Angela Barrett: Anne Frank

Sometimes posts have an eerie way of reflecting current events, and this one is no exception. Anne Frank is an illustrated biography for children by Josephine Poole, which tells the story of Anne’s short life with tenderness and clarity. “The story of Anne Frank begins with an ordinary little girl, someone you might sit next to in class. She had large, expressive eyes and dark, curly hair.”

It covers her birth in 1929, the family’s friendship with Miep Gies, their move to Amsterdam, the two-year concealment in the secret annex, her growing feelings for Peter van Pels, and – inevitably – the family’s discovery and Anne’s death of typus in 1945.

Details on the historical context are sparse, choosing instead to focus on Anne and her experiences, but there is mention of the reparations Germany had to pay after World War I, the rise of Hitler, the yellow stars, and the terrible rumours of the concentration camps. Poole writes with a light touch, knowing that her audience is comprised of children who may be learning about the Holocaust for the first time, but doesn’t stint on the tragedy of Anne’s life (I mean, how could she?)

Published back in 2005, it contains chilling prescient with lines such as: “Huge crowds gathered around [Hitler]. They had no jobs, no hope. No wonder they cheered when he promised to make Germany rich and strong again!”

Legend of the Seeker: Light

It’s been extremely quiet on this blog lately, so let’s get back to Legend of the Seeker.

This was very much a Sequel Episode to its immediate predecessor, picking up right where Resurrection left off, but it also tries to pack a lot into its runtime: splitting Richard up from the rest of the group, introducing a large number of new characters, allowing Kahlan and Cara to do some bonding, and giving one of the show’s most important guest stars a bittersweet send-off.

Links and Updates

IT’S TRAILER TIME (in rough order of how much I’m looking forward to each one).

Woman of the Month: Maggie Vera

Maggie Vera from Charmed (2018)

I always try to have a spooky-themed Woman of the Month for October, and since I went with Prue Halliwell from Charmed last year, it only seemed appropriate to finally catch up with the 2018 reboot and select someone from the new trio of sisters. And ironically, I’m going with the youngest instead of the eldest.

As the baby of the family, Maggie Vera obviously has a lot in common with her Halliwell counterpart Phoebe. She has a passive power, struggles with her education, and is possessed with an irresponsible streak. But in stark contrast to Phoebe, she’s the most hesitant of her sisters when it comes to embracing her identity as a witch, being more concerned with parties, socializing and boys. As a freshman at Hilltowne University, most of her storyline (at least in season one) is about how she prioritizes pledging to a sorority over her duties as a Charmed One.

Naturally, her arc is about becoming less vapid and more responsible – though honestly, she’s so open and warm that the writers clearly struggle to turn her enthusiasm for the more frivolous things in life into a flaw. As such, one of my favourite sisterly moments is when Mel apologizes for making fun of her desire to be initiated into Kappa, admitting that she didn’t realize how much it meant to her. Why shouldn’t Maggie want nice/fun/silly things?

Admittedly, her storyline (so far) isn’t that interesting – she basically just has a mutual crush on the boyfriend of her sorority sister, which leads to an inevitable love triangle. But as a character she inches out in front of the other sisters as my favourite for one reason: the difference between her power and Phoebe’s, which ends up being the key to her personality. Unlike her predecessor, she doesn’t have premonitions, but rather the ability to read people’s minds while touching them, essentially making her an empath.

And this ends up being her most important contribution to the trifecta of witches: not the analytical mind of Macy or the righteous sense of justice in Mel, but her emotional intelligence and generosity of spirit.

Plus she’s the epitome of a Cute Witch. Just look at how cute she is!

Reading/Watching Log #82

I had two weeks off this month and tried to stuff as many books and films and shows into it as I could (though I still managed to take plenty of long walks as well). And finally, not only has daylight savings started, but it’s warm enough to get sunburned! I’m so ready for summer down in this part of the world.

Due to my colleague’s constant encouragement (to put it nicely) I dragged myself through two seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, as well as two more Babysitters Club books, the end of The Flash’s sixth season, and the last lot of period dramas that I set out for myself last month.

And books – plenty of books, three of which (by complete coincidence) feature a young woman on the cover looking over her right shoulder. Must be a favourite composition of cover artists.

It’s difficult to believe we’re nearing the end of another year; in some ways it still feels like we’re coming out of the Covid fugue, but here’s to a long and hot summer...

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown

There is really no underestimating how many hours of my childhood was spent playing computer games designed by the folks at Sierra On-Line. King’s Quest, Space Quest, Conquests of Camelot, The Colonel’s Bequest, The Black Cauldron... truly, they made up a massive part of my early years, and have had an indelible impact on my imagination. I vividly recall writing stories about these games at school, and places like Daventry and Tamir provided settings for most of my day-dreams and dress-up games (I had a red dress that was referred to as the “Rosella dress”).

They also piqued an early interest in Greek mythology and Arthurian legend, and I was writing King’s Quest fanfiction before I ever knew what fanfiction was! Sometimes I didn’t even play the games as intended, but simply made up my own stories within their virtual worlds.  “Computer nights” were an event at my house, in which various family members would attempt to play together, and I well remember the thrill of moving ahead in the game after solving a puzzle... so perhaps we can also credit them for my enjoyment of riddles and problem-solving.

In short, these games were a formative part of my childhood, and I can draw a straight line between them and my interests as an adult, from the broad enjoyment of fantasy, to the more specific fascination I have with fairy-tale crossovers and the underlying interconnectedness of myths and legends (after all, King’s Quest is a series of games in which Greek gods, fairy tale creatures, characters from the Arabian Nights, and Count Dracula all rub shoulders).

Aside from my own fond childhood memories, these games – particularly King’s Quest – hold a place of honour in the history of computer gaming, having been vehicles for the period’s cutting-edge technology in visuals and sound. Sure, they all look incredibly primitive these days, but back in the eighties simple things like figures that could walk behind obstacles on the screen or follow simple commands such as “swim” or “talk to...” had never been experienced before.

(So it’s ironic that I have zero interest in gaming these days, but was right there on the ground-floor of some of the industry’s most innovative and important leaps forward).

Let’s start at the beginning, and in doing so introduce you to Roberta Williams, one of my idols and a pioneer in the gaming industry.

Roberta and her husband Ken

Born in 1953 and raised in rural California, Robert Williams née Heuer was a lover of fairy tales and storytelling, though it wasn’t until she was a married woman and mother that the opportunity to weld these interests with her husband’s career in computer programming became apparent. Though both had a background in software design, it wasn’t until Ken Williams introduced his wife to the industry’s earliest text adventures that Roberta’s imagination took hold of her. In her own words:

“As I puzzled my way through those early text adventures, I had a sense of exhilaration and a heavy dose of computer adventure addiction. I was also deeply disappointed with the lack of graphics and plot. I read and daydreamed about a lot of fairy tale books and kid adventure novels while growing up... so I sat down at my kitchen table and mapped out my own adventure while watching the kids. Three weeks later I handed a script to Ken. He wasn’t impressed until he saw I wanted pictures in the game; then he created the tools to make the art and programmed the logic while I did the art, wrote the text, and QA-ed the game. That was the beginning of my career as a game designer, the beginning of Sierra On-Line, and the beginning of an industry.”

Now look, I’m going to choose my words carefully here. Although there were thousands of people working in the computing industry at this time, and it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint who exactly did what, when and where, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Roberta Williams essentially invented adventure gaming, if we define that term as a computer game that has a story, graphics, and an interactive setting. That’s what she brought to the table back in 1980 with Mystery House, so whatever bits and pieces you want to accredit to other designers and consultants (of which there were many) there’s really no minimizing her contribution to the history of gaming.

Mystery House was a murder-mystery inspired by the boardgame Clue and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, in which the player has to solve a murder before they themselves are killed, which was followed by the more fantasy-based Wizard and the Princess (1980) that required the player to save a kidnapped princess (and would later be folded into King’s Quest continuity with the reappearance of the Land of Serenia in King’s Quest V, where this game is set).

Next came Mission Asteroid (also in 1980) and Time Zone (1982) the latter of which was the largest game on the market, released with an unprecedented six double-sided floppy disks (before this, most games only required one) and containing 1,500 areas (or screens) to explore. According to Wikipedia, it is also the first example of a modern game-development model in which programmers, artists, and designers were each tasked with different responsibilities in a team larger than a few people.

What began as a pet-project for Roberta Williams had become a series of worldwide bestsellers, leading Ken Williams to quit his job to focus on what was obviously the future of computer programming: GAMES, with his wife at the helm of a ship heading into uncharted waters.

Which brings us to what this post is really about: the King’s Quest series. Originally commissioned by IBM as a showpiece for their newest home computer, the first of the King’s Quest series was conceived as a blend of fairy tales that could be experienced as an interactive game. Although the IBM PCjr was a failure, the game became a bestseller when it was ported to other platforms, with cutting-edge technology such as sixteen colours and the ability for the player character to move in front of, behind, or over other objects on the screen.

Okay, it sounds ludicrous by today’s standards, but at the time it was ground-breaking, and set the standard for all the graphic adventure games that were to follow.

So now we get to it, my opportunity to talk about the King’s Quest series in its entirety, and in great detail. Huzzah! I’ve had some time off from work, and revisiting these games has been a highlight, not only for the nostalgia quotient, but in giving me added appreciation for what these games contributed to my childhood as well as the gaming industry in its entirety.

Review: Toy Story Toons

Oh dear, it’s been well over a year since I last wrote something about the Toy Story franchise (which was a post on Toy Story That Time Forgot in December 2020) and since then a whole other movie in the series has been released – though to rather mixed reception.

Having discussed the original trilogy, the Buzz Lightyear cartoon of the early noughts, and the two holiday specials (Halloween and Christmas) it’s now time to turn my attention to what’s known as the Toy Story Toons: three short films set post-Toy Story 3 and pre-Toy Story 4 in Bonnie’s house. Together forming a neat little mini-trilogy, they are Hawaiian Vacation, Small Fry and Partysaurus Rex, originally released over 2011 – 2012 at the start of the theatrical releases of various Pixar/Disney films.

Though they may be short, they each contain the seed of creative storytelling innovation that’s so prevalent throughout this franchise. Well... two out of three do. Small Fry has a fun premise, but fails to utilize it in the devastatingly clever way you’d expect from a Toy Story short, though Hawaiian Vacation and Partysaurus Rex make up for it by being instant classics: perfect gems of comedy and colour.  

Their run-time isn’t long enough for the extended parent/child metaphors of the films, or even the fun parodies and character portraits of the two holiday specials (which showcased Trixie and Jessie respectively). Rather, they just have fun with the concept of how small sentient toys negotiate a giant world. How do you fake a holiday getaway with the limited resources of a child’s bedroom? And what does bath-time look like through the eyes of a toy? Someone at Pixar said: “what if it was like a rave?” and I think that’s genius.