Content Warning: Please be aware that this piece make reference to an episode of sexual assault. True to form, I am continuing on my track to be one of the last people who plays anything. While Dark Souls III just came out and Bloodborne’s been out for almost a year, I’m […]
Monthly Archives: May 2016
21 posts
Gamers have long had the stereotype that they are overweight, greasy, caffeine-addicted hermits with pale skin and acne who never left their parents’ basements. Gamers are depicted this way in many popular shows and movies, such as Southpark’s “Make Love Not Warcraft.” In the episode, the boys gets fatter, more […]
Episode 128: Never Alone and the Gifts of Our Ancestors: A Conversation with Amy Fredeen (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). Last night we were privileged (nay blessed) to have a conversation Amy Fredeen of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC). Amy is the Executive Vice […]
Last week, I wrote about patriarchal constructions of fatherhood and daughterhood in The Last of Us, and I want to continue in that vein this week as well. To extend this line of thinking, I want to examine how it is such constructions come to be repeated across gaming narratives. […]
So Blizzard gives and Blizzard takes away. Or more specifically, Blizzard made great strides forward with body types and armor coverage for it’s female heroes, but still fell back on old, tired, and offensive stereotypes in an attempt to add some depth to the characters. Let me start by saying […]
In this interview Kishonna talks with Kahlief Adams, host of Spawn on Me blog and podcast and creator of #Spawn4Good, about race, games, and activism. KG: Give us a little bit of your background. How did you get into gaming? What’s the first game you remember? KA: My name is Kahlief […]
I spent about two early morning hours playing a game this weekend. I woke up early so that I could sneak in some gaming hours to play a game that I wanted to write about before my daughter woke up and started demanding breakfast or some such nonsense. What the […]
This all came about because I said “would you kindly get the door,” to a grad student named Patrick. Patrick, better versed in video games than I, hesitated slightly before giving me a wry grin and opened the door for me and the folks we were walking with. It took […]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the gendered labor that’s represented in The Last of Us, and since then, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the implications of the game’s representation of gendered family structures. Gerald Voorhees talks about The Last of Us’s representation of “paternal masculinity” as […]
Right now, I’m in the process of transitioning from my current university to my new one. It’s an exciting time, but one filled with the whole spectrum of emotions. I’m exciting to be moving to a great new place, starting a new job, and meeting new people. But, at the […]
Recently while playing The Division with a friend, he pointed out that you could kill the dogs that wander around the town. For those who haven’t played, there are often dogs walking around the post-pandemic landscape. They don’t bite or jump or attack. They just bark randomly and otherwise mind […]
Episode 127: Brains and Games: A Chat Deborah Budding on Neurodiversity and Games (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). In this episode we talk with Deborah Budding (@Nebula63), neuropsychologist and podcaster at neurocurious.org This week we talk about neurodiversity, brains, and games. We also about environmental, social, […]
As I sat down to give my post a once over before running it today I got a Twitter notification that lots of people were sharing that same tweet so, being the ultimate procrastinator, I clicked over to see what was going on. It was the story of the auctioning […]
It takes a special kind of determination to take on games like checkers, Go, and chess, games that are such solid pillars of life that they simply are, but here comes Tak, aiming to do just that very thing: enter the realm of abstract strategy, with a long historical narrative […]
I sit here today wrestling with this question for a very good reason. A summer camp I’ve been involved in is on the precipice of being shut down. The camp is designed to get middle and high school aged girls involved in IT, computer science, and video games. Last year […]
Occasionally, I hear the argument that LEGO has lost its way and instead of encouraging kids to be creative, LEGO now encourages kids to simply follow the directions in the box. Normally, this argument comes from people who seem to be looking nostalgically at their own childhoods, which likely included […]