There has been a lot of discussion over the past week about Ian Bogost’s recent article in The Atlantic entitled, “Video Games are Better Without Stories,” an article in which Bogost argues, ultimately, exactly what his title says–that is, that the idea of games seeking to tell stories is an […]
Games and Culture
337 posts
Last week, Austin Walker wrote about endings over at Waypoint, focusing not only on literal game endings, but also on letting go. Preparing to return to the world can be a challenge, certainly; I’ve never come back from Trumbull Valley, for instance. But sometimes it’s all too easy to leave […]
We got an e-mail last week about good games with troubling elements — so, basically, all games. But the question was: how do we choose the right way to handle games with problems? We have to play the games to understand them, and we want to support devs who are […]
A few months ago, I wrote a couple posts connecting feminist science fiction and feminist SF criticism to the field of feminist game studies as a way of thinking through the ways feminist game studies might draw from the practices enacted in the field of feminist science fiction in order […]
Many games, particularly smaller indie games, present limited experience, and these limitations can manifest in myriad ways. Firewatch takes place over a single summer. Depression Quest is all text, with text options denied as its driving mechanic. Reigns is a series of yes/no decisions. Some games, though, ask you to […]
Last week, I was at an academic conference, presenting on a game I and a colleague created for classroom use. It’s a big conference, and I got to listen to a lot of very smart scholars hold forth on all the things I’m interested in, from first-year writing to games […]
This post is the first in a monthly series where I play, review, and share some reactions to the top 30 board games as determined by Board Game Geek. Board games should not be beyond the reach of serious critical inquiry. Board games crush video games in the Kickstarter arena, […]
Several weeks ago, I examined Nina Lykke’s Feminist Studies: A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Methodology and Writing in order to consider the ways intersectional methodologies might be used within the field of feminist game studies. I talked about the idea that intersectional methodologies allow for a multiplicity of feminist methods […]
As I’ve talked about before, I’m currently on a board game kick. Of course, considering the 20% per year growth projected over the next ten years, I’m certainly not the only one on a board game kick. Will board games ever surpass video games in popularity and sales? I’m not […]
Last month, I wrote about Reigns, the Tinder-influenced game of decisions, in which players take on the role of a monarch and lead a nation through a dynasty of successive rulers. Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about the game, about what the interconnected internal structures mean, and what […]
In a recent Games and Culture article, “’I can Defend Myself’: Women’s Strategies for Coping with Harassment While Gaming Online,” author Amanda Cote presents research and interview data collected to show how women and other targeted groups deal with constant online harassment. She found five main ways women cope: “These […]
Reigns, released late last summer, situates the player as king of an ancient kingdom, located somewhere faintly European, somewhere in the early 7th century. But you’re not one king; you are all kings, a long-reaching dynasty of king after king, each taking up the crown upon his predecessor’s fall. The […]
This week many (privileged) folks hit social media all aghast that Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced under Rule XIX which stipulates that “no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming […]
I’ve written about my old undergraduate pastime of playing Dungeons and Dragons before, though working towards a PhD has made time a precious commodity I can rarely spend on social gaming. I did get the chance to do a little tabletop gaming over winter break, and, as it always does, […]
In her post this week, Alisha discussed both the challenges of and need for feminist writing that examines, as she puts it, our “world of games.” Her discussion of these things brought to mind, for me, a book I’ve been reading this week—namely, Writing Academic Texts Differently: Intersectional Feminist Methodologies […]
You get what you deserve. There’s a song about it. It’s used over and over in conversation when delighting in the downfall of one’s enemy. Motivational speakers use the saying to try and help audience members buy into whatever program they’re selling. It seems like such a simple concept. It […]