"Where is all the good writing about games?"
…their resonance with queer players.
“Replicant’s Ending E ties all of Replicant and Automata’s defiant love together to show the importance of the people you care about when you’re up against a system you can’t control.” Next up, critical discussions of mentality both in and out of game worlds.
Speak Your Mind
…makes Valiant Hearts not only a good game, but the only one worth using to help students understand the emotional, social, and cultural contexts of World War I.
The State of Criticism and Curation
This week also presents us with two opportunities to get a bit meta. Over at Game Informer, Matt Helgeson examines the rate of production of video game content, criticism, scholarship, etc against the loss of it due to poor archival and curatorial work in the field
This week also brings us the playable criticism of systemic prejudice in Parable of the Polygons created…
…From Arms Is Bad Counter Point No Hes Not 2017/06/22 Ever Oasis The Kotaku Review 2017/06/26 Dd Wouldnt Be What It Is Today Without These Women 2017/06/26 Why Does Everyone Hate Game 2017/06/27 Assassins Creed Origins New Mission System Sounds Like A Much Needed Change 2017/06/28 Nintendos New 2Ds Xl Is Probably The Best Value Handheld Ever Made 2017/06/29 When You Accidentally Murder Your Friends In Battlegrounds 2017/06/30 Ever Oasis Is An Optimistic Pocket Paradise 2017/06/30 Penis Gun Game Explores Illegal Gay Hookups In The 60S 2017/06/30 The Nintendo Switch Vs 40 Hours Of International Flight 2017/06/30 Theres A Gay…
…includes overlooked and marginalized art, which embraces all the things the market has not deemed profitable.
“I feel like there’s a lot to learn from Flash. As an example of what technology enables for “the little…
…industry is, and you don’t even have to work in it to know that. You’re just that special. And if you’ve been at this for a long time, like a year or something, that’s when you get really good at calling people out on their shit. Think about it: One day they’re names on your most favorite website, the next they’ve got a lot of explaining to do. They’re accountable to you. That’s part of your job.
No one is spared when Alexander gets her rant on. Not even the children.
You Can’t Stop the Signal, Mal
…
…son, Joel:
A Christian family who during their son’s illness turned frequently to God, the Greens do not shy away from discussing religion. Both in conversation and in their game, they recall periods when their faith has been tested, miracles they have witnessed and the times prayers have gone unanswered.
Current Mood: Doom
Rich Stanton covers John Romero’s newest level for Doom, “Tech Gone Bad” 22 years after the game’s original release:
Stanton’s piece details everything from Doom’s legacy, the personalities of the original Id Software team and the personal flourishes that have
…
…to simulate the experience of losing a child.
At Kill Screen, Alexander Kriss focuses on That Dragon, Cancer’s methods to express the deep sadness of the Green family’s situation.
Our own Riley MacLeod specifically looks at the way that That Dragon, Cancer tells Joel’s, the Green family’s son, story when he is too young to tell it himself.
Intertwining an interview with creator Ryan Green with his own reactions to the game, Satchbag’s Goods reflects on the game’s greater implications on our purpose in life (video, no captions available).
The Art of Speedrunning
Awesome Game…
…to his adopted family. Reid McCarter explores the history and self-perception of Japan’s Yakuza, and how that enduring myth has served as the engine that fueled the Yakuza series, and the long journey that has propelled Kiryu into and out of the underworld time and again in service of his stalwart moral character coming to shirtless, brass-knuckled blows with the criminals who don’t fit the romantic ideal of a noble criminal.
And that’s it for this month. Our journey, at least this particular version of it, finishes here. There’s more journey to be found over the next horizon though,…
…Phallic Desire | Traverse Fantasy Marcia B. ties colonial and misogynistic structural elements of Dungeons & Dragons to its ever-moving goalposts of desire (content notification here for a brief reference to rape in the context of Greek Mythology).
“For the Gygaxian adventurer, there is always another dungeon to loot. In the same way, the phallic drive always ensures that in the subject’s imagination there is always another thing to desire. For the traditional male subject, there is always another woman to fuck.” Two very different pieces now, united by a focus on …
City Spaces
…studying different kinds of paratextu*]}*al material is so important to the way that we understand, and in the way that we think about historical digital games and the kinds of arguments that they are making about the past. So, I did that really through looking at different kinds of official communication. So, a range of different paratextu*]}*al promotional materials that were created and published by Rockstar and communicated then through their official channels. So, through the sort of official Rockstar website, and the kind of Newswire, somewhat sort of almost bulletin board, I guess, section of the, the Rockstar website,…