Hello and thank you for stopping by.
After several years, I am no longer continuing with Play Forest. Many of the articles below link to their new homes which can be found at > Diary of a Space Person and > Gerard Thomas Illustration.
Thanks!
What they all seemed to have in common, along with what the vast majority of other artists of the time, was a feeling of optimism in their images.
Bang Bang
Reading Time: 2 minutes
In an age before the internet, endless, accessible reviews, or any of that, and where the scant gaming magazines were, well, scant, it was the box art adorning a game that was left to attract one’s attention and often convince one to buy it in the first place.
Box Art!
Reading Time: 9 minutes
It was one of those strange waterfall of events, one of those where one decision leads to another and another and before you know it, you are somewhere else entirely.
Welcome back analogue, I’ve missed you
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Yokoyama’s sketchbook reflects a distinctive style and stance that is so difficult to find these days, and though the work is several decades old, it’s more than refreshing if you like scifi hardware and design.
Kow Yokoyama: Ma.K. Sketchbook
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Game flow is nice and simple, broken into 5 phases with the last one, ‘tagging’, being the crux of the game. The first player to tag a building with four ‘holotags’ gets to demolish it – demolish four, and you win. Simple, eh?
GKR – Giant Killer Robots
Reading Time: 7 minutes
The tools we use for creating images are very much part of the process and as such, we should have, must have, an affinity with them.
Tools!
Reading Time: 7 minutes
In the pre Star Wars era, shapes, forms and colours were diverse, often soft, organic, and the visions of the future they were part of, in paint and ink, were as varied as they were interesting.
A retro future: A bit of an essay
Reading Time: 9 minutes
In many ways, I categorise Shaun Tan in the same way I would Haruki Murakami – their work is both multi faceted and almost abstract
Shaun Tan – a brief thought
Reading Time: 4 minutes
I want to believe but I fear I might need to step out over a bottomless shaft to find the control that lets me…
Design in Star Wars
Reading Time: 8 minutes
This issue came to a head very recently. I woke up with a ‘eureka’ moment and madly went out to my desk and put the scribble on paper. A critical design concept I had been playing with for months had come together – finally I had something I was really happy with.
There is no wrong in art
Reading Time: 5 minutes
The problem about writing a review, or opinion, about Valerian is where to even start? I write this after only having watched it once and thinking about it still leaves me swimming in its vast ocean.
Valerian
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Subsets. That is the best way to define modern culture. One can exist in their little world and really never be confronted by, nor experience another subset. To some this keeps them happy, too much stimulation is a bad thing as it challenges their fragile view of the world. To others though, life is not…
Vinyl Toys
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Upon seeing Huxley’s images once again, I instantly recognised why his work at the time was so magnetic – it has that ageless ’something’.
Roy Huxley Rediscovered
Reading Time: 3 minutes
The books had big flashy pictures that were more than enough to capture a fertile young mind – the Terran Trade Authority books were favourites in my collection.
Terran Trade Authority
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Hands down, ‘Alpha’ is the best interpretation of the original Manga to date.
Appleseed Alpha
Reading Time: 4 minutes
While it definitely has it’s moments of ‘goodness’, Ex Machina is more a film for true Anime geeks…
Appleseed Ex Machina
Reading Time: 4 minutes
If you never have, try and check Rez out. You might not click with it right away but when you do, and you will, it will all make sense.
Rez, a true modern classic
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Don’t let that fool you though, this is an incredibly difficult game to win (where the Space Marines are the ones that win or loose), and very quickly the Space Marines player will start experimenting with ways to actually survive more than 10 minutes!
Warhammer 40,000 – Lost Patrol
Reading Time: 7 minutes
“I always felt like there was a complete disconnect between things that were fun and entertaining to watch and things that were more thoughtful and philosophical.” Peter Chung
Aeon Flux: a cult classic
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Big walking tanks whomping the bejeezus out of one another. That’s the basic premise of Battletech, a game with its roots dating back to the mid 80’s.