I hadn’t had a chance to get back to State of Decay 2 for a while, but recently I booted it back up and picked up my community where I’d left off. Right now, I have nine people and only two of them are clearly visually coded as white. In […]
state of decay
23 posts
Recently I took a survey about places in games and it’s been on my mind ever since. The questions were all about my favorite places in games, but the more I consider the topic, the more I think about important places in games rather than my favorite places – the […]
For the marathon this past weekend (remember: you can still donate!), I played Hearthstone and then Left 4 Dead 2, and for the first time in the long hours I’ve put into the latter, I did not invert the controls. For years, I’ve been inverting Y axes in dozens of […]
Later this week, I’ll also be at Games+Learning+Society with Alex and Kishonna, presenting a Well Played of my own on State of Decay. I’ve been such a strong advocate for the game through two releases (and DLC), but here I’ll finally be able to draw the various themes and lines of inquiry I’ve […]
Episode 122: “We Got You A Pony!”: A Conversation with Lauren Stone and Travis Stout (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). In this episode we return to Trumbull Valley for more discussions with folks from behind the scenes on State of Decay, the game that […]
Not long ago, I started playing State of Decay again. I know, I know, but at this point, it’s become a comfort object for me, something to help me relax during a busy week. I started a new Breakdown game and fiddled a little with Lifeline again, and looking at […]
Recently Tauriq Moosa left Twitter (he’s back) after receiving hate, threats, and abuse for writing an article about the race problems in Witcher III. If you haven’t played the game, he’s right: that game is white as hell. He has come under fire a lot, and I wanted to share […]
When I look at the list of games introduced at this year’s E3, my eyes just sort of glaze over. I don’t care for a lot of the popular AAA games. When I do find a game I love, I often become obsessed with it and play it for hours […]
Episode 104: Because the Apocalypse Is About People, or An Interview with Undead Labs (Right click and save as to download, or hit us up on iTunes or Stitcher). It’s not any kind of secret that we like State of Decay — we’ve written extensively on Undead Labs’ title since its […]
It’s been 25 days since I gained early access to State of Decay Year One Survival Edition. We don’t get a ton of review codes around here; as a smaller site with a focus a little to the left of traditional gaming sites, we’re not exactly a standard destination for reviews, […]
Last week I wrote about diversity in State of Decay, but I focused on only a very concrete, measurable aspect of diversity, raw numbers, when I broke down the ratios of white characters versus PoC in Undead Labs’ game. As I said in that piece, though, the numbers don’t tell the […]
Would you like to win your own copy of Undead Labs’ State of Decay YOSE, the game that Alisha has been evangelizing for the last few weeks? Here’s your chance! Follow us on Twitter, tweet about the giveaway, or (for the most entries) rate and review us on iTunes or […]
This is the first in a series of Critical Let’s Plays on State of Decay Year One Survival Edition we’ll be featuring here at NYMG, exploring Lifeline, the main story mode, and Breakdown (though we may not do the full stories for all modes). There’s a lot to unpack in […]
This is a little different from our standard Power Hour Reviews not only in that I’m revisiting a game we’ve already looked at extensively (in an earlier version), including reviews, but in that I’m exploring the basics and changes in all three modes. It’s an extra-double-bonus look at the update of […]
State of Decay feels very diverse; you begin story mode as a black man and the first person who joins you and your friend is a Latina. In Lifeline, you begin as a female soldier fighting alongside a Hawaiian man and a black man. Often, in Breakdown, it’s easy to play […]
Last week, I shared some analysis of gender signifiers in character models from State of Decay, a game that seems to do a good job of presenting practically dressed and designed characters, while also featuring some diversity in body types and more. A commenter pointed out, however, that including some […]