The humdrum of a burnt metal assembly. Cast-iron frenzy, staining hands like Cheeto crumbs. Helluva ride from Oslo to Norway. From Glasgow to first grade. To ride a bus or drink champagne? Where’s the wonder in big dreams and marmalade? That humdrum of metal, burning wild and wasting. Growling over cardboard signs screaming. Baking a pie filled with all kinds of texture. All minds on the tastes like mom used to make’s. Buffalo Wild Wings is just around the corner, but some want their wings grown at home. To spread butter only to cover it in down. To drown the pancakes in sap stains. That drum hums a metal tune, ancient and ailing. Pink Floyd rolls off the tongue funny; like lemonade or Bruce Wayne; like Jessie James and steady aims; like phantasms and chardonnay. Bully pulpit shocks the world today! Brand new greetings pass through Congress; They sound a bit like a blue jay’s mating cry. You remember this from your fanatical art teacher crying at the sound over VHS static. Vicious validation from an apathetic audience. After class, he told you how stupid she looked. How immature it was to cry about the simple things, you told him in double speak. In towns, we seek to find a journey. A path to wander down until the ground claims us. In towns, we hear the humdrum. The metal burning in your father’s workshop back home. The calls for reunion.
Tag: Plate of Soup blog
burns red in the splinter
Winter blues make old cartoons feel worn
again. Shaking stews in those most desparate
to escape. Most helpless in the weight of the
world rearing its ugly head past the parapets of
a child's snowfort. Banks of snow and softer
things. Breaking notes in the songs he sings. Listing
grows from the hayfever. Clawing past the branches
tangled to find a new thing to bask in. Humming
lights and masked gunmen, shooting at
anything loved, lost and loveless. Buys another
rifle from his friend in Waco. Makes another
tend to the way they live. The habits.
The connections. The severance.
Shock. Horror. Another chance to beg someone
to make it stop. Another chance to shift responsibility.
Another chance to slaughter. Another chance to watch
the slaughter. Another chance to breathe relief
that it's not me.
My dog's nose turns brown in the winter.
I found this out this morning. Discovery.
Recovery. Reprieve.
I can't. feel safe. in greed.
I want to. find peace in. the world weaved
but the solution
the solution, it's
it's hard to hear over
the static and cannons and cackling.
the panicked ones painted erratic.
the caring ones battered in attics.
the only ones left finding rights to turn to.
breaking their backs to the guns they hold true.
running for fun when the word is with you,
punishing those who don't fit the worldview.
The sun wakes from slumber to see the blood's still
dripping. The gun's still gripped by
a disillusioned underdog.
The plan still gripped by a rogue actor. The hands still
gripped by the devout donors,
never letting go to find an answer.
Gun violence is a vicious cycle. Guns run this country. It's gross, it's immoral and the only solution we seem to express is "praying for victims and families" and moving on. I hope one day we can stop this and put this thought and care into finding real solutions.
I hope this poem expresses my message well, and I hope to one day to live in a world that's at least a little more peaceful.
Thanks for reading.
sillouh-walk
Perhaps pools and parishioners have something in common. Swimming in deep or deepen the swim. Walking the edge to avoid falling or falling to avoid the edge. It’s okay, I know I’m a lot to handle. Here’s some oven mitts and a long ladle. Stir with your hands and carry me like a leash around a wild one. Tuck me into bed at night knowing full well I’m not there, but out haunting someone infinitely sharper and more gullible. The name of the game’s lost on me, but it rhymes with sillouh-walk. Perhaps tools are invented to be used. Twist the knob off the door and fit your wrist right in there. If anything breaks, then that’s just added convenience. Forego pain and grit your teeth ‘til they shatter. A cold breath on the flab of your elbow. The callous patch means you only hear a deeper wind. Fill my cap with tea knowing full well the honey you forgot to buy makes me reactionless. Drink the cigarettes as if forgetting the message your father’s lungs sent you. -Kevin Flors Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, this poem is in similar style and theming to my upcoming collection, Jack of Stars. Follow this blog, my Twitter, or my Amazon Author’s page to stay tuned on when it releases this December.
My Experience with Self-Publishing Houses
Self-publishing is a scary yet exciting prospect. From going straight onto Amazon’s KDP to pursuing a plan with self-publisher houses, making the right decision on your manuscript and where you want to take it can be a bit overwhelming. I wanted to share my experience with self-publishers for my upcoming collection and share with you why I made the decision I made.
For starters, I reached out to three different options, who I will not name for the fire I am about to unleash (just kidding, it’s not so bad). To find these houses, you can search on Google for “publishers of x” (in my case, poetry) and find a few databases that can determine best fits. I heard back nearly immediately from all three that I had reached out to and was quickly thrust into email chains and phone calls. It was a very rushed experience from the jump.
The three options I picked from each seemingly had a multitude of options to also narrow down. One offered 5-6 different plans and most shockingly, all offered quotes immediately. Now, one key difference between traditional publishers and self-publishing houses is the way authors are paid (or rather pay) for services. Instead of a collaboration, it’s more of an investment. Many offered 100% royalties, but upfront costs felt excessive.
The one option I was considering the most was ranged into four digits (as almost every option I received was), but even this had it’s problems. Firstly, as with the other options, all three houses “approved” of my manuscript. Personally, I’m not sure how rigorous this testing was, but I did receive answers fairly quickly, with the exception of one taking around 24-48 hours. You might be thinking approvals are a good thing, right? Well, yes and no. It means that they are willing to post your work…if your willing to pay and shoulder all the risks/losses to come.
My collection is young adult, 18+ and most detrimentally, poetry. These are all signs of an exodus from mass market appeal, and yet all three approved with only minor points (or even no points) of constructive critique at this initial stage. The offers ranged from straight up publishing on Amazon (something very possible as an independent publisher) to luxury marketing/PR offers that were exorbitant in retail (but in the case I’m referring to, discounted heavily).
The main point of advice I’d give to aspiring writers looking to publish is to be careful. Really think about how well your manuscript can appeal to mass audiences and take advantage of the resources houses like this can give. Go into it not looking to bend, but instead looking for the perfect fit or none at all. There’s no reason to push an oval into a circle; if it’s not perfect, back off.
That’s why I decided to roll with purely self-publishing through Amazon for my next book. Sure, it’s more work and time needed for promo, setup and all things needed to ensure the book is publishable to begin with. But, it’s also free or significantly cheaper than houses who have to pay for the folks they have in house, plus profit. I don’t think these houses are scammers or crooks. Far from it, and I think people may disagree with me here. But I do think they oversell their services, and I do think, unless you absolutely need services like this, to avoid them when you can’t take FULL advantage of their offerings AND think breaking-even or profit is likely.
Hope this helps those looking to publish but don’t have the pedigree for an agent to partner you up with more established and collaborative publisher structures. Feel free to reach out to me @florsjkevin on Twitter or comment below with any questions/special cases you may have.
Have a great rest of your day, and stay tuned on my new collection, coming out December 2022.
The Copycat Nature of the Mobile Gaming Industry (Follow up)
I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about mobile gaming again, but it is such an interesting topic for me, so hopefully this interest transfers to the reader. The amount of people who play mobile games is astronomically larger then the community of conventional gamers, so its also nice to hit more bases of the population. Yet, with this astronomical population comes games which mostly contain microscopic differences.
The photo above is proof of this, and was my inspiration to create this article on such short notice. The fact is, many games on mobile stores are imitations of previous successes. King is a great example of this, with their many match 3 games, which all play the same with little change. The many rip-offs of Clash of Clans, Crossy Road, and, most notoriously, the Flappy Bird clones. Now, this may seem like a surprise to some, but, from a business standpoint, it makes perfect sense to recreate apps that have reached major success, instead of creating new, original ideas that may not be, for lack of a better term, approved by the public. What’s more surprising, to me, is the success these games have. Here’s a few examples of these successes:
Supercell (CoC- 100 million downloads) “Inspired”
Clash of Lords 2– 10 million downloads
Lords Mobile– 1 million downloads
Castle Clash: Age of Legends– 50 million downloads
Clash of Spartan– 1 million downloads
Crossy Road (50 million downloads) “Inspired”
Crossy Heroes- 1 million downloads
Crossy Creeper: Smashy Skins– 1 million downloads
Angry Birds (100 million downloads) “Inspired”
Knock Down- 10 million downloads
Angry Frogs- 1 million downloads
Angry Hero- 100 thousand downloads
Additional Cloned Games
Don’t tap the white tiles (highest clone-5 mil)
Subway Surfers (highest clone- 10 mil)
Pou (highest clone- 10 mil)
Fruit Ninja (highest clone- 10 mil)
Hill Climb Racing (highest clone- 10 mil)
I hope you get the point that these clone games are really successful. And I want to state that I do NOT want to be judgmental of these companies, however I can’t stop being critical towards the public for inspiring this behavior from developers. Great, original mobile games never become as popular as these clones for reasons partially unclear to me. I think it has to do with the overall repetitiveness of some greater games, like Angry Birds, and a desire to relive the original experience with a fresh appearance, which is appeased by a game like Angry Frogs. Speaking of Angry Birds, they are, hands down, the greatest at avoiding this problem, with their many recreations of the Angry Birds game.
This practice of taking inspiration from other successful games will still work so long as people still download these clone games. Even Supercell is guilty of this with Hay Day, a Farmville clone. And Farmville, a clone of Happy Farm. Again, I do not want to sound condescending towards the developers, for this is one of the only ways to become successful in the industry. This or paying lots of money for advertisements. Hopefully, this pattern changes in the future, but these changes will be a challenge to implement, especially with the market growing as big as it has.
Thanks for reading. Heres the song. Also, I want to shoutout this mobile game titled The Greedy Cave. Really original for mobile platforms and I don’t believe it is a clone of any mobile game. Check it out, its a lot of fun. And I promise, no more mobile stuff for a while.
Heres a small gallery of copied games for some good laughs:
The Factions of Mobile Gaming: My Thoughts on the Mobile Gaming Craze
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT written by any psychology major. Its just a person, myself, stating what I have observed from mobile games and gamers, along with my own personal experiences with mobile gaming. This information is, therefore, subjective.
For those unaware, mobile gaming has become increasingly popular and, more importantly, profitable. Multi-billion companies (yes, BILLION) like King and Supercell have yet to make a single game that hasn’t been for mobile users. Hell, Supercell has only had three games until the recent release of Clash Royale (which was no pushover title either). These companies, among many others, have learned what the average user wants in a game, and have exploited it in such a way for their financial benefit.
The key point in many mobile games is the competitive nature of the users. Not all mobile users feel this way, but many are fans of competitive games. Supercell does a great job at simulating this competitive atmosphere, even though their games may not seem that competitive. Aside from HayDay, their games all feature some player versus player interaction. Granted, Clash of Clans and Boom Beach contain more of a base defense type of gameplay, but the player is the one who builds the base, technically making the games contain PvP. This competition on a global scale inspires players to go through any means to win, some to the limits of paying actual money, to be even greater.
Companies, like Supercell, also thrive in exploiting a human’s sense of achievement and usefulness to establish their mobile powerhouse. This is done through a clan system, which, again, is found in all Supercell games besides HayDay. The clan system fills a sense of meaning in playing a game. A successful “clan” system for any mobile game usually contains a few variables: a contribution/donation system to the clan, PvP within clans, and benefits built into the game which provide extra, for lack of a better term, stuff to a member of a clan. All three of these are found in games like Clash of Clans, Magic Rush: Heroes (Elex), and, to a lesser degree, Clash Royale. And this is just a small selection pool of successful mobile games with this feature.
Now, anybody who is aware of the mobile game market knows that not all games have this aspect of “teamwork.” They don’t, however, they do share this idea of obtaining self achievement and “bragging rights”. For these next few paragraphs, I will specifically be talking about King and all of their match 3 success stories. However, the specifics of the game’s analysis can be applied to a much broader range of mobile games. Now, digressions aside, King is, arguably, the most successful mobile game developer. Let me rephrase, the most profitable mobile game developer, for success is WAY more subjective, as if this piece isn’t opinionated enough.
Yes, Supercell, EA, and other mobile designers make a boatload of money just from mobile platforms. Yet, to me, King seems the most profitable, especially now with the partnership with Activision and Blizzard. King does this by making a fairly large amount of games which all have similar gameplay technicalities. And many game companies (i.e.SGN, PlayFlock, BubbleSoft, and a TON of others) copy this gameplay design and it is just as, if not more, profitable. Seriously, I challenge you to search match 3 games on the Google Play store and see just how many game developers have copied King. Now, I am NOT defending King in any way, or at least I don’t mean to. I hate King, if anything, for their lack of originality (although Alpha Betty was a unique twist). Well, their seems to be two major communities within mobile games: the competitive/cooperative multiplayer gamers, ruled by Supercell, and the casual gamers, ruled by King (pun intended).
Let me follow the above statement with the disclaimer that these two groups are MAJOR generalizations that has many exceptions. Now, this casual community of mobile gamers seem to be busier, with work or other hobbies occupying most of their day. So, these on-the-go games with fairly simple controls seem to be their perfect hookup. These players seem to be more in the demographic of people without much experience to conventional gaming (again, generalizations). The reason why I feel games like this are more profitable than, say, a game like Clash of Clans is for the demographic it targets. The majority of the players of this game have no patience to wait for stamina, lives, etc., due to aforementioned reasons. So, they spend money in order to play the game as it pertains to their busy schedules. Competitive mobile gamers tend to be able to invest more time in the game, which will cause spending as well. But, this demographic of competitive gamers are in no prevalent rush to gain resources or lives quicker, therefore becoming free-riders (a mobile gamer that spends no money on micro-transactions in game). Some games under this casual category include Puzzles and Dragons, Angry Birds, and other games which seem to have simplistic controls that are easy to learn.
So, my opinion on the “factions” of mobile gaming. As much as I want to say mobile games and free to play games will be the death of pure video game development, I equally want to say this is great for the franchise. Yes, these games may inspire great developers on consoles to move to mobile devices. To me, this growth in cheaper options will inspire great developers to make even greater games in order to make sure the consumer will have more of a reason to buy the more expensive game. Sure, we’ll have more free to play games on mobile devices, but mobile devices are also evolving their technology.To me, I think this is great for both mobile gaming communities and conventional gaming communities. However, only time can really tell.
Thanks for reading. A bit more subjective than my other posts. Hopefully, this won’t become a pattern, along with the mobile gaming pattern. I want to stop mobile gaming posts for a bit, so maybe a poem next post. I will talk about mobile gaming, however, again, for it is such an interesting topic for me not only to write but to read about. Also, its a revolution in gaming, so I feel its a must for a video gaming blog.
Here’s the song for this post. Hope to post within 7 days, but no promises. Have a good one.
(Picture is of the mobile game Tiny Dice Dungeon. Unique mobile game, but micro-transactions are absurd).
Plate of Soup 