March 3rd
byHappy Sunday, readers. Things happened this week in games. Some really, icky, bad things. Typically I leave some space at the top here to reflect on some of these things and maybe connect them to the week’s selection of writing, but if…
criticality
January 13th
byWelcome readers! Last week I was delighted to present a whole bunch of writing on queer game studies, but since no amount of queer games writing is too much (or let’s be real, enough), this week’s roundup opens with a section focused…
January 6th
byWelcome back readers! Who’s ready for a bold and exciting 2019? …Anybody? Okay, fair enough. We’re six days in and I’m already tired just thinking about all the things that could go wrong over the next 359 days. One thing I am…
December 23rd
byThe holidays strike me as a reminder that things are always in motion. Whether we’re trying to recapture the lost magic of yesteryear with loved ones, or navigating new challenges or traumas, the holidays remind us (or me, at any rate, if…
December 16th
byAs we approach the end of the year–err, the Western colonial calendar year at any rate–the discourse of critical games writing naturally makes an annualized turn toward reflection on the bigger picture–be that via industry trends, communities of play, genre shifts, or…
December 9th
byThis week’s roundup is (almost) all about failures: failures of game design, failures of fandom, the failures in the material world which are in turn reflected by the games we produce and consume, and more. I find it’s the kind of writing…
November 25th
byIt’s been a busy week for games criticism, and that’s rad. Fallout 76 and Pokémon: Let’s Go! are among the big recent releases making their way through the critical circuit, and while there’s plenty of writing out there on each, the discourse…
November 11th
byWhere is all the good writing about games? That’s Critical Distance’s slogan, prominently displayed on the website, just beneath the title. Our ongoing project, which I work my absolute hardest to honour, is to answer that question in an inclusive and accessible…
November 4th
byThis is the first week in a while where there hasn’t been a big-banner Triple-A release trying to take up all the critical oxygen in the room. Well, I suppose Square Enix did send The Quiet Man out to die this week,…
October 28th
bySo apparently Red Dead Redemption II came out this week or something, but I honestly don’t have a whole lot of writing on the subject to share for this roundup. I did read an alarming number of worryingly uncritical reviews on the…