It was! Really enjoyed it. The star is the animation and the visual technique, but the music was lovely too, and I was impressed that despite the fact it’s a story of a religious book, it avoided being messagey. It was so pretty I didn’t mind it being plot-light; would love to see the same animators do another film with more story substance, as the storytelling was mature and nuanced. I recommend it!

The main theme of the film is the idea that a beautiful book has the power to bring peace. In happy synchronicity, Jesse Schell’s fantastic closing keynote of the 2011 Games For Change event today also focused on the idea that communications media — especially games — have enormous power to affect behavior and bring peace and world change. It was a very moving talk; you can check out my writeup on Gamasutra right now, although I advise you to keep an eye on the Games For Change video library; I’m hoping they put video of Schell’s talk online so that you can watch it yourself.

Also new: longstanding and much-beloved online zine Insert Credit has relaunched! I read Insert Credit before I was old enough to drink, and that’s where I first heard of a dude named Brandon Sheffield, never knowing at the time that he’d be a coworker of mine nearly a decade later. It’s with great pleasure I accepted his invitation to me to contribute here and there from time to time.

For starters I join all the staff in contributing this piece as part of a huge manifesto-of-sorts on the state of games journalism. It’s not a topic I actually like talking about too much — don’t talk about making it better, just do it, is sorta how I roll — but in this case, I felt I had some new thoughts to contribute, since it’s been a while since I addressed it.

Finally, allow me to take a pause on all this positivity to direct your attention to my latest Thought Catalog piece, where I had a little time to try to talk “sense” into those dudes who are always complaining that girls don’t like them because they are “too nice.” LOGICAL FALLACY.