This week I played The Beginner’s Guide, the latest effort from Davey Wreden, creator of the much-lauded The Stanley Parable. The Beginner’s Guide, much like that game, is a short experience, built in Source, and as The Stanley Parable is a commentary on agency and game design, The Beginner’s Guide […]
Our work at NYMG has always been in service of making games better for everyone. This includes the community that loves games, the industry that makes them, and the academics that talk about them incessantly (myself included). Some people don’t like the way we go about this. In particular, some […]
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 […]
(No direct spoilers here for episode five, but instead just general discussion of narrative structure and larger considerations of the game as a whole.) Since the release of the first episode, my experience with Life Is Strange has been a series of ups and downs, but as the story has come […]
I worry that have been falling out of love with video games. The drive I used to have to finish this quest line, explore that new area, or be the first to beat that new game has been waning. I’m not gaming less, by any means, but my gaming has […]
I’ve been thinking about cheating and games a lot lately. It’s not surprising. At least half the time, when I give my elevator pitch, whoever I’m talking too equates what I study, gaming community support sites and the information gamers share there, with cheating. Responses like “You mean those ways […]
We are pleased to announce the debut of the first installment of the Invisibility Blues series, along with its new home here on NYMG. In this first episode, we look at character creation in a variety of games, focusing on selectable features, game lore, and the potential impacts of limitations. […]
Episode 113: Scared Shitless and Loving It: What to Play, Watch, and Read This Halloween (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). The episode where we talk about all of our favorite scary books, games, and movies that we’re using to put us in the […]
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 […]
Recently, I played through Kiva Bay’s game 12hrs, a game in which players are thrust into the role of a homeless woman trying to survive the night. Suffice to say, 12hrs is a harrowing experience in general, but unusually so here because I initially played as part of a group. […]
Somehow I missed this LEGO commercial from last year, but this week Facebook has been showing it to me daily. It’s a good commercial, but not a perfect commercial. The commercial shows a girl playing with LEGO sets as well as creating her own LEGO builds while integrating the creations […]
Last week, I had to read Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century for a course on antebellum American literature that I’m taking this semester, and in it, Margaret Fuller critiques the gender hierarchies and relationship patterns that she saw occurring in the nineteenth century. But one moment in the […]
So this week I finally played Super Mario Maker for the Wii U. I haven’t purchased the game for home because I have a ridiculous backlog of games that have come out in the last month and Fallout 4 and Tomb Raider are both looming for release next month. But […]
Another anime season has come and gone and it’s time again to reflect on and discuss some notable series of this past anime season. The Summer 2015 season delivered a wide variety of titles and genres and while not all of my chosen series lived up to their expectations, there […]
Posts are circulating around Facebook about the connection between the shooting in Oregon and participation ribbons. Posters say that part of what breeds individuals like the shooter (we choose not to give more attention to the killer and to focus on the victims) is a culture that protects children from everything, […]
While I am a huge fan of sports, I am not particularly an avid follower of sports video games. During my undergraduate years, I would consistently slay anyone who dared to challenge me in Madden, NCAA, 2K, and even Top Spin (yo, my backhand was nasty). My interest for these […]