Trying to get out of a video game slump, I recently picked up Blizzard’s Overwatch despite not finding the beta terribly enjoyable. Perhaps that’s because I didn’t understand the premise of the game, the characters, or even the strategy — I just “played”. After a bit of convincing from Alex […]
Ashley J. Velázquez
15 posts
Because I obviously enjoy being sad, depressed, and/or miserable, I’m going to continue this conversation regarding feminism and war in light of 11 bit studio’s most recent game – This War of Mine: The Little Ones. To have a better grasp of what I’m processing through and digging deeper to understand, […]
In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart addresses issues of moral and ethical choices and how games designed in such a way to draw players into ethical dilemmas, moral reflection, and immersive experiences. This War of Mine: The Little Ones (TWoM), by placing the player into unfamiliar territory and in an unfamiliar role, crafts […]
In my continued efforts to see the end of war, I’ve kept with playing This War of Mine: The Little Ones. In my last post I mentioned that the major draw of this game (for me at least) is the often neglected story that other games like Call of Duty, Ghost […]
I recently started playing This War of Mine: The Little Ones, and thus far I’ve put about 5 hours into the game. My first reaction as of now: hot, boiling tears of sadness and desperation running down my face — there may have been some snot in there too. The game […]
NYMG is by no means new to streaming on Twitch and we’re certainly not new to talking about it. (Sarah’s mentioned her own plights as a woman streaming here and Alex comments on her love for the gaming community in Twitch here); I, however, I’m just getting my feet wet. […]
When I was kid, my rubric for normalcy was grounded in the appearance and texture of hair. As a biracial child with an ever present African American mother and absent father and a sea of white peers, I found myself stuck in a conundrum: What am I? Searching for a […]
Undertale. Whoa. I started playing only for the same reason a professor reads a book before assigning it: You need to know before you teach, and something about preparation. I’d heard and read that Undertale (tobyfox) is one of the more popular Steam games right now, and rightly so: It’s pretty much a […]
As promised, my ESL composition class played A Bird Story and it’s been a wonderful and insightful experience reading their reactions to a game they’ve deemed as unworthy of “gaming” status (I’ll touch on this a bit below); they didn’t anticipate that I would, however, expect this reaction from them regarding a […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about my transition to Games Studies this last semester and the role it plays (and will play) in my research as a Second Language Studies student; I’ve also been pondering on the role of intersectionality lately, specifically how Latoya Peterson admonishes in her article, Intersectionality […]
Immediately after finals last week, in preparation for traveling down South to meet my partner’s parents, cousins, sister, aunts, uncles (basically all of Texas), I began a hunt for games I could play on my iPad and on Steam – especially since bringing my Xbox One with me wasn’t exactly […]
After my Ode to Lara’s Thigh Gap, I started pondering on why a critical evaluation of female body types in video games is important for consideration in the first place. In other words, why were some people vehemently in support of my perspective while others cheered me on? It was […]
The slippery slope of body positivity Has never been more deterring than when Gazing at the sun through Lara’s proclivity To deny herself sufficient calories – On her search for Divinity It was clear from the beginning That body fat and masculinity Were not sufficient representations of a Woman’s sexuality […]
We often, or at least I, think of constructing and sharing stories in the form of talking over dinner and a glass of wine, or on the front porch during a fall sunset just as the fireflies begin sprinkling out; stories are generally thought to be read in books where […]
There’s an innate yearning within humanity to connect, share, and make sense of our experiences. It’s more natural than secret-keeping, which is dogmatically taught to us before we learn how to string concepts and words together. So when I was asked to talk about the fact that #yesIplay, it took […]