THE DIGITISER2000 FRIDAY LETTERS PAGE

Sorry Digi has been a bit light this past fortnight. Doing the Kickstarter backer pics - not to mention replying to dozens upon dozens of emails, Kickstarter, Twitter and Facebook messages - was significantly more time-consuming than I'd anticipated. Hopefully some sort of normal service will be resumed soon... though there might be weeks - as I move forwards with Found Footage and my day job picks up momentum in the early part of next year - where Digi's slightly quieter than usual.

I won't neglect Digi2000 entirely, obviously. Many of you continue to - very generously - support me on Patreon, and through buying merch. As far as I'm concerned... Digi is still my other day job (aside from my actual day job).

​That said... the unexpected success of the Kickstarter has demonstrated for me the power of crowd-funding to potentially, one day, be able to work more exclusively on personal projects - of the sort you all seem to want me to be doing. Book next year then?

​Anyhow. I've got a headache and eyestrain from making millions of little pixel pictures. So let's crack on.

If you would like to appear on next week's page, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone - please send your emails for next week to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com

QUIET
Do you ever have quiet weeks where you don't get any letters, and have to make them up? Are you making this letter up right now? What about the replies to the letters? Do you make them up too? Where does it end? Is the rest of the site just made up by you?

That is all. I read you every day.
Ms F. Akename

I don't make up the letters. Press reveal to see who does.

REVEAL:

LOUD
Last week, a young man called Eean begged for the Star Letter to return. Mr Biffo claimed that he couldn't afford prizes, yet mere seconds later was complaining about a larder stuffed with unloved McCoy's cheese and onion crisps!  Do you see? 

Digitiser's star letter sponsored by McCoy's cheese & onion leftovers. The Star Letter wins a packet that can be collected from a bench of Mr Biffo's choice. I've typed all this and see someone had already said this in last week's comments. Honestly,  this letter writing is harder than it looks.
Andrew Buchan

Why would anyone want to win a packet of cheese & onion McCoy's? That's like rewarding someone by putting a weird bum smell in their mouth.

QUIET AGAIN
I was a huge fan of PC Zone in the 90s - so I'd be interested to hear if you knew any of the journalists there, or had any good or bad opinions of the mag.

Keep up the good work! 
Stoo

Uh... I think I may have written for PC Zone back in the day, but can't entirely remember. I knew Charlie Brooker quite well, obviously. And some of the others I must've crossed paths with. I do recall going to their office once... so, presumably I did write for them.

I did a lot of freelance stuff for various magazines in the late-90s/early-00s. And I have former Sega Power editor Andy Lowe to thank for giving me my first ever freelance gig. That was the point at which I actually felt like a journalist, and something for which I'm forever in his debt.

NOT AS QUIET
I just wanted to say congratulations on such a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign. Maths isn't my strongest subject but I do know that £17,000+ is at least double what you were asking for, which is mightily impressive.

How do your family feel about the whole thing? Are they really into the idea or are they simply bemused by it all? Er, that's it really. Good luck with Found Footage, I can't wait to see how it turns out.
DrDagless

My eldest daughter - who suffered through the recent Digifest - doesn't find any of what I do funny, but my other two kids rather like it, and have a similar sense of humour to me. My partner loves it all, thank God, and my stepdaughters are kind of too young to really know what it is that I'm doing (beyond writing for kids TV). My nephew Daniel is my only family member who I know reads Digi religiously. Hello, Dan!

I think some of my mates read this, mind. Though given I'm usually too busy to ever see any of them, it's hard to be certain whether they ever find some of it funny. Some of them did very kindly back me on Kickstarter, which was a pleasant surprise.

BIT LOUDER
I was suprised by the Brown Mirror, but it did get me thinking... I wonder what your take on Star Wars would be like. Biffo Wars: A Digitiser Saga sprang to mind. So what is on the other end on Brannigan's Vortex?
Roaming Nicholas

Press reveal to find out.

REVEAL:

LOUDER STILL
Well, that was an interesting week. So, I went looking for Mr. T's take on the situation.

Nothing.

He's not dead. On the 4th of November he wrote: "Chicago, our time has come. Enjoy, Celebrate, Dance, Have lots of Fun and make some Noise! But don’t act a Fool! Grrrrr..."

Since then? Nothing.

I can only conclude from this dignified silence that he is busy preparing his bid to become the next President of the United States.
David W

"We're going to build a bin. It'll BE A big BEAUTIFUL BIN. Make BINS great again" etc.

REALLY QUIET... LIKE ALMOST SILENT
The kids that walk past my house when the school closes are a real noisy lot. The other day I tried to get my own back by throwing some discounted fireworks out of my bedroom window at them. I failed in my attempt insofar as I was arrested for my actions. I got away without charge as I told the police in the station that I was merely throwing them back out of my window, because they had thrown them up to it.

I told my Smoking Brother about this and his reply was "Do you think you're Andy Kaufman or something?"

I don't think he knows what he's talking about most of the time, but I'm intrigued as to where he fished up Kaufman's name from; my Smoking Brother is a bloody idiot.

Also, have you played Dropsy? I bought it earlier in the week and the graphical dialogue bubbles really frustrate me - but that might be because I was in a bad mood when I played it.

I am fit and strong and that is all.
Gaming Mill

Isn't Dropsy another word for oedema? That doesn't sound very fun.

SSSSH! SSH-SSSSHHH...
I think the little puppet, BW, is hilarious! I like it when he’s overcome and having some kind of breakdown; that’s probably the evil professor meddling with his mind, right?

Can BW make a return?

[ ] YES
[ ] NO
[ ] PROBABLY NOT

One more thing -

[ ] WE’LL SEE

Cheerio!
Dean Boni

BW might be making a return in Found Footage... but it very much depends on whether I can find his body. I've got his head in the loft and his hair in the shed, but I've no idea where the rest of him went. I'm like a Denis Nielsen for puppets. Perhaps I ate it.

SUPER LOUD THIS TIME!
Firstly, I'd like to ask why you've never printed any of the letters I've wrote in the last few weeks; granted I've never sent you any, but that is BESIDE the point. 

Secondly, I offer my humblest apologies for being self-consciously wacky and irreverent in an attempt to conceal the fact I have nothing to say of any real value. 

Thirdly, although you are criminally - well, not until sufficient legislation is passed - unappreciated. Please keep reviewing games, as you are the only guy out there that is the right balance of enthusiastic and jaded to suit my tastes.
Kara Van Park 

Worry not. Games will still be the focus of Digi. I do apologise for the political content that has crept in here recently. These are extraordinary times, and I struggle to put on a mask when I'm writing - one way or another, even if it's stupid stuff, it comes from the heart. Such is my eternal curse.

I woke up at 3am last night, and made the mistake of disappearing down the rabbit hole, reading articles about why Brexit and Trump will lead us inevitably to nuclear war; something I used to have regular nightmares about as a teenager. Though when I did eventually get back to sleep, I had a dream about Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them. 

Anyway. That's neither here nor there. I appear to have drifted off the subject rather.

Also, thanks for the kind words. I never tire of hearing how great I am.

SO LOUD IT HURTS YOUR EARS!
Chronologically, somewhere between Bubblegun and the Biffo site/BoB there was another attempt to resurrect the Digi brand, that I recall tried to stick to exactly the same word limit per page as Teletext, plus it was behind a paywall. What was the origin of that, who was behind it and what exactly caused it to stop? I seem to recall you only wrote for it at weekends and it wasn't really your project.

​Any chance of "A History of Biffo"? I'd buy it.
Glyn Heaviside

You're thinking of Stuart Campbell's Digiworld. The origin of it was me saying to Stuart that I missed Digi, so he put together something with the help of Kieron Gillen and Jonathan Nash, on the understanding that I'd work on it. As it turns out, I only did one column, as my life was a bit all over the place at the time, and I pulled out. Which understandably pissed off Stuart. But we made up. 

Chronologically, Bubblegun pre-dates all that, as I was doing it alongside Digitiser for a couple of years.

A History of Biffo? Well, I did a sort of history of Digitiser last year. That felt terribly self-indulgent at the time, but it seemed popular. I had considered fleshing it out into a book. But... well... what do you lot want to see in a book from me?

SILENT AS A GHOST
It seems like I must be the only remaining person on Twitter that hasn't contributed to the Found Footage campaign, and for that I feel compelled to apologise.

​The thing is though... I don't get it. I mean, I should be all over it, but it's somehow lost on me. I read Digi regularly, and I've been a Patreoner for over a year, but... yeah. I dunno. I hope that it works out alreet, and I'll probably end up watching it. So for that I'm apologising in advance. When you launch the campaign for the book, though, I'll be first on the list.

Good luck!
RC

Thanks for sharing that, you massive sod. Not really. It's fine. Really. It is. I know Found Footage isn't going to be for everyone. 484 people backed me, but I've got 4,600 Twitter followers, so you're not alone in not getting it. It would be weird if everyone did. Also: I hate you.

BIG, CRUNCHY NOISE
Mass Effect Andromeda looks good. I enjoyed the original trilogy and still feel that ME2 is one of the best games ever. I do, however, think that the setting and plot (what little has been revealed) demonstrates how much they painted themselves into a corner with ME3's awful ending.  It has to be one of the biggest mistakes in game storytelling. Can you suggest any others?
John Whyte

Games with bad storytelling? They're legion. For me, I switch off the second there's a cutscene. That's the epitome of bad storytelling in what should be an interactive experience. Compare Titanfall 2's storytelling to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. One keeps the narrative within the game. The other repeatedly drags you out of it with five minutes of faff and cutscenes between every burst of gameplay. It makes me care less.

NO NOISE WHATSOEVER
Recently, I've been suffering from a series of headaches. Thankfully, our favourite Swedish flat pack emporium has just the cure.
Paul

I don't really know what to say to this.

STILL NO NOISE
So now that the Kickstarter campaign is coming to an end, are you planning on doing a runner with the money? You could start a llama farm in Peru under the alias of Señor Biffo.
Stringfellow Hawke

I've already done a runner. Press reveal to see where I've gone.

REVEAL: