Blogs of the Round Table

May 2018: Haste

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Whoa, this month got started very quickly, didn’t it? Jeez, what a mess. I was in such a rush to finish last month’s festivities, the beginning of this month came storming up zipped right by me. In all this hurry, I’ve had to pick up some haste to catch up. So with this Blogs of the Round Table, let’s embrace that a bit. Let’s not make this a garden variety roundup, let’s go turbo.

So, let’s do something different this month. How about we emphasize the shorter works. For this turbo-BoRT, let’s talk about haste. Shoot for works between 250-500 words, and for bonus points, also focus in on first impressions or perhaps how initial opinions can change over the course of playing. If you want to squeeze some more length out of yours, that’s okay, but try to squeeze down your ideas to quick, bite-sized criticism. Let’s do this quick!

Games as a medium are often dominated by the social movements that follow them. New releases are often on the hearts and minds of players shortly after or during their release, and critics and players alike are often in a huge hurry to pick up the newest titles, the fresh releases, and rush to be on the pulse of the cultural conversation. So, let’s talk about games and haste. Are we as a community too hasty to jump on new bandwagons? Are games sometimes impatient and blow past good ideas for the sake of innovation? Are you hasty to finish a game to get to the new thing? Or do games sometimes feel like their design encourages haste, often at the expense of what could work?

We’re well into this month, and we’re also going fast, so remember that our deadline is, as always, the end of the month, April 31st. Because we’re going for bite-sized, really put some consideration into formatting, and even if you do shoot for a longer work, perhaps break it into headers or chapters to give the feel of breezy reads! Once you’ve locked your neat thoughts in, you can email your submissions or tweet them to @NukeLassic or @critdistance with the #BoRT hashtag. And feel free to check the hashtag to see if there are any writings you want to make yours in response to, or perhaps build up on. And, as always, happy blogging!
Suggestions for 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 and has been written specially for BoRT or up to one month prior.
  • Think of the BoRT topic as a starting point. Connecting your piece to the topic can be as creative as you want. We’re interested in both writing and play, so be playful when you approach the round table!
  • This BoRT post is the home of the discussion. Regular reading of other BoRT participants isn’t required, but highly encouraged. Feel free to browse the #BoRT tag on twitter to see if there are any words submitted already that you could use as a springboard for your own posts.
  • As a knight of the round table we encourage you to leave a comment on a blog to which you respond with a link to the response piece and give the original writer a ‘right of reply’. Keep the conversation going!
  • If your work contains potentially disturbing content, please include a suitable warning at the start.
  • 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. However, we can’t include paywalled material in the round-up without access to the article text or a transcript.