August 14th
…the future of open world games | ZAM – The Largest Collection of Online Gaming Information (video: auto-captions) Danielle Riendeau argues that infinity is a tricky thing to make use of as a designer.
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September 4th
…does some solid analysis of Assassin’s Creed games’ relationships to society, systems and crowd psychology.
“[…] guards and allies are both entities above the system of crowds. So when you’re sending a group of allies to distract guards, you actually fully skip the interaction with the social layer and basically use a tool to directly disable the system protection layer. If there’s not a single civilian around, allies work just fine. But when you throw money, you actually disrupt the system itself. The crowd starts behaving in a socially unacceptable way, so the guards focus on them….
New website! Part 1: search
…search front and center, I want to show that Critical Distance is not just about collecting links to “good writing”. That’s just a means to an end. Critical Distance is a community educational resource, a hub for democratized learning, and a starting point for people who are setting off navigating an avenue of thought that is new to them.
When people ask “where is all the good writing on games” they are often directed to Critical Distance. When those people are immediately faced with that week’s long list of links, they can feel a little deflated — I know…
October 30th
…Experience (Content warnings: Mentions of dubious consent and BDSM and NSFW images) Heather Alexandra discusses consent and sexual negotiation in Ladykiller in a Bind and Mystic Messenger and how these games allowed her to explore her own sexuality.
November 27th
…is neoconservative, being both moral and regulatory and having encounters that frequently revolve around ideas of controlling sexuality and identity. Goodneighbour is neoliberal, being amoral in its ends and means with inhabitants enjoying drugs, jazz and paying the Sole Survivor to enact state-sanctioned violence against its inhabitants.”
Mafia III
A particularly important example of historical portrayals in games at the moment is Mafia III, which has attracted a great deal of insightful writing over the past few weeks. This week is no exception.
- Mafia 3 (Spoilers) | YouTube (Video: auto-captioned) Chris Franklin gives an overview…
December 11th
…a few days left to get the unique, seasonal special rewards for supporting us at $10/month. You’re eligible for these rewards even if you already support us at $5 and just increase your pledge – in return, you get access to support from the Haywire Magazine team to develop your critical play and writing skills, and a special limited-edition gift from Critical Distance.
We need your help in order to grow into a more sustainable operation, so please consider giving us your financial support, or lending some moral support by sharing our fundraiser page on your social media accounts.
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August 21st
…the signposts that prompt you always onto the next star system.
“Between pushing environmental stories through found objects and walks through corridors that emphasize hone in distance in geography, the player is constantly getting one clear message: time and space matter” Back on earth, we have been critiquing gender and bodies as they are portrayed and catered to across games …
No Man’s Kyriarchy
February 12th
…use of the body as one particular example.
- Radiator Blog: “Press Forwards” and the pleasing death of agency Robert Yang discusses how spatial and visual techniques can bring a particular set of pleasures to relinquishing control.
- Spatial Experientiality in Journey – First Person Scholar Taif Zuhair uses Journey as a way in to exploring some complex ideas about player perception of games as spaces.
“embodiment is not only about seeing, but also about seeing within a context that extends beyond visual perception; humans possess perceptual abilities that allow them to sense movement behind and
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April 2nd
…noise triple-A produces; rather, it’s encouraging you to listen to a different song once in a while.
Hard shadows
Technical investigations into games are a common part of the writing scene, but it’s rare for them to be a form of criticism in themselves.
- Gamasutra: Josh Bycer’s Blog – 4 Ways that the Souls Series Stays Accessible to All Josh Bycer succinctly identifies some of the design strategies that have made Souls games so influential.
- Mass Effect: Andromeda and the quest for great facial animation • Eurogamer.net Alex Wiltshire’s report on the state of…
April 30th
…Ligman enjoyed the sincerity and straightforwardness of the spatial narratives in the game that provoked this discussion.
“There is something charmingly outdated in how What Remains of Edith Finch plays itself completely straight — right down to its narrated diary entries and blinking red beacons — that makes the whole game feel like a time capsule, a callback to a not-so-distant past when we believed non-violent first-person games were fertile ground for gameplay innovation, instead of just another genre that had been discoursed to death.” The metadiscourse wasn’t limited to this old …
The blueprint