Recently I was updating my CV, because I’d been putting it off, of course, while things piled up, and when I was done I marveled at how much space was dedicated to collaborative items. If I was in the sciences, that wouldn’t be anything out of the norm, but it’s […]
Monthly Archives: February 2017
20 posts
(This piece contains a content warning for anti-semitic commentary present in some of the links and images) Anyone tuned into the YouTube community who hasn’t been living under a rock in the last two weeks is aware of the current controversy surrounding Disney and YouTube pulling their support for popular […]
A few weeks ago, episode 145, Sometimes You Have to Kill Things: On Games and Self-Care focused on self care and games. Basically the folks chose the games that they play when everything else seemed to be slightly unbearable. The games to “soothe the soul,” as it were. I wasn’t on that podcast […]
When we were offered the chance to do a review of Klonk Games’ 3rd puzzle platform, Shift Happens (Xbox One/PS4/PC), I jumped at the chance because I thought that it would not only be a fun game to play with the kids, but also a fun game to play with […]
Exploratory adventure games, narrative adventures, spatial adventures, environmental adventures, narrative explorations—different, certainly related phrases, all used to describe games that rely heavily on exploration to craft an experiential story. Walking simulators often overlap heavily here, but with games like Her Story, for instance, there’s not much (or any!) walking, so we needed […]
In a recent Games and Culture article, “’I can Defend Myself’: Women’s Strategies for Coping with Harassment While Gaming Online,” author Amanda Cote presents research and interview data collected to show how women and other targeted groups deal with constant online harassment. She found five main ways women cope: “These […]
Episode 146: Sometimes We Play Games on Boards (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). In this week’s episode we talk about board games with our guest Tony Bushner. There’s also lots of talk of TCGs and Hearthstone because that is how we roll sometimes. […]
8days-Peace is our Business (not to be confused with the title 8 Days, the canceled PS3 game). is a dual-stick 8 bit shooter by Santa Clara Games. It released in 2015 for the PC and was ported to the PS4 and XBox One February 7 of this year. The copy […]
This week, whenever I’ve logged into Steam, I’ve seen the big ad: Cozy Couch Co-Op Bundle! It’s a cute one, with characters all piled onto a couch. Everyone’s got a controller, even the bomb from Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. The message is clear: gaming brings people together, and it’s […]
Reigns, released late last summer, situates the player as king of an ancient kingdom, located somewhere faintly European, somewhere in the early 7th century. But you’re not one king; you are all kings, a long-reaching dynasty of king after king, each taking up the crown upon his predecessor’s fall. The […]
On Saturday, March 11, 2017 we are hosting our sixth Gaming for Good event. This time we have chosen American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as our charity. Since 1920 the ACLU has been fighting hate and bigotry in the United States. Since January the ACLU has been working diligently to […]
I’ve always been a sucker for worldbuilding. One of the reasons I play tabletop games like D&D is the opportunity for intense integration of history, legend, and lore, and most of my favorite video games have similar functions. Whether it’s reading up on the extensive codices found in the Mass […]
After reading a fabulous article on ADA: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, by Marie Hicks, a lot of interesting ideas started flowing about the nature of social control and technology. Hicks writes of online dating, “rather than revolutionizing how people met and married, this article shows how […]
This week many (privileged) folks hit social media all aghast that Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced under Rule XIX which stipulates that “no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming […]
For the past few semesters, I’ve been playing text adventures once or twice with my students (9:05 and Zork). For most the format is completely unfamiliar—typically, I have one or two students who’ve at least heard of text-based games—and they struggle with the step-by-step commands. Look. Open. Take. Read. It’s […]
I’ve written about my old undergraduate pastime of playing Dungeons and Dragons before, though working towards a PhD has made time a precious commodity I can rarely spend on social gaming. I did get the chance to do a little tabletop gaming over winter break, and, as it always does, […]