The magic circle is an interesting place. This is particularly true when looking at values, morality, and consequences for our actions. By Huizinga’s definition of the magic circle, things that happen in a game cannot have consequences in our daily lives. This is why, despite many similarities, school isn’t a […]
Miscellany
1089 posts
Yesterday, the news that EA was shutting down Visceral Games and passing off their developing Star Wars title in order to shape it into something else dominated a great deal of community discussion. As more details emerged, one thing became clear: for EA, at least, with their “games as service” […]
In the most recent issue of ADA: A Journal of Gender, New Media, & Technology, Joseph Reagle published a really interesting article called “Naive Meritocracy and the Meanings of Myth.” Meritocracies are something I’ve been studying since early in my graduate career. They fascinate me, because they should work; yet, […]
Episode 160: Dad Jokes & Spooky Corn: A Halloween Special (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we talk our favorite horror games and films as well as other gaming experiences that scared us (even if they weren’t supposed to be scary). It’s a […]
Since I began studying my online Mafia community, I’ve been doing a lot of wider reading in technical communication, looking at foundational texts to fill in around things I’d studied before. It’s meant digging into the backlog of articles and books I’d put off—the pile of “read later” items always threatening to […]
I recently started playing Monster Hunter Stories on the 3DS. I originally thought that it was just the kind of a game that could tide you over until Monster Hunter World comes out in January, but man, this game is fun! I don’t think I’ve had this much fun playing a game in a […]
When I first wrote about the online social deception game community I joined, I mentioned my failed attempts to get my hands on game development documents for pedagogical purposes. When I began to play mafia with this group, and to learn more about how the community functioned, my project was […]
Episode 159: Some People Just Need Killing: A Conversation with Hazel Monforton on Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we talk with Hazel Monforton about her work as a writer on Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider […]
I have had a thing for horror and suspense involving corn fields long before I literally moved to the middle of one 17 years ago. It started when I was in high school huddled together with my best friend in her basement watching the film Children of the Corn (1984). Children […]
Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried like hell to get my hands on game scripts and bibles. After assessing the lack of good informational texts and examples for students interested in writing games, or writing for game studios, I couldn’t think of a more pressing need or a bigger […]
“[T]he content of their character” is a phrase that almost everyone is familiar with even if they are not quite sure why. “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but […]
Episode 158: The Two Jaakko Problem: The Problem of Representation in Game Studies (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we chat about the perils and pitfalls of having a particular history of a the field of game studies laid out in a journal […]
This past Saturday night, after a long summer hiatus, I sat down at my desk with my dice and my computer and ran a session of my digital Dungeons and Dragons campaign, Shards of Aeridas. The game lasted five hours, all of which I spent frantically typing into chat windows […]
Episode 157: Navigating Spaces: Being Together In and Through Games (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we chat about always online games that don’t offer a single player experience. We talk about the positives and negatives (and the in-betweens) of this newly (?) […]
We had our most recent Gaming for Good marathon last weekend, during which I played a few hours of Horizon Zero Dawn. And also last weekend, the series Orphan Black had its final episode. Both Orphan Black and Horizon Zero Dawn deal with cloning, motherhood, and technology, so I’ve been thinking […]
The following contains spoilers for the plot of the Balance Arc of The Adventure Zone. Last week, I spent my Thursday night pacing around my apartment listening to the latest episode of one of my favorite podcasts, The Adventure Zone. After three years and 69 episodes, the D&D comedy podcast […]