The word phenomena is one I’ve been coming across a lot the past few weeks. In “Virtual Bodies in Virtual Worlds: A Phenomenology of Play in Video Games,” Benjamin Gattet, for one, applies Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of phenomena to “the experience of playing a video game” through the use of […]
Games and Culture
337 posts
I’ve written before about our household habits of creating multiplayer where there is none, specifically in State of Decay, but my husband and I often find ways to share single-player experiences. I was thinking about this earlier this week, as we were yelling Stardew Valley tips at each other across […]
Full disclosure, I have read Johan Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens five times. Cover to freaking cover, I have read it five times. That’s about three full times more than I have ever read any book. I have read it so many times because it is like a really good board […]
Late to the party, or valley, I plant crops months after everyone else. I water parsnips, consider sprinklers, plan optimal placement for trellises. I buy cows. I resisted Stardew Valley for so long, but now it’s the first place I go when I have a moment to myself. This game […]
I’ve written about coming out as trans before, and I suspect this won’t be the last time I write about it either. Not necessarily because I love talking about my own experiences, but because of the nature of coming out as a constant experience, something that never truly happens once. […]
I find myself lately (and almost always, really) continuing to think about the future of feminist game studies, continuing to consider its implications and situatedness in academia, continuing to interrogate its orientations, goals, uses, and perspectives. And one thing I have especially been thinking about—something I find myself consistently returning […]
Games have taught us to fight, to follow orders and get the job done, because if we do, we’ll be rewarded in some way. Fewer games have taught us to reflect on what we’re doing, and why. We can reflect on our own, of course — that’s a lot of […]
Art can reflect reality. Art can mimic reality. Art can argue for a new and better reality. Art can even make us question reality. Art often is about perspective: seeing things, feeling things, understanding things from an alternative perspective. That’s what makes art such a powerful medium for personal growth […]
Work on Dishonored 2 took time, such time that there’s no chance of the story purposefully mimicking too much of what’s happening in the world now, but then again, the story of what’s happening in the world now is an old one, a repeated cycle of suffering, the haves not […]
When I wrote my first post for Not Your Mama’s Gamer three months ago, I didn’t anticipate writing a follow-up about Blizzard and representation so soon. I admit, my cynical expectation would have been that if I were writing a follow-up, it would be my continued criticism of their abysmal […]
I’m not a completionist, as a rule. I don’t have to get all the achievements or find all the secrets or upgrade all the weapons just because. Sometimes these goals feel arbitrary, and frankly, I’ve got better things to do. But there are some goals I will pursue, lying in […]
As the end of the semester approaches, I’ve found myself buried up to my neck in final projects. While this has cut into the vast majority of my usual video game time, I was fortunate that one of the final projects involved some time in front of the screen. A […]
The following article may contain spoilers for Final Fantasy XV and its surrounding universe. So Final Fantasy XV came out last week. Honestly, by now, it should be no mystery that I’m probably one of the least excited people in the world about that. Though I tried to keep my […]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the significance of feminist science fiction for feminist games studies, the ways our scholarship is impacted by the forms we write about and research. And I’ve been continuing to think about the idea of criticism in both these fields—feminist criticism of science fiction […]
The Civilization franchise has long been one of my favorites. My character on the NYMG banner, for example, is a play on a character from the Civ series. I love it. So of course, I had to buy Civilization VI when it came out. I’ve been playing it for a […]
A note: I’ve only played through on low chaos with Emily so far, so while I’ve read about high chaos choices and Corvo playthroughs, I speak from the vantage of only intimately knowing my own adventure to reclaim Emily’s throne. Note also: spoilers here! When Emily was revealed as the […]