Episode 152: Then is Not Now: On Nostalgia in Games (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week in the podcast we talk about nostalgia in and around video games. We also talk a lot about playing games with our kids because we […]
Yearly Archives: 2017
143 posts
This week I have been playing Pokemon Moon again.I’ve had the game since launch, but I tend to play Pokemon games in bits. A few hours here, a few days here. Whenever the mood strikes me and I feel like catching some pocket monsters. This week I started playing again […]
As the semester ended, I spent a little time with Crusader Kings II again, as I often do when I have some free time at last. I sink in for a few days and decompress, and then I ignore the game for months. But this time, as I played, I […]
This is a post about board games, but I do spend a little time contextualizing it so you can stick with the personal anecdote or jump straight down to the review bits. All games discussed in this post were purchased by me for personal use. When I first decided homeschooling […]
In the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time considering so-called “walking simulators,” first as I dug into different definitions of games, and then, as I moved away from that, into perceptions of games and the experiences they offer. One of the games that comes up most often […]
Episode 151: Coming Together Over Streams: A Conversation with Justin Clark (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week in the podcast we are joined by Twitch streamer Justin Clark (Twitch & Twitter: TrueZeldaFan) as we talk about the culture of streaming, why he […]
Someone recently asked me if it’s frustrating talking about harassment in games year after year. Yes, of course it is. When we started NYMG over 6 years ago, I did it with the idea that we would have a hand in ending the harassment women face online. Little did we […]
I’d like to pick up a small part of last week’s discussion on games, narratives, and experience, as the idea of environmental narrative bled into my seminar papers this semester as well. If we want to think about games as a matter of being – as in, what happens when we […]
Last weekend I finally made it to the theater (with Alisha–she was brave) to see Jordan Peele’s film Get Out (2017). I’ve wanted to see it for a while, but I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to see the film alone. Miraculously I had avoided spoilers in the […]
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 […]
Episode 150: On Recognition, Representation, and Revolution: A Conversation with TreaAndrea Russworm (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, BlogTalk Radio, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week in the podcast we had an amazing conversation with TreaAndrea Russworm (@ProfessorTMR) is an associate professor at UMass Amhearst, author of Blackness is Burning: […]
The Sexy Brutale is a puzzle adventure game from Tequila Works (2017) and is available on Xbox One, PS4, and Steam. It only seemed fitting that the kids were fascinated with the idea of playing Clue during the same week that I was set to play The Sexy Brutale (Xbox One) […]
As I write this post I have two weeks left in my first year as a PhD student. I have a daunting pile of assignments waiting for me after I finish this post, all due at various points before my summer can begin, and the boss fight finals week feeling […]
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 […]
I have to admit that in the last year or so I have played several games that have really made me question the existence of a time sucking black hole…but not in a bad way. These games have made me lose track of time as I got sucked into their […]
I spent a lot of time looking at diversity in State of Decay and its re-release, from actually counting and coding bodies to considering the feeling of a game driven by the kinds of characters who don’t normally lead stories. Results were mixed; the game, while much stronger than many […]