July 28th
byWelcome back, readers. I’m in the middle of my first summer doing this Senior Curator thing, and truth be told, I was a little worried that critical games writing would slow down a bit in these months. I’m used to an academic…
July 21st
byWelcome back, readers. So a delightful trove of documents and materials have surfaced this week detailing the early development history of the The Sims and how queerness was an integral–and subversive–inclusion from the beginning. And of course, it largely comes down to…
July 14th
byWelcome back, readers. Friends, I am in my element this week. People are writing about old JRPGs, queerness, accessibility, inclusivity, and bad toys from the 90s. Oh, and writers are taking the Mordhau devs to task for some wildly bad messaging that’s…
July 7th
byWelcome back, readers. This week sees the launch of the inaugural issue of ROMchip, an open-access, history-oriented journal of games. I, umm, think this is pretty cool? And it’s amazing to see so many of games crit’s finest writers in one place….
June 30th
byWelcome back, readers. Sorry, I can’t answer the phone right now (what’s a phone. . . ?). Mario Maker 2 is out, and I am in deep. Pride Month draws to a close today, and we’ve got a selection of great queer…
June 23rd
byWelcome back, readers. First of all, if you haven’t already checked out Gilles Roy’s stellar Critical Compilation on Assassin’s Creed III, I can’t recommend it enough! After so many sequels, III remains a sort of critical flashpoint for the series, so there’s…
Assassin’s Creed III
byCritical Distance is proud to present this Critical Compilation of Ubisoft’s Assassin Creed III, curated by Gilles Roy. A history scholar with game design training at Montreal’s INIS, Gilles is also co-editor at Play the Past. You can follow him on Twitter…
June 16th
byWelcome back, readers, and happy Father’s Day to y’all who celebrate it. E3 has come and gone, and readers and especially writers are no doubt in recovery mode after the annual avalanche of coverage on all The New Games. While many of…
June 9th
byWelcome back, readers! E3 is next week? I guess? We’ve got a very timely piece this week on the damaging effects of hype, which I enjoyed a great deal and which you can find below. On the academic circuit, it’s also conference…
June 2nd
byWelcome back, readers, and happy Pride Month! Many of this week’s selections can be related back to the notion of inclusivity in some way. The decisions you make as a designer to include (or not include) accessibility and/or difficulty options affects who…