Hubpages

Some stuff I write gets posted on https://hubpages.com/@lukecore

I get more money for those clicks ;)

Most of my new poems are going there.

Long Live The Queen video game review

Rock Paper Shotgun did a recruitment drive in 2014. This was my application:

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At some point the Google Search Gods decided that I should see adverts for cute manga style games. At a slightly later point the advertising worked and I bought Long Live The Queen.

I am perhaps not ideally suited to the role of a 14 year old girl called Elodie, who is about to become the queen of Nova, but I took that plunge anyway. The goal is to keep young Elodie alive long enough to be crowned. This is not as easy as it sounds, and part of the fun seems to be the variety of sticky ends the lass can come to.

The game unfolds like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, with your skills levelling up via lessons and story paths affected by your decisions. 

The first run through is a minefield as you are thrown into the deep end of Nova’s political scene with little background info - you learn this by studying to upgrade your skills. Your ability to learn is in turn affected by your mood i.e. depressed, angry, cheerful, and that’s without getting into the learning boosts from changing your outfit! 

What looks on the surface to be a simple little game takes on layers of complexity as you choose to prioritise military skills over spying or economics over royal demeanour.

The seemingly random nature of events causing your death is initially frustrating until you realise that’s where they’re going with it. To get further you start to develop tactics, then throw those tactics away when you inevitably die again and try something else until you get another outcome (likely: death). That guy you threw in the dungeon? Maybe next time give that a miss.

Long Live The Queen is delightfully drawn, cheekily dark, with a lot going on under it’s cute surface.

deleted scene from this application 

As you can see there's not much video game writing in there. When I was much younger I wanted to write for Total, Mean Machines and the like - the games mags that had a sense of humour. Then I hit puberty and wanted to write for Kerrang! or NME. I wrote a music fanzine in the late 90s called FSU which was reviewed by Dan Silver in Metal Hammer who described it as "either the embodiment of the fanzine ethic or the ramblings of a remedial child", a review which remarkably tripled sales but didn't do much for my self esteem.

Luma Shop

...and sometimes i just re-write lyrics for comedy value.

This is what happens when you combine Blitzkrieg Bop with Super Mario Galaxy:

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Lu ma, luma!

Lu ma, luma!

They’re eating tasty starbits

They’re building Toad a starshroom

And sometimes selling mushrooms

The Luma Shop

Lumalee lumabop,
What they want, I don't know
They're starbit-ed up and ready to go

Wlecome to the Luma shop

Pigling

Sometime I write ridiculous songs about guinea pigs using the tunes of popular songs.

You may be familiar with Wild Thing.

This is Pigling.

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Pigling

You make my heart sing

You make everything… poopy

Pigling

Pigling, I think you’re tiny

But I wanna know for sure

Come on and wheek all night

For nomlets...