Essays – Matt Wrench

November 9, 2024 / 0 Comments

When We Were Young 2024: The Kids Are Alright

Friday 3pm

French fries taste better in the car. The spuds are still piping hot and crispy, having not yet been ruined by steaming inside the bag. I am already in vacation mode, so the first waffle fry on my tongue tastes of salty deliciousness, not fattening guilt.

We are grabbing a bite before getting on I-17. E, J, and I are heading to Vegas for When We Were Young music festival. L is joining us tomorrow. This is my second year attending. For the other three, it is their third. We converse for the first three hours of the trip, catching up after months of not seeing each other. The long drive eventually saps us of energy though. The second half of the ride is spent listening to music. The volume steadily grows. We are going to Las Vegas for pop punk and emo, and this is our first taste of the weekend.

The playlist repeats, but we do not notice until “Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional plays for the second time. The darkness of the desert is broken by the distant haze of light. Las Vegas nears. Soon enough, E and J are dropping me off at Park MGM. I am too cheap to stay closer to the festival grounds. I grab a slice of Roman-style pizza and a Peroni from Eataly. The pizza crust is overdone.

I review the lineup for the fourth time on my phone. No perfect solution exists. WWWY is stacked with the biggest artists the genre ever had. Missing some of the bands I want to see is inevitable due to overlap. I go to bed a little salty about the plethora of riches in front of me.

October 21, 2024 / 0 Comments

Whatever Happened to the Games We Loved?

I have killed countless innocents including women and children. My decisions have sown genocide across worlds. I have betrayed my closest allies. Worst of all, my atrocities amused me.

Fortunately, however, every one of those sins occurred digitally. After all, playing violent games is fun. Hitting pedestrians with my car in Grand Theft Auto V frequently makes me crack a smile. What worries me more is when video games bore me.

Gaming has been a passion of mine since I first picked up the controller. In middle school, my afternoons were spent playing Super Smash Bros. Melee. Rather than talk to girls, my high school years were dedicated to Halo 2. The majority of my free time this past weekend was spent playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Yet despite this longstanding fascination, I find myself frequently bored with video games since I reached adulthood. Oftentimes, I will pick up the controller, play for less than half an hour, and then step away.

October 13, 2024 / 0 Comments

The Most Important Game Development Advice

“And I heard your voice as clear as day. And you told me I should concentrate. It was all so strange and so surreal that a ghost should be so practical.”

— “Only If For A Night”, Florence + The Machine

My sixth birthday was the best one of my life. I woke up and darted downstairs. A pile of gifts sat in the living room, but my attention was drawn to the largest one. My mom was making breakfast in the kitchen. I asked her if I could open my presents. She relented. My fingers tore into the blue wrapping paper, but I already suspected what they would find. Inside was a Nintendo 64, my first video game console. Soon after, I discovered a copy of Super Mario 64.

My dad connected the console to the TV. The rest of the morning was spent throwing King Bob-omb off the mountaintop and racing Koopa the Quick. I had played video games at friends’ houses before, but this was the first experience that was my own. The three-handled controller felt strange in my hands, but soon that foreign feeling would disappear, never to return.

Soon enough though, I had to set the game aside. My parents were taking me to Celebration Station. We spent the afternoon racing go-karts, eating pizza, and playing mini-golf. No day could have been better, but I was not disappointed when we reached the end. Super Mario 64 was waiting.

Yet when we returned home, I made a grave mistake. Rather than continuing where I left off, I cleared my save data and started over. Recovering the first two stars again would serve as a warmup before I jumped into unexplored territory. While I did not know it then, I had been cursed with a terrible fate.