October 27th

Welcome back readers.

Here are fifteen new and cool pieces of writing on the current, the not-so-current, the timely, and the timeless games and ideas-in-games.

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

Webfishing

A popular new game about fishing was always going to be catnip for our brand here. Here are two fresh perspectives on its social angle on angling.

• Webfishing is the ultimate online social game | Polygon
  Ana Diaz plays an social multiplayer game that makes more room for the social part.
• Steam’s Strange New Online Fishing Game Is Like Animal Crossing’s Evil Twin | Inverse
  Robin Bea gets caught in the net of Webfishing‘s offbeat social play experience.

“Much has been said about how games like Fortnite function as digital third spaces as much as they do actual games. Webfishing makes that idea its core ethos, with everything on offer serving to make it a more interesting place to hang out.”

BioWare’s Back

And apparently the new Dragon Age is… good? But before the essays on that game start coming in, here are a pair of lookbacks at some of the hits.

• Playing Through Grief in Mass Effect 3 | Unwinnable
  Richard Kelly offers a cathartic read of Mass Effect‘s character-driven tragedies.
• Returning to Dragon Age: Origins made me realise Baldur’s Gate 3 was really the sequel I always wanted | Eurogamer
  Jessica Orr draws spiritual continuity between the earliest Dragon Age and the most recent Baldur’s Gate.

“I can’t help but appreciate the D&D influence coming full circle. Just as Origins was BioWare’s spiritual successor to its classic Baldur’s Gate games, Baldur’s Gate 3 feels an awful lot like the spiritual successor to Dragon Age: Origins. Or at least the natural evolution of what the Dragon Age series could have been, if it had leaned into its dorkier, old-school CRPG side.”

Maxxed Media

Our next section looks at games in conversation across genres and media.

• Transmedia Triumphs and Traps: Lessons from the Convergence of Gaming and Media | Deconstructor of Fun
  Kate Halewood outlines emerging trends and strategies in transmedia storytelling’s recent gaming-focused push.
• Asexual Representation in Anime & Games | Gayming Magazine
  Milady Confetti takes inventory of prominent and noteworthy ace characters in anime and games.
• In this brilliantly clever RPG, you have to learn to play Tetris wrong to survive | PC Gamer
  Abbie Stone sizes up an onslaught of curveballs in a tricky new RPG block puzzler.
• Can an Avatar Display Human Emotion? This Documentary Believes So. | The New York Times
  Brandon Yu talks to the filmmakers behind The Remarkable Life of Ibelin about using the tech and craft of machinima to evoke digital pathos.

“Ree recalled the nerve-racking experience of showing the finished film to Starlight members — some of whom had attended Steen’s funeral, one delivering a eulogy. “The best kind of compliment we got was from Starlight afterward,” Ree said. “They said, ‘That was how Ibelin was.’””

Crowns and Kings

The theme for this pairing is, roughly, the limits of industry imagination, whether it’s to realize better possibilities in game worlds or to keep good teams together doing the thing.

• Why did Ubisoft send Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown out to die? | Polygon
  Maddy Myers pours one out for a team Ubi was too short sighted to let cook.
• Dishonored Step by Step Part 1: Dunwall Tower | Breaking Arrows
  Steven Santana identifies politics as the one place where Dishonored is lacking in imagination.

“I acknowledge the appeal of the story of the king and his divine sword, but I don’t want us to be restricted to it. Arkane could imagine a world much like our own powered and altered by a different application of whale oil, but couldn’t seem to imagine a different way of rule from our own, both past and present.”

Memory Address

This is the retro section! They’re all great pieces but that’s also just about all they have in common!

• Gradius Gaiden: Shmupping to its own beat | Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster
  Kimimi plays a peak PlayStation STG and a statement on 2D artistry in a polygonal era.
• UFO 50: Party House | Indie Hell Zone
  Dari gets into the weeds with UFOSoft’s quirky deckbuilder decades ahead of its time.
• How one engineer beat restrictions on home computers in socialist Yugoslavia | The Guardian
  Lewis Packwood tells the tale of the homebrew kit and creator that defined home computing in Yugoslavia.

“Computers like the Galaksija not only provoke nostalgia in people who remember them when they were new, they also teach new generations about computer history, and the many experiments and innovations that led us to where we are today. The Galaksija is particularly special, since it provides a connection to a country and a particular set of social circumstances that no longer exist.”

Critical Chaser

This week is Halloween, so our closers are appropriately monstrous.

• Monsters and Narrative Agency in Echoes of Wisdom | Gamers with Glasses
  Edcel Javier Cintron-Gonzalez focuses on the role monsters play in shaping Echoes of Wisdom‘s unique narrative approach.
• The Anthropocene Comes for Sham Hatwitch | Gamers with Glasses
  Luis Aguasvivas chooses nonviolence against the anthroporcine mage.

“Sham Hatwitch will never be your friend because it will always be afraid of you no matter the efforts made by you as a player. Smart pig.”