In last week’s podcast, we talked a bit about agency and feelings of control when watching a movie or TV show versus feeling control while playing a game. Opinions varied, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week. I find that when I watch a movie or TV […]
until dawn
13 posts
This summer, I’m in a class focused on women in games, and it’s exactly what you’d expect: one step forward, 97,000 steps back at every turn. The success stories—of games, characters, girl gaming clubs, industry professionals, more—are both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because we’re starved for them; terrible because those […]
I’ve been writing a lot the past couple weeks about metanarrativity and postmodernism, about how such things manifest themselves in games like The Magic Circle, like Until Dawn, like Pony Island. And I hope you’ll bear with me while I indulge myself in expanding on some of these ideas a […]
Last week, I wrote about a game called Pony Island and the manner in which the game makes use of metanarrativity. And I also mentioned that my interest in such a narrative technique stems from my location as a literary studies scholar—an interest that has extended my consideration of such […]
This week, I came across an article by E. McNeill called “History and Games” in which McNeill makes connections between the subject of history and the subject of video games. Indeed, McNeill engages in such a discussion even though, as he says, many “people seem to view history as dry […]
I came across an article the other day by Hannah Dwan called “Slicing Up Eyeballs: Abject in Gaming,” in which Dwan discusses the manner in which Julia Kristeva’s conception of abjection is vital for the horror genre and is especially representable in video games: Horror is a genre that, despite […]
Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn is often mentioned as playing on a number of horror tropes. Everyone can survive (depending), the two sex-craziest teens may have a real heart-to-heart about vulnerability (maybe), the ostensible Final Girl could meet her maker while others survive (possibly), and the black guy might make it (if […]
My parents came out to visit last weekend, and while they were here, my mom and I played through the first few hours of Until Dawn together. As we played, I was reminded of the fact that, growing up (and still), I often bonded with my mom over horror movies, […]
I finally got around to playing through Her Story last week, and as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about what a game can be and what a game can do. Indeed, Alisha has already written previously about the fact that there is even discussion about whether or not […]
(Spoilers ahead) Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn had me rolling my eyes from moment one. The first chapter, with its cast of self-centered teenagers and cliché narrative, annoyed me to my bones because it’s a scenario that perfectly fits in the horror movie framework and it’s one I’ve seen countless times […]
Alisha asked me something earlier this week, and since it’s something that’s been nagging at me since, I figured, hey, maybe it’s about time I write about it in an effort to explore the subject more deeply. The subject at hand is perhaps best introduced in the paraphrasing of Alisha’s […]
As I mentioned during our latest episode of the NYMG podcast, I’ve been playing Until Dawn, and the game has got me thinking about a few different things that I’d like to spend some time parsing through, like the game’s representation of things like gender and race, how it is that […]
It’s easy to condemn the characters in horror movies. After all, they make bad decisions: they split up and go their separate ways, they let personal conflicts get in the way of their better judgment and they put themselves in compromising situations, amongst a number of other things. With the […]