You may not know it, but I’m in the credits of a bunch of computer games. I’ve been playtesting games for Digital Eel for years. If you don’t know Digital Eel, you should – they make really fun games, the best of which (to date) is a game called Weird Worlds, itself the sequel to a game called Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. Both of them are micro-scale 4X games, where you can explore a galaxy in 30 minutes.

Being a playtester for an indie games studio is a lot of fun – I’ve been able to see games while they were in their early stages, and my feedback has helped to shape the final game. There’s something magical about seeing software take shape over a number of iterations, and having a dialogue with the creators of the game is a special treat.

The latest game from the Eels is Infinite Space 3, and they took to Kickstarter to make it happen. Of course I had to back it. One of the reward levels let backers name a starship captain. Of course I had to choose that one. And, of course, the name of the captain was obvious.

So when you are playing Infinite Space 3, and you get Shandar Ben Bransvik as a captain, and you want to know the story behind it, you can find it here: http://theunintentionalexpert.blogspot.com/2013/04/remembering-shandar.html