Online magazine writing: Adventure Lantern

My first feature over 1000 words has been published in the March 2008 issue of Adventure Lantern.

It's a specialist site catering for fans of adventure games, and as far as I'm aware it's the only games site that edits, designs and e-publishes a print-style magazine on a regular basis. So I'm delighted to be a part of it. There was also the pleasant surprise of receiving my first mention in an editorial, not exactly something I'll be expecting any time soon in real-world publications.

If you're not sure what an adventure game is, don't start thinking about Tomb Raider. They're a niche but persistent group of story-led logic puzzle games that hit the mainstream in the 90s before simmering down to their present level.

My first review, of Valve's Portal, in fact only tenuously fits into the genre (if it does at all), but the way I approached every line in the piece was to focus on the aspects that an adventure player would be most interested in. Actually, despite trying to introduce a little colour and groundedness with some real-world references , I may have been a little too rigid and structured about it. Looking back (I wrote it a couple of months ago now), it seems rather more staid and plodding than it felt at the time. I'll put this one down to the learning curve of writing to fit a specialist publication, with all the extra technical details that its readers will expect compared to the reviews you'd find in the culture section of a newspaper.

This week I've been finishing up my next piece, which will be much closer to what's usually covered in the magazine, but it's been a bigger challenge. It's my first ever preview of an upcoming release, which put bluntly entails finding out things that people don't know yet. I did ‘the journalist thing’ and actually got in touch with writer and company owner Dave Gilbert to gently pester him for scraps of information. What this has taught me is that you can never do enough research before starting out on a write-up. Thankfully Mr Gilbert more than lived up to his reputation for handling press enquiries eagerly and frankly, and kindly helped me out where he could. The preview should be out in May.

●Browse the latest issues of Adventure Lantern.