June 9th

Welcome back readers.

Around the site, Kaile’s back with the latest TMIVGV. It’s an absolutely stacked issue (the longwatches got their own section this time), so check it out!

Offsite, the Queer Games Bundle on Itch is in its fourth year now, and, it’s running through the whole of Pride Month. I’m always happy to plug this one.

This Week in Videogame Blogging is a roundup highlighting the most important critical writing on games from the past seven days.

Industry Trends

We’ll start things off this week with a spread of pieces that examine the shape and direction of the industry–the kinds of games being made, the ways we buy them, play them, talk about them, even pass them on.

• The future of gaming belongs to weird little games | PC Gamer
  Evan Lahti traces an industry shift towards greater successes for more smaller-sized and creative games.
• What Steam, GOG, and Itch.io do with your games when you die | Polygon
  Nicole Carpenter explores the legal and technical minutiae of bequeathing your backlog to your next of kin.
• Super Sapphic Ultra Modern Girl | G.URL Magazine
  Ashley Schofield surveys the state of sapphic visibility across entertainment media.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Gamer Mind | mssv + Have You Played
  Adrian Hon ruminates on Animal Well, spoiler culture, and the virtues of going in with a little context.

“The best works of art have so many moments of revelation, and are so good independent of those moments, that a little diminishment in the service of criticism and discussion and, frankly, sensible marketing is well justified. The last thing anyone wants is someone buying a game they were never going to enjoy.”

Dodge Counter

This week’s assortment of single-game selections brings together two very new titles, two older ones, and has a strong theme of design running through it.

• Nine Sols Is A Satisfying 2D Take On From Software’s Least Imitated Game | Inverse
  Robin Bea highlights Red Candle’s take on the Sekiro rhythm.
• Katana ZERO and the Mask of Death | Unwinnable
  John Sangster maps the dramatic topography of addiction in Katana Zero.
• Virtua Fighter Mini: Against all odds | Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster
  Kimimi examines smart design choices that redeem a handheld conversion that should not have worked.
• Lorelei: ruminations | Zarf Updates
  Andrew Plotkin observes a chaotic, slightly hostile synergy between Lorelei‘s plotting and puzzling.

“Its questions yanked me into thinking about the “real” story, the story behind all the metafictional layers. Wait, someone is imaginary? Someone really killed someone? I admit that I had waved it all off as a obfuscatory narrative haze, but the game wants specific answers. By asking, it created them.”

Building Better Worlds

Now let’s focus on worldbuilding, lore, and the crafting of more authentic, lived-in spaces.

• Supergiant’s Scrappier, Better Underworld | Unwinnable
  Jay Castello extols the upsides of the Downside in a cross-game examination of Supergiant’s worldbuilding.
• Intergenerational Design | Unwinnable
  Phoenix Simms reflects on food, lore, and decentering western audiences in games.

“There’s been a lot of fruitful discussion in recent years of how narratives centering non-Eurocentric or Western cultures need not be crafted for those audiences. Foreign cultures don’t have to be pressed into touristic service for those unfamiliar with them.”

Critical Chaser

Take a load off in Gilgamesh’s Tavern.

• Stories from Wizardry | Gamers with Glasses
  The GwG crew take up the Blade Cuisinart and delve into some twisty little passages.

“Doc was the best of us, but Hap was our cheer, our spirit. I mean, that’s why we called him “Happy.” He was relentlessly cheerful – downright annoying sometimes – but got us laughing and whistling while we did our gory work. Hap always said the best thing about the Proving Grounds was that at least we didn’t have to worry about cave-ins, so it was a bitter joke when he fell face-first into a pit trap and cracked his noggin three floors down.”