Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others? -Martin Luther King Jr., Montgomery, Alabama, 1957. It only seems fitting that the 5th anniversary of Not Your Mama’s Gamer fell on the weekend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday celebration. While many folks around the […]
Samantha Blackmon
498 posts
Christmas break is always an interesting time. You get to see and talk to people who you haven’t seen or talked to for a sustained period of time for a while. It becomes even more interesting when you play and/or study video games and the community that surrounds them. Some […]
Episode 118: Who Gets to Be a Gamer?: A Conversation with Latoya Peterson (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). In this episode we talk to the fabulous Latoya Peterson, creator of Fusion’s Girl Gamer documentary. A rousing conversation about gaming as women, online games community, […]
With Winter Break upon us I see more frantic pleas from parents asking for ideas of what to do with their children while they are home for 2 whole weeks. And I understand, there are only so many trampoline parks and rock climbing walls you want to see (or pay […]
This fall I was pulled into watching the Netflix original series, Master of None starring Aziz Ansari, with the promise of diversity and feminist thought. Being a little outside of what I see as the shows intended demographic (but I basically play games for a living so what the hell, […]
Episode 117: Lost in Liminal Space: A Chat with Melissa Bianchi (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). In this episode we talk to Melissa Bianchi from University of Florida about her research . We talk about things from liminal space to animal studies. Games That […]
Last week Naughty Dog gave us a new glimpse at Uncharted 4 and we got to see Nadine Ross. Nadine looked like a kick ass Black female character who was clearly taking no shit from Nathan Drake. Some people were excited, some were skeptical about the possibility of another aggressive […]
I’m going to blame it on some kind of virus induced delirium, but last night I sat on my couch nursing a cold, sipping a hot tea, and watching the Game Awards. Mind you I never watch the game awards. I think the judging is biased and the host(s) usually […]
Life has reached a kind of fever pitch for me. It’s the end of the semester, various deadlines are looming, and changes are afoot at my kid’s school. All of this leads to me being forever in a bad friggin’ mood. Perhaps not outwardly, but inwardly I often think about […]
Episode 116: Submerged: An Interview with Ed Orman of Uppercut Games (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). In this episode we talk to Ed Orman of Uppercut Games about their beautiful games, Submerged (2015). In this show we talk about diverse characters, game […]
Episode 115: Life is…Weird: On Choice and Consequences in Life is Strange (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). This episode we sit down and talk about DONTNOD’s episodic game, Life is Strange. All of it, filled with spoilers, and pulling no punches. Join us […]
It’s no small secret that we’re big fans of board games around here so I was pretty excited when I got the chance to get my hands on a beta copy of the re-boot of Kill Doctor Lucky by Cheapass Games. Clue has been one of my favorite mainstream board games […]
Last week the New York Times ran a piece on gender and toys/costumes and it really got me started thinking, especially after Pea and I went on our annual post-Halloween half-price costume stock-up trip (it’s a thing, trust me). While I thought that we could run in, fight the crowds, and […]
Last week a good bit of our mama and me gaming revolved around Minecraft Story Mode…until Pea watched her first episode of StampyCat playing Super Mario Maker. Oddly lots of our gaming choices revolve around StampyCat. Doesn’t every 7 year old want to play what Stampy plays? But this time […]
I have a pile of shame of epic proportions and with the recent release of new collectible games and Nintendo offerings this pile of shame has been extended to include my daughter. One night this week at bedtime she informed me that when she came home from school the next […]
Alisha and I are heading to a conference this weekend to talk about our work on Invisibility Blues (and maybe a little something else). It’s exciting. It’s fun. It’s great that people see the value in the work that we are doing and think that we can help them in […]