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adam%20saltsman

May-June 2022

…love of diving into the ocean well-represented by moments in various N64 titles (Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask) and the era’s tendency toward soundtracking waterscapes with particular synth textures. (Manual captions)

  • How Nostalgia Is Holding Games Back – Adam Millard (22:56)

    Adam Millard looks at how the ever-ripe temptation for game developers to lean into nostalgia can inhibit innovation. (Autocaptions)

  • A Silent Film Horror Game!? – Errant Signal (16:11)

    Chris Franklin discusses the effectiveness of the 1920’s German expressionist silent film aesthetic applied to Christoph Frey’s Letters to a Friend: Farewell. (Manual captions)

    • …

    July-August-September 2022

    …of the work-holiday cycle.

    • action button reviews boku no natsuyasumi – Action Button (6:12:00)

      Tim Rogers explores Japan-only PS1 “vacation game” Boko No Natsuyasumi, summer holidays, memory’s shadow, Kansas, and the nature of nostalgia, in a wide-ranging and, at times, deeply affecting marathon of a video essay. (Autocaptions)

    • Why The Hell Are There So Many Fishing Minigames? – Adam Millard (21:40)

      Adam Millard discusses the role of “diversions” – such as fishing minigames, management loops, and cutscenes – in providing a chance for a player to refresh, and thereby increasing a game’s staying

    …

    This Year in Videogame Blogging: 2023

    …and exploitation in the games industry.

  • What We Make From The Ruins | Unwinnable Phoenix Simms chats with narrative designer Kaelan Doyle-Myersough about worldbuilding, player agency, and a speculative future canon of post-pandemic games.
  • Into the Myst: The Oral History of America’s Oldest Surviving Indie Game Studio | Inverse Adam Morgan talks to Cyan Worlds about Myst and the Ages beyond.
  • 3/22 5:00 PM (GDC #3) | Deep-Hell Skeleton reports from the IGF.
  • Translator Spotlight: Taylor McCue and Fuglekongerige on He F-cked The Girl Out Of Me | Indie Tsushin Indie Tsushin sits down with both…

    • August 29th

    It’s time once more for This Week in Videogame Blogging, in which we take a look at some of the most interesting pieces of criticism and analysis from across the blogosphere. I’ll be taking a break from compiling TWIVGB for a few weeks, but TWIVGB will continue. These weekly posts are already a collaboration with all the numerous people who send in great links via twitter and email, and thank you to all who do so. With that out of the way, what’s worth reading this week?

    Adam Ruch at his Flickering Colours blog writes about ‘Attempting to

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    November 14th

    …their origin and where they stand now. Lake Desire writes a response [mirror] to Eileen Stahl’s article on The Border House.

    Kirk Hamilton at Gamer Melodico speaks with Tasha Harris from Double Fine productions on their latest release, Costume Quest, and manages to only embarrass himself twice in the interview’s [mirror] three [mirror] parts [mirror].

    There also has been some varied talk on game criticism theory. Mark Serrels talks with Adam Ruch on Kotaku about his academic study of games and his desire to make it more accessible to those who want to read it. Evan Griffin at…

    Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

    November 21st

    With an absolute surfeit of super games writing, collected from the very smallest blog to the largest online newspaper column, it can only be: This Week in Videogame Blogging.

    First up, Laura Parker for Gamespot AU writes about “the need for new experiences in the AAA space” [dead link, no mirror available] and quotes at length a number of smarty-pants game developers and bloggers for their views on the issue.

    Adam Ruch at Flickering Colours examines ‘The Metanarrative of Videogames’ [mirror] looking at how videogames nature as deterministic systems affects just about every aspect of their reception.

    …

    December 5th

    …by Scott Juster, who writes about straight-faced games which merely peer over the fourth wall instead of breaking it down. It’s an article that talks about the ludonarrative dissonance in games like BioShock and the Uncharted series and how these games address incongruancies.

    Adam Ruch has written the second part of his “Metanarrative of Videogames” article on the FlickeringColours blog. He questions the industry’s focus on the “win state” in games [mirror], and asks why they can’t strive to evoke a wider variety of emotions from players beyond that.

    Salman Rushdie weighs in on videogames and the future…

    Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

    February 27th

    …sense of what Dead Space really concerns itself with if I just had a moment to look.

    George Collazo at Unwinnable decided to follow Tea Party doctrine in Civilization V and see if he could survive. See how it went in two parts.

    Monica Potts at The American Prospect wrote “Moral Combat: Why do liberals play computer games like conservatives?” It is an interesting piece that talks about the inherent authorial nature of rule systems in simulation games. Though not in those terms, because most people don’t know them.

    Adam Ruch at his blog flickeringcolours v2…

    April 24th

    Welcome to another fine edition of This Week in Videogame Blogging, where we curate the most interesting articles in the critical blogosphere—or “ludodecahedron”, as some prefer to call it—for you to peruse and enjoy. Though whether this week’s edition is truly “fine” is something better left for you to judge, dear reader.

    The first article to grace this week’s edition is Adam Ruch’s piece on the immersion of first- and third-person games in Kotaku Australia. He writes:

    “My issue lies somewhere in between the concept of immersion and character-identification, which aren’t exactly the same thing. The

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    June 5th

    …expression of the nonself or as being the self of someone else and what they can achieve. Unless you like philosophical wank war by an Objectivist, I’d avoid the comments.

    New game blogger Joel Jordon starts off The Game Manifesto blog with a big one. It’s on the theme of relationships in Portal 2.

    Adam Ruch takes a look at the concept of canon in the medium of video games and what it means, because binaries only exist as possibilities before you chose one. Or to put it another way:

    For example: Liara can romance either

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