It’s April! Many videogame fans are on a post-PAX or GDC comedown: I’m recovering from watching the entire Indiana Jones saga over the Easter weekend. Will this be the month when Blogs of the Round Table nukes the fridge? It’s Critical Distance‘s 4th birthday this month, so let’s hope not.
This month’s topic is ‘VINPCs’:
“Non-player characters, or NPCs, make up the bulk of interactions in many games. Sometimes they provide a mere resting place for a bullet, other times some canned dialogue, but increasingly they’re becoming more sophisticated companions capable of being worthy party members or even love interests.
This month, we’d like you to talk about a memorable experience with an NPC. It can be a good or bad one, as long as it’s worth talking about! Alternatively, if you can’t think of any memorable experiences, what aspect of a game’s systems get in the way of good NPCs?”
If you’d like some inspiration for this month’s topic, I’d recommend reading ‘Plus Five to Diplomacy’ by Bill Coberly in Five out of Ten #1. Otherwise, just go play Bioshock Infinite. If you just want to laugh at something, here’s a clip from The Simpsons Kris sent while I was writing this post.
Please email us your submissions or tweet them to @critdistance and @agbear with the #BoRT hashtag.
Don’t forget the Rules of the Round Table:
- Blogs of the Round Table is not curated. If you write it, we’ll publish it, as long as it’s connected to the topic.
- Your blog does not have to be in English. If you submit a German piece I’ll try my best to read it; if it’s another language I’ll find someone else.
- If your work contains potentially disturbing content, please include a suitable warning at the start. Use your common sense.
- You can submit as many articles as you like throughout the month, and it doesn’t matter if they are commercially published, paywalled or available for free. We will need a transcript for paywalled content to be approved.
Go forth and BoRT! No, not you, sorry. I was talking to the other person named Bort.