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October 11th

…the one month in particular. So here’s a bunch of horror-themed articles!

  • Resident Evil’s Lisa Trevor: The Monster is Me | Gamers with Glasses Christopher Breu considers monstrosity as a man-made idea via REmake‘s sympathetic supporting antagonist.
  • Patterns in the Ivy | Unwinnable Adam Boffa asks, via Pablo Pedercini’s Lichenia, what a city builder can have to say about climate change when the numbers are stripped away and the bigger pictures and patterns, the entwinements of economy and ecology, are laid bare.
  • Ruminations on a ‘World of Horror’ – No Escape Celia Lewis contemplates an indie

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April 11th

…next section is the tension, challenge, and fruits of narrative play through the lenses of player motivation, structure, and negative space.

  • 1984: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | 50 Years of Text Games Aaron A. Reed delves into Douglas Adams’ subversive, playful, and meta contribution to the early days of interactive fiction.
  • Get a life – The Sims – Super Chart Island Iain Mew, in a discussion of intrinsically-motivated, open-ended play, notes how The Sims‘ unstructutred priorities didn’t wholly surive the transition from PC to console.
  • Kaede | press.exe Talen Lee looks at the rudimentary

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November 14th

…A bit of genuine warmth for the road.

  • The Real Quake Was The Friendships We Made Along The Way | Unwinnable Yussef Cole shares a story from childhood about friendship and Quake but mostly friendship.

“I didn’t know what it meant, really, to have a best friend, to be close to someone outside my own family. I enjoyed the intimacy I was able to share with Adam, filtered as it was through a layer of edgy brutality; the metal and machismo of first-person shooters.”

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November 21st

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(Mis)Rememberings

Our next two selections this week both involve memories and perhaps more specifically misrememberings: of people we once knew, of games we still love.

  • Music and Memory in Midgar | Unwinnable Adam Boffa investigates how Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s metatextual self-reflexivity is accomplished in part through the expansions, stylistic diversions, and subtly shifted callbacks of its soundtrack.
  • I love what you mean to me: On Disco Elysium, Romance and Codependency – Digital Fantastic Gabriel Elvery meditates on trauma, co-dependency, and being in love with an idealization.

“Perhaps there is hope.

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October 30th

…of Fall – Uppercut Sarah Thwaites chats with Adam Robinson-Yu about capturing the autumnal vibe, artistically and thematically.

“With an artist unable to see their value and a young scholar stubbornly struggling to find tuition money, the park had a depth that I was not expecting. Both plights also feel at home in the sensation of change and acceptance that autumn is often associated with.”

Victory Lap

We look now at the narratives being revised and re-revised at the triple-A end of the industry.

  • Apocalypse on Repeat: The Last of Us, Part…

March 19th

…History of America’s Oldest Surviving Indie Game Studio | Inverse Adam Morgan talks to Cyan Worlds about Myst and the Ages beyond.

“As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Myst this year, Inverse presents an oral history of Cyan Worlds according to the visionaries who made Myst, Riven, Uru, and Obduction — as well as new glimpses at some of their forthcoming games.”

Genre Provocations

Lots of cool parallels between these next two selections–both are about retro (or retro-style) Japanese games–but the linkage I’m focusing on here is the ways in which both of

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July 16th

…much better, either, when it comes to having any real depth.

…But, uh… at least the combat’s fun, right?“

Critical Chaser

A little RPG denouement from Spine.

  • Petty Godhood | Into The Spine Adam Wescott makes a strong case for SaGa, where even the gods are Posters.

“Not everybody appreciates the fickle math of these games. Yet, I love that the SaGa cosmos is governed not by elemental forces, but by petty jerks with their own wants and needs.”

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