I am exactly three weeks away from the end of my Spring semester. Each year I, like most academics, come up with a rigid summer schedule. I’m going to do all the things; I’m going to read all the books; I’m going to play all the games; I’m going to […]
writing
6 posts
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 […]
(Some spoilers for the first three episodes of Life is Strange here, but painted in broad strokes.) Now that we’re halfway through Life Is Strange, with two episodes to go, the game is shaping up to be quite the experience. While some of the major plot events are so heavily […]
The line between adventure games and interactive fiction is at best a little blurry, and sometimes doesn’t exist at all, and finding that line in author Matthew Burnside’s forays into interactive media and games is a particular challenge. Often, in adventure games that skew toward interactive fiction, the plot’s the […]
Fresh from multiple narrative and writing based GDC panels, my head has been full of theories on best incorporating narrative into game design and all the ways narrative reveals itself in games. At one writing roundtable today, an attendee proposed a question on how to explore and build a game’s […]
What exactly marks a good writer? I don’t know that there’s a real answer, even with two creative writing degrees under my belt. I can break down a story and analyze the elements, the way everything fits together, the way it might weigh in on various scales of quality, both […]