Episode 160: Dad Jokes & Spooky Corn: A Halloween Special (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we talk our favorite horror games and films as well as other gaming experiences that scared us (even if they weren’t supposed to be scary). It’s a […]
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Since I began studying my online Mafia community, I’ve been doing a lot of wider reading in technical communication, looking at foundational texts to fill in around things I’d studied before. It’s meant digging into the backlog of articles and books I’d put off—the pile of “read later” items always threatening to […]
I recently started playing Monster Hunter Stories on the 3DS. I originally thought that it was just the kind of a game that could tide you over until Monster Hunter World comes out in January, but man, this game is fun! I don’t think I’ve had this much fun playing a game in a […]
Friends, we are coming together as a community to do our next charity marathon (a little early I know) to raise funds for the people of Puerto Rico after the devastation that they suffered during Hurricane Maria. We will be streaming in shifts for 24 hours on Saturday, October 7, […]
When I first wrote about the online social deception game community I joined, I mentioned my failed attempts to get my hands on game development documents for pedagogical purposes. When I began to play mafia with this group, and to learn more about how the community functioned, my project was […]
I was very excited to see Critical Distance’s Blog of the Round Table theme this month, because (1) I’d been itching to write about Destiny 2 and this gives me the perfect chance and (2) I think this is an absolutely fascinating topic that I hadn’t thought nearly enough about. […]
Episode 159: Some People Just Need Killing: A Conversation with Hazel Monforton on Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we talk with Hazel Monforton about her work as a writer on Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider […]
The trajectory of the Dishonored series is a fascinating one. In the original game, players took on the role of Corvo Attano, while in the associated DLCs, the playable center shifted to the assassin Daud. The sequel then offered players the choice of Corvo or his daughter Emily. Now, with Death […]
I have had a thing for horror and suspense involving corn fields long before I literally moved to the middle of one 17 years ago. It started when I was in high school huddled together with my best friend in her basement watching the film Children of the Corn (1984). Children […]
A lot of people are asking me why I haven’t written about the racist slur employed by PewDiePie recently. I already did and so have many others. The perpetual use of the n-word within gaming isn’t fueled by neo-Nazi ideology and didn’t emerge with the election of Donald Trump. You can’t […]
Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried like hell to get my hands on game scripts and bibles. After assessing the lack of good informational texts and examples for students interested in writing games, or writing for game studios, I couldn’t think of a more pressing need or a bigger […]
“[T]he content of their character” is a phrase that almost everyone is familiar with even if they are not quite sure why. “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but […]
Episode 158: The Two Jaakko Problem: The Problem of Representation in Game Studies (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we chat about the perils and pitfalls of having a particular history of a the field of game studies laid out in a journal […]
Patchwork is a beautiful board game designed by Uwe Rosenberg, with game art by Klemenz Franz. While this game doesn’t fit into my mission to play, review, and critique all of the top 30 games on Board Game Geek as part of my Critical Perspectives on Board Games series (so […]
Spoiler alert: This post contains some spoilers for Nier: Automata. I suggest playing through ending E before reading to avoid any spoilers. My partner, Alex, is home, and that means we can finally start chipping away at the ever-increasing backlog of games that I collected over the year that he was […]
I wonder how differently my parents and my parents’ parents saw the world as adults compared to me. I grew up digital, and now in my early 30s, I spend a lot of time contemplating my relationship with technology and the physical realm. Every couple years I feel this need […]