This week I finally finished playing Playdead’s Inside. I started playing the game at launch and had previously written about my reaction to the violence. I found the violence especially disturbing since it was directed at a child. As I was playing through the game I found myself talking through […]
Samantha Blackmon
498 posts
Episode 131: Gamer Classes and Gamer Personalities: What Kind of Gamer Are You? (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we talk about our own personality traits and how they align (or not) with the roles we play in games and how […]
Last night I had the worst experience playing what will probably be one of the best games released this year, Inside by Playdead. For those of you who haven’t played the game yet I’ll try to be as unspoilery as possible. Inside is from Playdead, the maker of the 2010 puzzle platformer […]
Episode 130: The Games We Need: A Conversation with Evan Narcisse (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we are joined by pop culture critic Evan Narcisse (@EvNarc) to talk race and video games. Sit back and listen as we talk about […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia lately and I’m not quite sure why, but I’m pretty sure it is a desire for the “good old days”. It seems that I am finally of an age (and the world is in a state) that is old enough to recall utopian […]
Episode 129: Gay Farming; On Digging, Dating, and Identity Politics in Stardew Valley (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week Jynx joins us for their first podcast and we have a little fun. In this episode we talk about our experiences and expectations […]
This semester I am teaching a game studies course that I think may be one of the best courses that I have ever taught. The course is called “Women and Games” and it is a cross-listed undergraduate-graduate course. Over the course of the last couple of years as we have […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
So this week I’ve been doing a lot of reading about diversity and the insidious nature of racism. More specifically I’ve been looking at and thinking about something that gets called by Claude M. Steele, in Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, a stereotype threat. According to […]
Episode 126: A Conversation Under the Shade Tree With André Brock. (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). In this episode we talk with André Brock (aka @DocDre). André is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan and is currently completing a […]
This week we are revealing a new design for NYMG. The all-new and very apropos characterizations of the staff have been drawn by the wonderfully talented artist, Alyse Allred, so we thought this would also be a great opportunity to introduce the NYMG community to Alyse as well. You can find […]