In Defense of Dondons

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

The Dondons are something of an anomaly in Tears of the Kingdom. In a teaser trailer for the not-yet-titled sequel to Breath of the Wild that premiered at E3 in June 2019, Zelda and Link are shown walking through a cavern in the company of an ox-like animal. This cutscene didn’t make it to the final version of the game, but the animals were preserved as a small herd of Dondons in the forest next to Lakeside Stable.

According to Cima, their caretaker, there are only five of these creatures in the world, and we don’t know much about them save that they eat luminous rocks. Aside from providing an inconvenient method of gem farming, the Dondons don’t serve any real purpose. In terms of the game’s story and lore, they feel like an afterthought.

Still, I like the Dondons. One of the things I love about the Legend of Zelda series is how the games include all sorts of heterogeneous elements that aren’t related to the main story and don’t fit into the lore. So I want to try to defend the Dondons, as well as the silliness of the Zelda games in general.

The Octoball Derby in A Link Between Worlds is a good example of what I’m calling a “heterogeneous element,” or something that doesn’t fit into the conventions of the in-game world. In this Lorule minigame, an Octorok pitches baseballs at Link (by shooting them from its mouth, of course) while two of its Hylian friends keep score from the sidelines. This Octorok is named Octo, and it can talk. 

So can all Octoroks talk, or just the ones in Lorule? If Octoroks can talk and be friends with the Hylians in Lorule, what does it mean that Link has been killing them in Hyrule? If the Octoroks in Hyrule don’t have sapience, why not? And… is there baseball in the Zelda universe?

I don’t think these questions are meaningful. What the Octoball Derby does is to take two characters from A Link to the Past – the two transformed Hylians on top of Death Mountain in the Dark World who tell Link about the Moon Pearl – and put them in a space that wouldn’t otherwise by occupied, while at the same time providing the player with a (questionably) fun minigame. Octoball Derby is pointless and silly, but it adds color to the world.  

For me, one of the most striking examples of a “it’s best not to think about it too hard” heterogeneous element in a Zelda game is the character Batreaux in Skyward Sword. Batreaux is a demon whose presence in Skyloft makes animals aggressive at night. In terms of personality, though, Batreaux is a sweet older man who wants to shed his demonic nature so he can live among the Hylians.

Since there’s nothing evil or sinister about Batreaux’s actions or personality, what does it mean that he’s a demon? Are demons just normal people who happen to summon monsters simply by existing? Do demons have anything to do with Demise? And what does it say about Skyloft that, when Batreaux achieves his wish to become a Hylian, everyone simply accepts him?

As intriguing as these questions are, they don’t have answers. Batreaux is just the goofy character who gives Link wallet upgrades in exchange for the gratitude crystals the player gets for doing sidequests, and he’s loosely based on the bats who offer similar upgrades in A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. Batreaux is meant to be a fun allusion to earlier games, not to pose questions about the ontology of different categories of beings in Hyrule.

I feel like the Dondons belong to the same category. They’re cute animals that eat glowing rocks and shit gemstones, and they may possibly be a time travel paradox created by Zelda. How is it possible that the Dondons, like other manifestations of the Great Upheaval, appeared in Hyrule before Zelda ever traveled back to Rauru and Sonia’s era? Do these creatures come from the Depths? How do they fit into Hyrule’s ecosystem? How did Zelda discover them, and why are there only five? These are interesting questions, but I don’t think they’re supposed to have answers.

The 2019 “first look” teaser trailer for the not-yet-named sequel to Breath of the Wild drove Legend of Zelda fans into a frenzy of speculation. What do the wall paintings depict? What words do the glowing letters spell? Where is the cave that Zelda and Link are exploring? What would the Ganondorf mummy look like rehydrated? And what sort of creature is Zelda riding?

Like many elements in this initial trailer, the animal that Zelda rode underground was cut from the final version of Tears of the Kingdom – almost. The developers decided to leave a few of these creatures in an out-of-the-way enclosure as a joke about the wild theories that followed the sequel announcement. At every stable, at least one person spreads rumors about a “new animal” that’s appeared in Hyrule, and some of these rumors are more fantastic than others. After seeing the Dondons for himself, Link can report back to each stable to set the record straight, though the degree to which people believe him varies.

The gameplay function of the Dondons is also a bit of a joke. If you give the internet a taste of glowing rocks, the devs seem to be suggesting, lore theorists will produce all sorts of gemstones while you’re not watching.

In terms of the cohesive lore of the game, the Dondons don’t make a lot of sense. In terms of the player’s enjoyment of the game, though, they’re a silly Easter egg for players who go back to talk to the people at the stables a second time, as well as a nod to series fans who weathered four years of speculation.

I’m all for criticizing the design and narratives of Zelda games, and I also love deep dives that ask interesting questions and try to come up with meaningful answers. More than anything, though, I love the games themselves, and what sets The Legend of Zelda apart from other action-adventure series is its sense of goofiness. Not everything has to be serious, and not every puzzle piece needs to fit neatly together. I think it’s the silliness of the NPCs that gives the Zelda series its flavor, and this is why heterogeneous elements like the Dondons are important. These are games, after all, and they’re meant to be playful.

Review of Strange Cases on Comics Beat

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I recently had the honor of writing a review of Strange Cases, the debut graphic novel of the popular illustrator Riotbones. Strange Cases is a historical drama about a law student who investigates supernatural mysteries in a colonial city that’s sinking under the weight of its own Gothic architecture. When I shared a link to the review on social media, I described the story as a cross between Ace Attorney and Bloodborne, but it’s much more than a simple comparison can convey. The writing is just as gorgeous as the art, and Riotbones addresses the uneasy legacy of colonial rule with a subtlety that sharpens the edge of the story’s brilliance.

I didn’t mention this in my review, but Strange Cases is also queer in a way appropriate to the late Victorian period. The queerness is largely subtextual, but this is an expression of one of the primary themes of the story; namely, that some things benefit from not being openly perceived, and many people remain outside of neatly defined categories by choice.

Here’s an excerpt from my review:

As a genre, the gothic lures the reader with the promise of hidden secrets coming to light. In the context of Western Europe, these secrets often lurked in the shadows cast by the industrial revolution. For a person who doesn’t belong to the imperial core, however, shadows have a different meaning. Perhaps, Riotbones suggests, not everything benefits from exposure to an “enlightened” Western gaze. For people who don’t fit neatly into rational, scientific categories, the shadows provide a more comfortable place to exist. Now that Jude finds himself in a position between “colonial” and “native,” he must learn how to navigate the liminal spaces that exist beyond the boundaries of the law.

You can read the full review on Comics Beat here:
https://www.comicsbeat.com/graphic-novel-review-strange-cases/

Review of the Girl Who Loved Monsters on Comics Beat

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I recently had the pleasure of writing a review for Comics Beat about a middle grade graphic novel called The Girl Who Loved Monsters. This is a fun story that reminds me of the Goosebumps books, with all their campiness and dubious messaging and over-the-top silliness, and I could tell that both the writer and the artist were having a fantastic time. It’s always a pleasure to see new and original stories for younger readers, and this is an especially good one.

Here’s an excerpt from my review:

The Girl Who Loved Monsters feels nostalgically reminiscent of the Goosebumps series of pulp horror novels for children that were popular in the 1990s. Many elements of this graphic novel’s story and art are extremely campy, and the combination of creepiness and humor creates a carnival-like sense of fun. Though the timeworn story of kids on bikes chasing down a monster may seem like a simple treat taken directly from a Halloween candy bucket, Franklin’s dynamic art and Fitzpatrick’s sensitive character writing elevate The Girl Who Loved Monsters to a thrilling and heartwarming horror adventure that young readers will eagerly devour.

You can read the full review on Comics Beat here:
https://www.comicsbeat.com/the-girl-who-loved-monsters/

Hollow: Ten Tales of Fallen Knights

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Hollow: Ten Tales of Fallen Knights collects a series of original short stories about knights who have found themselves in unfortunate circumstances. In the shadows cast by crumbling kingdoms, what inspires these knights to keep fighting?

Though the primary genre of the stories in this zine is dark fantasy, their tone is elegiac bordering on hopeful. Just as in my Ruins zine, the underlying theme is “regrowth after disaster,” though a few of these knights’ means of achieving that regrowth is a bit violent. Some dragons really need to die, if you catch my meaning.

All of the knights who appear in this collection happen to be female; but, as in the Dark Souls games that loosely inspired these stories, their gender is the least important thing about them. I just think lady knights are cool.

A free digital version of the zine is available on Itch.io, and paper copies are on Etsy.

⚔️ https://digitalterrarium.itch.io/fallen-knights
⚔️ https://www.etsy.com/listing/4570018912/fallen-knights-dark-fantasy-zine

Creativity at the Margins

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

My newest zine, Creativity at the Margins, uses mushrooms as an analogy to argue for the value of human creativity in toxic social media ecosystems.

I’m always seeing “do what you love” offered as advice to people who are struggling to make a name for themselves in a creative profession, and I think this is valid. At the same time, it bothers me that this advice always seems to come from people who already have a substantial following. It’s easy to say “do what you love” when what you love happens to coincide with the interests of thousands of other people.

Still, I’m all for doing what you love, and I say this as someone with relatively few followers on social media. What I want to advocate for is the value of doing what you love even when you’re not popular, and even when it doesn’t seem like your work is successful according to quantitative metrics of evaluation.

Because of social media enshittification and Gen-AI slop, it’s become difficult to measure value by numerical metrics, and I think this is an excellent time to be imperfect and strange. You never know what sort of mycelial connections might form in the substrate of fallen giants.

If you’re interested, I put a few paper copies of this zine on Etsy, and you can download a free digital copy (optimized for phone screens) from Itch.io

🌿 https://digitalterrarium.itch.io/creativity-zine
🌿 https://www.etsy.com/listing/4542820261/creativity-at-the-margins-zine

Evelyn: A Gothic Tale

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Evelyn: A Gothic Tale
https://frankiesbugs.itch.io/evelyn-a-gothic-tale

Evelyn: A Gothic Tale is an atmospheric 2D puzzle platformer currently being created as a solo project by the Italian artist and game developer Frankiesbugs. The demo for Evelyn, which is free to download from Itch.io, features full Xbox controller support and takes about ten to fifteen minutes to finish, though you’ll likely want to spend more time exploring.

You play as the eponymous Evelyn, a small skeleton in a jaunty blue dress who’s become bored in her underworld crypt and wants to return to the world of the living. Getting there will be no easy task, however, as the way is obstructed by numerous gates and barriers. In addition, Evelyn will need to collect enough flames to light her way forward through the final stretch of darkness between worlds. If she manages to get her bony fingers on enough flames, she might even be able to secure an additional passage for her charmingly pathetic friend Rupert.

There’s no combat in Evelyn, but environmental hazards will hinder the player’s progress. In the demo, these hazards primarily consist of pits and spikes that Evelyn must jump over in classic 2D platformer style. The twist that Evelyn brings to this formula are its light-based puzzles, which involve obstructing or redirecting beams of light in order to trigger changes in the world and thereby grant Evelyn the keys she needs to pass through a series of grand stone gates.

The game mechanics involving light also carry over to the platforming. While most of the map is rendered in a vibrantly colorful style that still manages to convey the atmosphere of an underground crypt, a few of the side paths are shrouded in actual darkness broken only by strategically placed lamps. In order to navigate these dark sections, the player must rely on the instincts developed in previous sections while paying close attention to the lamp placement. The interplay between light and dark sections is perfectly balanced. I was always excited to venture into the darkness of a shadowy side path, but I always felt relieved to return to the well-lit areas. 

Evelyn features full controller support, and I played with an Xbox controller with no problem at all. Evelyn’s movement speed is perfect in relation to the size of the map, as is her jump height. Though I suspect this game might be classified as “casual” in terms of difficulty, its gameplay is enhanced by a nice balance between freedom of movement and the small areas of friction impeding progress. Evelyn’s health bar contributes an additional element of challenge, as you can only fall into so many pits or spike traps before you have to start over. I will admit that I died a few times while exploring, but experience and familiarity with the map compressed the time I needed to navigate back to the point I died, resulting in a pleasantly smooth learning curve.

When I think about what makes a good Metroidvania, it’s not just the level design and gameplay, but also the sense of exploration and discovery that (more than anything, I think) distinguishes the genre from an action platformer like the Super Mario games. The hand-drawn characters and environment of Evelyn inspire a sense of moving through an actual world, especially in the details of the background art that caused me to wonder how a particular creature might have come to be tucked away in a particular dark corner.

The icing on the cake of any standout Metroidvania is the writing. Balance is important in this aspect of game design, as the text needs to walk a fine line between being too sparse and too voluble while simultaneously offering intriguing information without indulging in exposition. The writing in Evelyn is fantastic, from the dialogue to the text on the collectible daguerreotypes, and each character has a distinct voice (and there’s one character in particular that really surprised me, bless his heart). Evelyn herself is a silent protagonist, but her in-game animations express a great deal of character, as does the narrative animation that opens the game in the style of a silent film from the 1920s.

I’m amazed by how well-polished this demo is, and I’m curious to uncover more about the story behind this crypt and its restless inhabitants, which seems just as disturbing as the character art is cute. Everything about this spooky little game works in concert to lure the player deeper into its underground world, and I’m looking forward to spending more time in the company of these strange skeleton children. For the time being, I’m cheering Evelyn on as she makes her way out into the world.

Review of Bold Breaks: Japanese Women and Literary Narratives of Divorce

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I recently had the honor of writing a short review of the anthology Bold Breaks: Japanese Women and Literary Narratives of Divorce for the online academic journal Studies on Asia.

Bold Breaks combines four substantial literary translations with a lovely set of introductory and contextual essays by the translators. It’s a very cool anthology on an important theme that’s gotten surprisingly little scholarly attention, and I’d love to see more books like this!

Here’s a short excerpt from my review:

With its equal emphasis on translation and analysis, Bold Breaks points toward a model that deserves to be more widely adopted, especially as there are relatively few books that pair substantial works of translated fiction with critical analysis that remains accessible without sacrificing depth. The generous endnotes and translator introductions contextualize the stories while illuminating the craft of translation itself, underscoring how interpretation and analysis are inseparable. It’s also worth noting that the collection is a pleasure to read, as the stories carry an emotional immediacy that complements their scholarly framing.

If you’re interested, you can read the full review here:
https://studiesonasia.scholasticahq.com/article/164797-book-review

Ladies of the Knight Review on Comics Beat

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Comics Beat recently gave the opportunity to write a review for the graphic novel Ladies of the Knight, which just came out earlier in July. This book is so much fun! If you’re into knights and ladies and lady knights and nonbinary knights of all shapes and sizes, this one is for you.

I’m not typically a fan of sports stories. A great deal of the culture surrounding sports in real life has always felt unwelcoming to me, especially as someone who has trouble navigating gender binaries. Thankfully, Ladies of the Knight is modeled on the colorful inclusivity of roller derby, and it brings the same joyful spirit of competition to a story about an older knight who has to learn how to deal with her squire’s youthful enthusiasm.

Here’s an excerpt from my review:

From the immense mainstream popularity of the dark fantasy game Elden Ring to the continued success of the crowdfunded series of knight-themed art books published by Dames Productions, medieval knights seem to be having a cultural moment.

Given the enthusiasm of young and queer art communities, I suspect this love for knights has less to do with a conservative interest in the history of Western Europe and more to do with a speculative imagination that has shifted away from science fiction as the technological dreams of the twentieth century have been tainted by recent associations with the dystopian realities of corporate enshittification. Fantasies celebrating difference and otherness were once projected onto robots free of human limitations, but perhaps it now makes more sense to tell stories about knights who aim for greatness while still being bound within the confines of their humanity and human relationships.

You can read the full review on Comics Beat here:
https://www.comicsbeat.com/ladies-of-the-knight-review/

Kuro

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Kuro
https://visualmemoryunit.itch.io/kuro

Kuro is a free-to-play homebrew PS1 gothic horror game that takes about twenty minutes to finish. There aren’t any jumpscares, but the story is as dark as the chunky retro polygons are cute.

You play as Kuro, a mysterious visitor to an abandoned Shinto shrine. The moonlit shrine is beautiful and peaceful on the outside, but its interior conceals an underground labyrinth haunted by the ghost of a brutally murdered young woman named Miu. As Kuro, your job is to find and reunite the parts of Miu’s corpse so that her spirit can move on.

Along with Miu’s head and body, Kuro must acquire the means to open three locked doors. Though the game’s map isn’t overly large, Kuro moves slowly (with tank controls) across spaces presented to the player from dramatic angles. It’s unlikely that you’ll become lost, but the game does an excellent job of conveying the disorientation of wandering through a dark basement.

For me, the standout scene is when Kuro enters a locked room that’s completely empty except for an old television whose screen is filled with static. When Kuro interacts with the television, she’s transported to an otherworldly landscape where she meets the man who killed Miu. He explains what happened, but this isn’t the end of the story. Once Kuro returns to the shrine and begins to dig deeper, the player learns that murder is probably the most wholesome thing that happened here. 

I genuinely appreciate the developer’s commitment to including every gothic trope they could think of. One might argue that the writing is somewhat clumsy, and that the game’s twenty-minute playtime isn’t sufficient to allow ample space for its horrors, but I’m of the opinion that the writing is just as integral to the retro aesthetic as the graphics. I feel like there’s a tendency to remember games like Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil 2 as “well-written,” but PS1-era games had a tendency to hit you with a cascade of revelations in the most basic and matter-of-fact prose. Kuro matches the tone of this style of video game writing perfectly.

I also love to see this kind of gothic story in a setting that isn’t European, and I’m fascinated by the idea that a Shinto shrine would have a basement. Perhaps a shrine constructed overseas (in British Columbia, for instance) might have an underground level, but this would be unthinkable in Japan, where shrine buildings are always elevated above the ground in the traditional Polynesian architectural style.

The reason for this is 100% practical in a wet and humid climate, where various types of unpleasant things (primarily mold, fungus, and insects) would quickly infest the ground level of a building. Also, the water table is generally so close to the surface that it would be difficult to prevent underground rooms from flooding. There’s also a spiritual component to the architecture, as Shinto belief systems tend to associate anything inside the earth with an otherworld of rot and impurity. This otherworld is a necessary space for the cycle of life, but it’s not a good place for humans to be under any circumstances. In terms of its spiritual utility, one of the purposes of a shrine is to demarcate the boundaries between worlds.

So a Shinto shrine would not have a basement. But if it did. The horrors of Kuro would definitely happen there.

I admire how Kuro explores the idea of transgressing an extremely powerful taboo. Between the lost-media stylization of the game’s retro graphics and the grotesque quality of its writing, the player definitely gets a sense of wandering through a place they’re not supposed to be. Kuro is a short and simple game, but it’s very well-observed and surprisingly effective.

And Roger

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

And Roger (on Steam here) is a high-interactivity visual novel that takes about an hour to finish. You play as Sofia, a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s who is being cared for at home by her husband Roger. Through simple (and occasionally not-so-simple) button-sliding minigames, the game models Sofia’s memory loss and cognitive impairment, as well as Roger’s kind and loving assistance.

Perhaps this might change in the near future, but we’re not yet at a point where the effects of Alzheimer’s can be reversed, and there’s really only one way that Sofia’s story can end. Appropriately enough for the narrative perspective, the game also features some tense and anxiety-inducing gameplay sequences. If you have a sense that this game isn’t for you, you should probably trust your gut instinct. Still, I’m happy that And Roger exists, and I’m grateful for the experience of playing it.

The first chapter of And Roger plays like a horror story. Sofia, who sees herself as a young girl, wakes up in a strange bed and finds herself trapped in an apartment by a man she doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t respond to her questions and instead attempts to convince her to take pills that he doesn’t bother to explain. As Sofia, the player must navigate a series of stealth sequences to leave the apartment without being noticed by the man, who is actually her husband Roger.

The second chapter is much warmer. Sofia’s memory has improved somewhat, and she can now remember herself as a younger woman. In Sofia’s memories, the game asks the player to trace the connections that form between her and her future husband Roger with interactive lines that run opposite to one another before finally running in parallel. In the present, Roger’s lines help to bridge the gaps between Sofia’s lines as they cook and eat together.

The third and final chapter is more bittersweet. Despite occasional moments of lucidity, Sofia still has trouble eating, brushing her teeth, and doing laundry, and the game’s brilliantly unintuitive interface communicates her confusion with painful accuracy. Roger reveals that he has moments of weakness as well, but he continues to guide Sofia through her daily life with love and kindness.

In the end, though, Roger is only human, as is the player. The simple touchscreen slider minigames necessary to progress the story become progressively more difficult, and you’re going to fail eventually.

Though I talk about its gameplay elements being “difficult,” And Roger is designed in such a way that you don’t need a walkthrough, just a certain degree of patience. Nevertheless, seemingly simple gameplay tasks like connecting pairs of dots and dragging puzzle pieces to their proper places can be surprisingly complicated given the limitations imposed. The gameplay and the story are so tightly bound together that these tasks never feel extraneous; rather, the gameplay conveys precisely what words would be unable to express. Even when And Roger’s story had me completely in its grip, a part of me still admired how well-designed this game is.

A somewhat discordant element, at least for me, is the characters’ Christianity. The game ends with a thematic epigraph from the Book of Corinthians, and Roger and Sofia frequently invite each other to pray. Given that And Roger is a Japanese indie game (albeit an indie game backed by a major publishing corporation), I suppose it makes sense for its creator, who goes by the pseudonym Yona, to express the centrality of his religious identity in the story he’s trying to tell.

At the same time, I didn’t really get a sense of what Sofia and Roger’s Christian faith means to them. I also have to admit that I found it upsetting that they’re so completely alone in their struggle. Where are the other members of their church? Where is their pastor? Why do none of their fellow Christians extend a helping hand? Since they’ve been (seemingly?) abandoned by their Christian community in their hour of greatest need, is their faith not tested?

As someone who doesn’t take Christian faith for granted, I found its inclusion in this game to be both shallow and uncomfortable. To be brutally honest, I understood Roger’s Protestant valorization of self-reliance and virtuous suffering to be profoundly toxic to himself, not to mention literally fatal to Sofia. I’m not sympathetically inclined toward religion to begin with, and I don’t personally think that And Roger casts a particularly flattering light on Protestant Christianity. 

I also question the wisdom of the game’s marketing, which treats its premise as a spoiler. End-of-life care is a heavy topic, and I think it’s a bit unfair not to give potential players a sense of what they’re getting into, especially given the cuteness of the graphics. Also, though it’s ultimately proven to be incorrect, the game’s opening implication that Sofia is a victim of child trafficking is something that could have been treated with more sensitivity at a metatextual level.

As I wrote at the beginning, though, I’m grateful for what I learned during the experience of playing this game, especially concerning what Sofia’s husband Roger is going through. I feel like I never had a good real-life model for what elder care is supposed to look like, but And Roger gifted me with a glimpse into the sort of life experience that I wish I could have gotten with my grandparents.

Even for people with more life experience, it’s always good to have another perspective, especially in the form of a such a thoughtfully scripted narrative. Despite its difficult subject matter and its slightly awkward handling of religious faith, And Roger tells a very sweet and lovely story, and the gameplay mechanics do a lot of heavy lifting in telling this story with as much sympathy as possible.