2019.01.10
Grief, I’ve learned, is really love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot give. The more you loved someone, the more you grieve. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes and in that part of your chest that gets empty and hollow feeling. The happiness of love turns to sadness when unspent. Grief is just love with no place to go.
I'm probably late to the party on this, but Monster Factory (as recommended by Movies with Mikey) is so far up my alley it has its own onramp - LOL funny in the original sense.
Basically, slam the best of Mystery Science Theater together with video games (ideally open-worldish ones with extensive 'build your own characters') and this the result - where MST3K is limited to being a frame for a static piece of work, Monster Factory leverages the inherit feedback loop of games where the player can interact with and change the course of the action, beyond merely interpreting.
The only one I've fully watched is Saints Row 3:
Part of the shtick there is their monster child creation is against crimes, so they play a bit of that "try to do the game obeying all laws" thing, but Saints Row, even more so than GTA, really isn't that kind of game...
In general I love "make your own game within the game" My favorite personal example was in Mario Double Dash, where the Dry Dry Desert has a wandering tornado hazard. One time my estranged buddy EB and I decided not to finish, but instead invented a game where you get as close as possible to the twister without being sucked in. Of course, parking just outside the danger zone was just an invitation to be nudged in by the other player... I should make that idea into a multiplayer game.
Never, ever give up. Don't give up. Don't allow it to happen. If there's a concrete wall in front of you, go through it. Go over it. Go around it. But get to the other side of that wall.