mean, “rent cartridges”?
Similar to Blockbuster back then. I can’t remember the name of the gas station or anything but they had a wall of NES and SNES carts along one wall and you could go in there and pick any out you’d like to borrow/rent for a few days. I don’t know what the price was, because I didn’t pay for them! It was a long time ago!
Followed by, of course, the tense re-renting of the same cartridge a few weeks later, and hoping the customers who rented the game since you last had it didn’t trash your save file. Those were the days, for sure.
Looking forward to this! And let me just say, that Pink Floyd/Zelda/Final Fantasy hybrid image is the COOLEST thing I’ve seen on the Internet in the longest time.
Yeah, never rent or borrow an RPG back then. Good to know if you ever stumble across a time machine! Thanks for liking our header image! I got carried away and it ended up turning into this huge project last night. I planned to play games but got stuck on Photoshop instead lol!
Papa Mage says: back in the olden days, the programs (apps, games) were stored on hardware somewhat similar to a thumb drive. Of course the memory storage was waaaaaaaay less in volume and physically much larger. Great for labels and artwork, lousy for having alot of carts on hand!