“Hello and welcome!”

These are words you might expect to hear when taking a short break while driving through some barely-inhabited, rural countryside and stumbling upon a tiny town consisting of a gas station, a diner, and a motel. Compared to the massive Internet filled with modern, urban wonders, zoxell.com is much like that quaint, innocuous, rural town. We’ll get a visitor every once in a while. Some may try a cup of coffee. Others may stay and sample the scratch pecan pie. Occasionally, we’ll have a guest stay for a bit and relax in a room at the motel. It’s not very fancy, but it is clean and comfortable. Whoever you may be and wherever you may come from, feel free to leave a comment about what brought you here!

Our origin story is rooted in a Legacy Challenge trend popular among players of EA’s The Sims several years ago. The video game series offers interesting sandbox interactions revolving around life simulation but sometimes lacks a bit of focus to remain entertaining. These legacy challenges gave players a goal – keep a Sims household going for ten generations and tell their story in a blog. Some challenges awarded points for achieving certain difficult milestones in-game. This blog started on the now-defunct Sims3Legacy.com and then migrated here.

The Barimen Legacy is a completed story that follows the adventures of a virtual family in the Sims 3 through ten generations. It is a variation of the legacy challenge where the story eventually became more important than the challenge itself. After completing the Barimen Legacy, the blog sat idle until I again picked up the Sims 3 to continue Moira McAllister’s story in Paradise with Thunderstorms. It was an ambitious project with a very complex story waiting to be told. It was too ambitious for me to complete, as it turns out. I still have the story brewing in my mind, so it may eventually see the light of day. If it does, it will be in a different format and not based on the Sims 3.

Lately, I have discovered the world of 3D rendering using Blender and Daz Studio. I’ve picked up story-telling again to share the tale of a post-apocalyptic heroine named Cedar in a serial entitled Hinterlands Cedar. Her story is uniquely mine, but the world where she lives is inspired, in part, by a few books I’d read as a kid. Cedar’s story fuels my inspiration to create 3D art – and the art, in turn, inspires the story. It’s a win-win. I may pop out of character with a post to share new techniques or skills I’ve learned in Daz or Blender.

Finally, I’ve also caught the itch to develop a visual novel in Ren’py using renders from Daz3d. It is a massive undertaking, requiring thousands of rendered images and numerous animations. It will literally take years for me to complete. However, it will sharpen my programming skills and provide yet more inspiration to continue building my skill set as a digital artist.

As for myself, I am a fifty-something father of six kids and working toward thirty years of being married to my best friend. I am a programmer by profession and spend a lot of my time volunteering with youth organizations. I am unapologetic in my traditional beliefs on many topics. You may find religious themes and commentary on traditional values but I endeavor never to come across as preachy or condescending. We each have our own ways, and that’s fine by me.

I started my life-long gaming hobby with Dungeons and Dragons when I was twelve. It has been the one thing I have always enjoyed. I played pen-and-paper games well into the ’90s until our second child was born. Gaming nights just weren’t possible anymore. So my wife and I began to play video games to fill the gap. She’s more of a puzzle and word game fan and enjoys competing against others online. I lean more toward RPG-type games. I began with The Sims but found a group of storytellers who contributed to numerous PBEM games. I did this for many years but eventually got sucked into The Sims 2 and, inevitably, the world of MMORPG. I played City of Heroes for a few years and then Fallout 4. City of Heroes has enjoyed a resurgence over the past couple of years and I can be found, these days, hanging out with my wife on the Homecoming servers.

I welcome feedback of all sorts, both good and bad. I’m reminded of an old kitschy decoration hanging on the wall in my childhood home,

Welcome
Although you’ll find our house a mess
Come in, sit down, converse
It doesn’t always look this way
Sometimes it’s even worse