In the absence of long rpgs

For a second I thought that Telltale might become my new Bioware now that I don't have patience for 50+ hour videogames. Bioware has been that company which makes me buy a new console and always has me anticipating and following the progress of their upcoming releases. And then has me playing their games, and replaying them, and always loving them. I don't think there are any other companies out there which I've had this relationship with for the past 5-10 years. I used to love the Metal Gear Solids, and I used to play every new Castlevania and Silent Hill game, but there has not been anything quite like Bioware, meaning a company which makes a very specific type of game that isn't part of the same video game franchise/series and makes that type of game consistently awesome. For a while there was Cave and their shmups, but mostly it was their back catalogue that I explored, and by the time their games started reaching the Western hemipshere once again my interest in arcade shmups was already waning. And there was Nintendo and their trinity of Zelda, Mario and Metroid games. Of these, I'm mostly into Mario today, which I wouldn't have guessed ten years ago, but that's a franchise. There's all these indie developers whose upcoming projects I've been looking forward to (Aaron R. Reed, Jake Elliot, Terry Cavanagh, Jason Rohrer, etc). But none of these is Bioware. And then there is Telltale. But Telltale is not Bioware either.

Bioware for me has been about immersing myself in something for an extended period of time. It's been both about the hype before a game release, about playing the game with millions of other people, and then being part of the gaming communities collective memory. It's been about comparing their new game to their old ones, tracking the progress of their conversation systems and contextualizing their games in the video game industry as a whole. It's been about finding these types of charts endearing. It's been about always getting to know interesting characters in interesting settings, and about doing cool missions with these characters. It's really not the same thing in Telltales games. In my playthrough of Tales Of Borderlands, I got the opportunity to talk to the supporting characters by approaching them on my own maybe once or twice per episode. There were a lot of other conversations (seeing as the game consists primarily of these), but mostly in-action, as part of the plot development. One might see this as a strength and proof of good writing. But it's not the same thing as kicking back with your squadron in your spaceship, extensively getting filled in on their backstory and what problems they might have had with each-other while you were out doing something else. It's not the same as taking in what a character is asking of you in your own pace, then deciding how to answer, approaching the problem at hand. It's not the same as exploring a world and its characters in that RPG and Bioware specific fashion.

So I mourn the fact that I don't have the same relationship to Bioware as I used to have, and that there doesn't seem to me anything close resembling a replacement. jRPGs just never worked for me in the same manner, and I even tried replaying both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII just last weekend. I got five hours into FF7 and three hours into FF8, and this when playing without random encounters! No, I'll just have to remember those games through their soundtracks, because by God is the writing in them so bad that I honestly think many teenagers could come up with something better. And newer jRPGs, well, you know, they haven't gotten much better, and they sure as hell haven't become much shorter. And I guess that's part of the problem, that the open-world trend has taken over both the new Dragon Age/Metal Gear Solid games and the upcoming Zelda (although in the context of the Zelda franchise I'm actually intrigued).

But, you know, I did play Pillars of Eternity last year. It was awesome, even though it wasn't Bioware. And this year the new Planescape is coming out. Perhaps it's not so bad after all, it's just me being nostalgic as always. And then there is always Mass Effect: Andromeda. If they make just enough changes and don't make it too much of an open world game, I might give it a spin, and I might even get hyped before release. Well, if I get a PS4 that is, but I still don't know any other game which might convince me of doing so more than Bioware's upcoming one.

Dreaming in gamespaces

One can be a gamer in many different ways, a notion I explored earlier. I just realized another aspect of being a gamer - where one's mind wanders when it is time to choose one's creative weapon of choice.

I recently saw The Martian, a sci-fi flick about a guy being left behind on Mars. And as often is the case when I interact with works of fiction (but also academic literature), I got inspired and started imagining scenarios; by projecting the possibility-space of what could occur in the movie later on; by trying to figure out how scientific the movie was; by trying to put myself in the position of the main character; by exploring the life of the main character after the end of the movie, and so on. My mind was exploding with creativity, a reaction I often have when watching an interesting movie, where really half of the experience is just me thinking about alternatives to the experience at hand, me extrapolating interesting things about the movie and toying with them.

It also so happened that when watching The Martian, I remembered an idea for a video game which I wanted to make some years ago wherein you are a person in a spaceship with just a couple of minutes to live/play. A similar idea has since then been explored in Orchids To Dusk (Pol Clarissou), which in turn has conceptual similarities to earlier web-based works 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness (Petri/Kloonigames) and We the Giants (Peter Groeneweg), but notes for my idea are still scribbles all over the pages of my copy of Alain de Bottons Religion For Atheists, which inspired me to imagine this spaceship game about connectivity and spirituality. I mean what better way to realize the connectdeness of everything than on your own deadbed, seeing the planet as a "pale blue dot"? I imagine going to ones own funeral might also work - someone should make a video game about that!

Anway, watching the Martian something hit me - why do I start realizing video game ideas both when watching a movie and when reading a work of non-fiction? Because I am a gamer, of course! ;) Seriously though, my thinking patterns say something about me. I've never made a video game in my life, but I do give videogames a lot of thought. And even though words pop up in my head, often I want to insert them into a videogame of some type. I love a lot of things about video games, but one of the things I love the most is inhabiting game spaces. Many of the games I play these days (Her Story, Beginners Guide) don't have spaces you can traverse through and inhabit in the sense that you might traverse a space in games such as The Legend of Zelda or Baldur's Gate, but nontheless I love inhabiting game spaces and associate just walking around strongly with video gaming. And even though I love exploring game spaces conceptually and many of my favorite video games have these sorts of spaces, I'm happy that modern adventure games such as Telltales are linear and have game scenes rather than game spaces, as compared to oldschool point-and-clicks which were all about game spaces but then also all about backtracking through those spaces and being stuck in them far too long.

I have less patience these days and I'm more interested in story than ever before, and thus just exploring game spaces for the sake of it doesn't cut it, which is why I didn't play Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, or Fallout 4. But I'm not completely satisifed with the interactive movie solution presented in Telltales games either. Perhaps this is why I enjoy games such as Consortium so much, where you both have a very clear sense of space where it's all about mise-en-space rather than mise-en-scene, but you also have a lot of character interaction and story (all of the game takes place aboard a ship and thus there isn't much transportation necessary between the good bits). Pathologic is similar, yet different: there, the characters and world-building is awesome, and there is also a clear sense of space, but most of the time is spent walking between interesting encouters, which takes far too much time and is something I hope Ice-Pick Lodge address in their upcoming remake, and not solely by making the walking bits/combat/scrounging system more intrusive/encompassing - then it just becomes a gamey survival simulator which has too little of the character/world building elements which I love about game spaces.

So what do I love about game spaces then? It's the sense of being somewhere specific, really connecting to that place, something which is easier to do when it has quality characters, and harder to do when it's empty or not fully-realized as a space and instead is more like a movie. It's also easier to get this sense of place when it's filled with characters that live and breathe (Life Is Strange, Undertale) as opposed to filled with audiologs of characters talking about the spaces at hand in the past (Bioshock, Dear Esther, etc). "Audiologs" exist in Life Is Strange and Undertale as well (I imagine it's really hard making a game as deep as Life Is Strange with as much a sense of space and character exploration without lazy environmental narrative "crutches" such as diary entries, newspapers, etc) but they do so as complements to exploring the space at hand rather than abstracting it completely. I guess that when I wish to be immersed in other worlds, I primarily want to be so through tightly-knit video game spaces with the traits mentioned above, and I actually don't wish to be immersed through text simply because I don't find text immersive enough. Text inspires me, non-fiction or fiction with for example sci-fi concepts such as the ones explored in Mievilles or Egans books especially,  and I can imagine movie concepts, sure, but a good RPG such as Planescape Torment or an adventure game such as Pathologic makes me really want to live and breathe somewhere else for a while. Now then, I'm off to immerse myself in some Oxenfree.

Living up to ideals - to queer or not to queer

As some sort of queer person, and at the very least a potential queer ally, I seem to believe that it's my duty to further queer art and queer communities. To shine light on smaller projects, games, which don't get much attention outside those communities. And so I make myself search out and play queer games. But sometimes I get tired of both the search and the playing. Often the payoff just isn't very good when compared to when I use other criteria to find good games than them being queer. I get tired of asking myself why I bother with playing those games if I don't have a dialogue with the queer communities which spawn them. But I don't very much wish to have that dialogue, and I don't necessarily enjoy myself enough to justify my playing through all those queer games.

And I guess that's what it comes down to. I just don't feel like I need to play another game with trans protagonists about trans issues, and often that's what those games have to offer me, and not much more. So the question I should be asking myself is perhaps "who am I trying to please here?" What lack am I making up for? It could be argued that I don't have to like or even play the games I wish to mention, but at the same times that begs the question why queer games are more worth caring for than other games which I enjoy more. Complicating this inquiry is my always having a hard time with relating to groups which I might belong to in ways I don't wish to address right now, but it doesn't make things any better when I feel I'm doing something which I wouldn't otherwise out of some sense of duty that isn't very well defined and has questionable effect.

These are not easy questions to answer, but for now let's just put it bluntly - it isn’t my job to like anybody’s game. Now, I'm off to do something I want to do as a human being instead of some idealistic identity political bullcrap.

Gamer, I am

Every now and then, I ask myself the question what exactly makes me a gamer, and if I even am one. If I should consider myself one. If I should continue being one. Why it's important for me to refer to myself as a gamer, or perhaps not refer to myself as one, but to still feel like I am one in the sense of having stakes in the gaming community and the gamer identity. I mean I cried when the trailer for Shenmue 3 came out, even though I don't care much the continuaton of Shenmue 2. But, you know, what a day for gamers it was¹! Because being a gamer makes me value games more than other forms of media. Being a gamer directs my attention toward games more than other forms of entertainment, and it makes me consider whether something should be considered a (video) game at all less than someone else who doesn't give two shits if a walking simulator should be considered a game at all, or someone who doesn't even consider considering it being a game because obviously it isn't and so it shouldn't be a part of any gaming spaces. And when it comes to the definition of what a game is I have all these thoughts about formalism, deconstruction, Wittgenstein, accessibility to space, privilege, identity, distribution forms and whatnot, but part of the truth is that I just live much of my life through the lens of my being a gamer and my playing video games. I want Dear Esther to be considered a video game because if it wasn't, it wouldn't be on my "Favorite Video Games of 2012"-list and it wouldn't appear on any other list either because I don't make lists as comprehensive as those of other things – I'm a gamer and quite frankly that takes a lot of effort and time. I prioritize being a gamer.

That's another important aspect of my considering myself a gamer – effort. I try to keep up with the world of video games in a way I don't with foreign or internal affairs, comics, movies, etc. I even try to keep up with "the industry", and not just as a consumer, but as, you got it – a gamer. I do usually skim over most of the industry/big business side of video games though, in favor of exploring more hidden indie gems and the analysis of these. Often I even don't get into something new in favor of reading yet another article about one of my favorite video games series, just for purposes of my own personal history and nostalgia, seeing as I'm too busy playing new games to go back and play those time-consuming behemoths of my childhood. That too makes me a gamer (and a nerd of certain franchises). But I put in effort and determination even into that aspect of my gaming by using my expanded view of my favorite series and bringing it into other aspects of my life where I explore ideas of all kinds – philosophically, psychologically, spiritually. I am a gamer because I put more value into games and the exploration of them than I would say a movie or a play, whether that be by playing or reading and writing. This is not due to some explicit judgment of mine, it's simply a consequence of my being – my being a gamer.


A consequence of my valuing games a lot is that I become more patient with them, because I am willing to cut them some slack for failures in one area or another if there is a silver lining of any sort, anything of interest which it attempts or if it's part of some sort of video game canon which I deem myself invested in and therefore should explore. This means I might be patient with a game even if it doesn't appear to have any silver lining if I've heard something good about a game from a peer of gamers with similar ideas to mine concerning gaming, or just a similar enough taste. But due to my valuing games more, sometimes I can also be more impatient than someone else would be – I don't want to put up with bullshit when I know that there is so much more potential and so much more out there. I give games more, and in turn I expect more. I construct my own meaning in the game on top of the meaning presented as face-value, and I am a gamer because this type of relationship makes me more of a player and less of a spectator than I would be if I would be just along for the ride and play the part of the missing cog that is the machinery of start-continue-you win/the end. Among other things, this over-the-top meaning construction entails a mindset of interpreting things charitably, and expecting games to be well enough thought-out so that I can be expected to draw conclusions from a wide array of its elements and not only those that are usually considered when reviewing a game.

I am an old gamer, but not because I believe things used to be better (they are in fact getting better still), but because I am frustrated with games and gamers. I am tired of gaming in many ways, and my tastes have changed to accommodate my tiredness. I am most definitely not a power gamer anymore and often get frustrated when the gameplay mechanics bog down the flow of the “game proper”. I much rather prefer roleplaying and the sense of playing something well in the sense of having had a dialogue with the game that resulted in my feeling that what I did was meaningful and satisfying as a narrative. I am an old gamer because I give up two hours after booting up Batman: Arkham City, tired of feeling inadequate and confused about the controls and everything it throws at me. I am an old gamer when I realize that the first Metal Gear Solid had the most fun stealth elements for me because it had gameplay resembling 2D/top-down games of an era that is mostly gone. I am both an old gamer and an Old Snake when I hang in and continue playing the Metal Gear Solid franchise until the very end even when large chunks of the gameplay elements don't cater to my needs and preferences anymore.

I am a tired gamer because I always check howlongtobeat.com before venturing into a game world, and often check out a let's play to see how much of the content is mindless filler or mindful puzzling – either of which I don't care for very much. I am the type of gamer that couldn't be bothered less by yet another fetch quest or yet another door which can't be opened until you find two keys, mold them into one, and then insert them into said door. I value thematic consistency and depth, a developed tone, juxtaposed motifs, hard-hitting symbolism and artistic imagination and integrity over saving the world or turning levers. I am pretentious that way, but not because I try but because otherwise I wouldn't be able to be a gamer anymore, and I would have to move on to something else – something way more pretentious. But even if the content is interesting in one way or another, I do feel the urge to move on quite quickly. Sure, I take notes and I'm patient in other ways, but I hurry on to the next project due to my desire to experience as much as possible. Sometimes I think I take notes due to my impatience, simply because I feel I need more stimuli and writing starts up some thinking processes which would otherwise be hijacked by a more visceral aspect of the game I'm playing. Then again, I am an old gamer, and I often take notes just to keep track of the names of the dramatis personae...
 
I love not-games, art games, avant garde games, experimental games, newsgames, biographical games, personal games, lived games, virtual exhibition games, walking simulators, transmedia, games which exlore algorithms/systems for the design and implementation of dynamic story techniques which can lead to games that are emergent yet still about people and characters. I read books about some of these type of games, and countless articles and forum posts. I engage much less with these communities other than through voting systems and playing games than I often wish to, simply because there are too many of these communities and too little time. I have a hard time settling on one over the other – I am after all a gamer, and I want it all. But sure, I've taken a more active role on some smaller forums, the smallest of which was some subdivision of a Bioware forum where people discussed Baldur's Gate exclusively. But that was way back, when I was a younger gamer...

I love niche communities with worlds of their own which I can explore; Inform 7 Interactive Fictions, Adenture Games Studios point-and-clicks, queer Twines, RPG Maker horror adventures, japanese indie shmups, and so on. I check up on some of these from time to time, and move on from others. And move on I need to indeed, sometimes even from things which would seem to be very important and thus in need of my attention. But move on I do indeed, because sometimes I'm just really tired of gamers and their gamergates, sexism, boneheadedness and immaturity and rather play games than read yet another article discussing the dark sides of gaming. I do not feel pride about being a gamer those days, in fact, I barely consider myself a gamer at all. And yet, I am a gamer because I care where the industry is going. I care because I want there to be games which I enjoy and dream about AAA titles which cater to my preferences. I am gamer because I care about what games others get to play, and I wish that others might see what I see, play what I play, and not what the general media wants them to believe and play. I want non-gamers to be able to play games and not being accused of ruining it for “real gamers”. I even want to be a curator of some sorts for gamers and non-gamers alike, because I care about my tastes and believe them to be refined enough to recognize good games. I believe in my ability in doing a good job and being able to recommend these good games to others after having considered their tastes. I am both gamer and curator of sorts when I don't delete obscure little games from my hard drives because I'm thinking that there just might be a slight chance that the world will forget about these games completely if I remove them. What if somebody points at some game from one of my lists and tells me that it's nowhere to be found? What is nobody ever does? Ah, well then at least the game still exists and thus... is important somehow?

I write this text in the capacity of being a gamer, and I do so as part of something larger. I do it not because it makes me happy per se, but because I find value in it. The hedonistic treadmill is the great equalizer of things and one could always ask oneself if doing a thing would make one more happy. I don't think that is always the proper question to ask, and believe that there are things which would make oneself more true or authentic rather than happy, and that there is value in that too. It's a tightrope walk, balancing that which cannot be measured with that which can. And it's a hard line to draw between what is productive even though it doesn't lead to happiness, and what's just destructive and part of a negative pattern. Because let's be honest – oftentimes I do get the distinct feeling that my time would be better spent reading a book rather than playing whatever videogame I'm currently playing. So what am I doing playing the videogame? I'm a tired gamer, and for me gaming isn't relaxing – if I wanted to relax I'd just watch a television series. It comes back to value. But it also comes down to identity – is there a better argument for my being a gamer than that I rationalize my time spent on video games with my identity as a gamer?

But this isn't an argument and I'm not trying to convince you that I'm a gamer or what a gamer is. I hope that's perfectly clear by now. What I also hope is perfectly clear is that I don't give up on video games (although I understand people who do). I do take games seriously, I do mind them, and I do believe that they affect us – gamers and non-gamers alike. My believing games to be a powerful force for individuals and in society means that I have to value them and their future. I have to care. And I have to believe in a better future.

So I do not play Fallout 4 as all gamers seem to be doing these days. I haven't played most of the usual big contestants for game of the year awards. I do not look forward to many AAA titles, and I spend more time thinking about games and deciding what games to actually finish, play at all, watch a playthrough of, listen to a podcast about or don't give a fuck about. Sometimes I even read articles about games I haven't played, when they provide interesting perspectives on video games/the industry as a whole, or even are just a lens through which something other than video games is explored. Because the danger of considering oneself a gamer is that one excludes things, and that in the end it may be too great a cost to bear. But the question of access is also why I consider myself a gamer, because the label “gamer” shouldn't be left to only a select few who are considered to have the credentials to be labeled such. It is not through playing certain (male) games that one becomes a gamer. It is not through gaining achievements or recognition within a community, or at least not exclusively. In reality, we are all gamers – reality is broken and the whole world is a game. All those who claim that they are gamers should be heard on their terms, and those who do not claim the title should at least be given encouragement to realize that they too might claim the label, make up a new one, take part of the/a community or spin off of an existing one. I am a gamer precisely because I realize that labels are a play of words and a play between human beings – gamers.
 
I am gamer because of all of the above, and more. How are you?



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1Then of course the whole aftermath of the Shenmue 3 kickstarter became something to follow for gamers all over the world due to the ways in which some gamers felt letdown due to Shenmue 3 effectively alreadying having been "kickstarted" by a big game publisher – Sony.

End Of/Game Of The Year!

Eleventy Reasons Listicles Are Great | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

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This is the year that I've probably played the most board games ever, almost more than video games.  I've thus gotten my "mechanical gameplay" fixes in the analog world and my mechanical gameplay frustrations in the digital one. Although I guess Undertale came out this year and had the most fun gameplay I probably ever encountererd in a turn-based game, Her Story had a bunch of "text" but a really interesting mechanical hook to gather that text, and Pillars of Eternity managed to make me powergame for 30+ hours. Then again Wasteland 2 did that last year as well, and I kinda regret digging myself so deep into both games. But yeah there were and probably always will be some games that manage to combine narrative and thematic depth with classical videogame mechanics that really interest me, and the best contender this year was without a doubt Undertale. Transistor took the top spot last year for both GOTY and had awesome gameplay, but it is kinda hard to compare such a game with say Shovel Knight or Towerfall: Ascension. What makes both Transistor and Undertale interesting is their merging of gameplay and story. Her Story does it as well, but I wouldn't refer to its gamey elements as "classical videogame mechanics" - some would claim it's not a game at all.

Anyway, I won't be listing any board games here, just video(ish) games. The 2014 list has two new episodic games on it which I didn't play until this year - Kentucky Route Zero and Dreamfall Chapters. I finally played Mass Effect 3: Citadel (2013) which made is straight into my top 10 list. Other than that, it's just a bunch of games that have made it into my honorable mentions (and "want to play" category) I think.

The last five years have been very good for me and videogaming. 2011 there were only seven games

Even More Worthy of Mentioning, there have been 10-15 in the last five years, with 26 last year (2014), and there are still more games I wish I had played! This year there were only only eight. I barely had ten games that I thought were worthy of being up at the top ten! But I don't think that has to do anything with any trends or that I played less games this year. I've always missed more games from the latest year than those before and indeed don't have any intention of playing anything I haven't already played that is older than a couple of years, but still, 2015 just wasn't as good a year as 2014, which I didn't even realize was so good until now.

When it comes to this year in blogging, I just started blogging seriously again at the end of the year because I got an internship that wasn't as stressful as my earlier ones and freed up my creative powers. I also started listening to podcasts as a paper boy this summer which inspired me to listen to gaming podcasts and thus made game writing my creative outlet at the end of this year. My most read post in 2015 is one from the beginning of the year (50 reads) which isn't surprising because there is a very long tail for my blog posts. The most read pieces are still very very old, and I'm not really sure that the number is really representative of how many people actually did see the posts, but in either case there is the only post that has 1000+ readers, and there are two that have around 750, one a simple link collection and the other a more personal piece which I think would be better if edited a bit and also expanded to point out things in the vein of "then again perhaps bioshock makes the argument that objectivism can't really work because of the nature of humans" and to clear up my reasoning concerning the conclusions I draw. I think that in part it got so many readers because it was featured in a critical compilation post on bioshock over at criticaldistance or somewhere else.

What will 2016 bring then? Gamewise, there is just too much to list here. I have 150+ games bookmarked which I look forward to, and 50+ small indie game developers whose websites I follow because if they were to make a game, chances are I'd never hear about it otherwise. Developers like Aaron Oldenburg, Lucas J.W. Johnson, Aaron Reed and Michael Lutz. Other developers, such as Sam Barlow, Jake Elliot or Dan Pinchbeck/Jessica Curry I really have no need, considering that Her Story, Kentucky Route Zero and the remake of Dear Esther were such big hits. Some websites, like those belonging to projects A Second Face 2 and Loom: The Forge I've had bookmarked for a longer time than Jonathan Blows recent project...And you know, let's not forget the fact that most games I play I never had a clue about before finding out about and playing them. But there are some games that are coming out in January at least, which I look forward to. There is the biographical couple-made kickstarter game That Dragon, Cancer, Blows six years in the making The Witness, The augmented reality thingamabob The Icebound Concordance, Kentucky Route Zero lookalike Oxenfree, and artsy Oldenburgs first game in a long time, 1000 Heads Among The Trees. So it will be a busy January and it will be a busy year for sure.

As for this blog, who knows. I feel like I need to go out into the world once again and get some inspiration. Right now I've been spending a lot of time in front of the computer and I'm about to some more because I will primarily be looking for a job. Which means I need less screen time, not more. Perhaps some more people, board games, or playing video games with people, which I hope will become a thing. I just might drop out of gaming altogether because it takes up so much time to keep up with things, and I just might need that time if I want to seriously consider making a Twine game. Then again, not right now while I'm looking for work. But maybe in 2016. If nothing else, I have words for the things I wish to put words into, words such as interactive digital theater, combinatorial narrative, secret box, procedural fiction, explorable explanation, emergent story. Well, the things these words refer to are also things I wish to interact with, and I just might be satisfied with that as well in 2016.

2015 also brought some disappointments, but mainly in the form of Metal Gear Solid V which was painful to watch, and Grim Fandango Remastered which also was painful because it wasn't as substantial as my childhood memories made me think. Other than that, it's crazy how many games which I end up loving barely have my attention before release. Of the top ten this year, I only knew about Pillars of Eternity a  year before it was released, and I had heard about Life Is Strange and Tales of Borderlands before release. Most of the games were complete surprises then, and probably 2016 will bring many surprises as well, which is crazy considering how many games I know about from the get-go. As usual, there were far too few games which aimed at reflecting the political climate we live in right. But a positive thing is that gender representation in the top ten games is as follows: 3 games with male protagonists, 3 with gender neutral/self-chosen genders, and 7 with female protagonists. Some of these games even have several female protagonists! When it comes to the production side though only one game has mainly female creators as far as I know. But still.

Before the video game lists, here are some other stuffs.



§HYPE
Who Wins Game of the Year? - The Final Bosman



§ANTIHYPE
Between the date and the emphasis on “exclusive” trailers, it’s pretty clear the ceremony is still an advertising opportunity for publishers first and foremost.  Instead of waiting until early 2016 to recap 2015 games, the awards are held in early December – smack-dab in the middle of the holiday buying season.  The show acts less like an awards ceremony and more like a commercial or buyer’s guide reminding people which games are available and which ones to consider must-buys.
/.../
Most reputable game awards have some reason to exist, some core ethos that motivates the desire to hand out prizes.
/.../
Nothing like this can be said for The Game Awards.  It’s a continuation of an outright embarrassing award show that was always more concerned with generating ad revenue than curating a year’s worth of games.



§ROUND UPS/AWARDS
Critical Distance Podcast Roundup

Cane and Rinse - A Little Look Back On 2015

RockPaperShotguns Christmas Calender

Polygon's 2015 Games of the Year

Kill Screen: The Best Videogames of 2015

Polygons Top Video Game News 2015

the most emotionally resonant games of 2015 opted to confront us with truths instead of helping us avoid them—whether they were ugly or embarrassing or cheesy or pathetic.

Mattie Brices favs

Leigh Alexanders 2015 Farewell Tour

Critical Distances Year In Videogame Blogging

The 5 trends that defined the game industry in 2015

The Top 10 Best Things of 2015 - The Final Bosman

Game Maker's Toolkit - 5 Bits of Good Game Design from 2015

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A few years after becoming absorbed in what evolved into a hobby, I happened across a desire to reach out to these people, who had only existed disembodied in my imagination.
/.../
I tell you this so that you know how I’m approaching and presenting the games listed below. All released in 2015, these were the ones that spoke most to me, that let me into their creator’s mindspace and maybe also opened my eyes to something. In short, these were the games of 2015 that brought me closer to other people.



§OTHER NOT GAMEY STUFF I INTERACTED WITH IN 2015

Favorite Movies
Birdman
Coherence
Don Juan
Ex Machina
Her
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
In Your Eyes
Robot And Frank
Song of the Sea
Tape
Winnie The Pooh (2011)

3 Before Sunset
2 Before Midnight
1 Before Sunrise

Favorite TV-series
Agent Carter
Fringe
Sense8

3 Rick and Morty
2 Supernatural
1 Ally McBeal

Music stuffs
Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe
Burzum - Fallen
Drudkh - Blood In Our Wells
Katatonia (in general)
Life Is Strange Soundtrack
Marcato Brothers - Podcast & Albums
Muse - Various
Music From Various Zelda Games
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Pink Floyd -  A Momentary Lapse Of Reason
Purity Ring - Shrines/Another Eternity
Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die
The Beatles - Let It be... Naked
Timbuktu - Sagolandet
Vanessa Carlton - Heroes & Thieves
Walk Off The Earth - Sing It All Away


I've barely read any new books this year, mostly reread stuff. I've played a lot of boardgames, but meh, I'm getting powernapeytimey here so let's skip those for now. :P




§MY GAMES OF THE YEAR
(ignore the footnotes)

Missed Out On/Want To Play

PCDreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey – Book 2-4
Dropsy¹
NotDoba

Game Of Thrones Season 1 – Episode 2-5 (Telltale Games)
Ori and the Blind Forest
Super Sec Soccer

Console

Everyone's Gone To Rapture
Runbow

The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask 3D

Until Dawn

Yoshi's Wooly World

Honorable Mentions
80 Days
A Fistful of Gun²
Assault Android Cactus³

Beneath Floes⁴ (Kevin Snow)
Best Chess⁵ (Pippin Barr)
Cibele⁶ (Star Maid Games/Nina Freeman)
Conversations We Have In My Head⁷ (Squinky)
Cradle⁸ (Flying Cafe for Semianimals)

Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
Dyscourse⁹

Else Heart.Break¹⁰ (Erik Svedäng)
Epanalepsis¹¹

Final Girls¹² (spideyj/Kanane)
Grim Fandango Remastered¹³
Home Is Where One Starts¹⁴

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number¹⁵
Knee Deep: Act 1-2¹⁶
Knossu (Jonathan Whiting)
Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime¹⁷

Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain
Metamorphabet¹⁸ (Vectorpark)

MINKOMORA¹⁹ (Kikopa Games)

Neurotic Neurons²⁰ (Nicky Case)
Obéissance²¹ (Merritt Kopas)

Off-Peak²² (Cosmo D)

Ohmygod Are You Alright²³ (Anna Anthropy)
Orchids To Dusk²⁴ (Pol Clarissou)
Pathologic Classic HD²⁵
Penarium²⁶
Plug & Play²⁷ (Etter Studios)
Radiator1²⁸
Rain, House, Eternity²⁹ (Kitty Horrorshow)
Republique Remastered³⁰Rocket League
Sanctuary³¹ (Connor Sherlock)

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows³²
Soma³³
Subway Adventure³⁴/Bedrooms³⁵ (Stephen Lavelle)

Summon The Apgrod³⁶

Stasis³⁷
Sunset³⁸

Sylvio³⁹

The Old City – Leviathan⁴⁰
The Next Penelope⁴¹
The Static Speaks My Name⁴² (Jesse Barksdale)
Timruk⁴³/Menagerie (Studio Oleomingus)
Titan Souls⁴⁴

TowerFall: Dark World⁴⁵

Even More Honorable Mentions (Even More Worthy of Mentioning)

After School⁴⁶
ChargeShot⁴⁷
Hollywood Visionary⁴⁸ (Aaron A. Reed)
Life Is Short – Interactive Haiku⁴⁹ (Florian Veltman)
Super Mario Maker
The Writer Will Do Something⁵⁰ (Matthew S Burns)
Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition⁵¹
White Night⁵²

10 The Music Machine⁵³/Fingerbones⁵⁴/A Wolf In Autumn⁵⁵ (David Szymanski)

9 The Book of The Dead/Viral Dusty Dead Identity Quiz⁵⁶/Tales of the Stop⁵⁷/Death and His Deer/Morning Rituals⁵⁸ (Silverstring Media/Lucas J.W. Johnson)

8 We Know The Devil⁵⁹ (Aevee Bee, Mia Schwartz & Alec Lambert)

7 The Beginner's Guide⁶⁰ (Davey Wreden/Everything Unlimited)

6 Little Party⁶¹ (turnfollow/Carter Lodwick/Ian Endsley)

5 Tales From The Borderlands Season 1 – Episode 2-5

4 Pillars of Eternity/Pillars of Eternity: White March⁶²

3 Her Story⁶³

2 Life Is Strange⁶⁴

1 Undertale⁶⁵

New Horrors
Beneath Floes

Pathologic Classic HD

Rain, House, Eternity

Sanctuary
Soma
Stasis

The Old City – Leviathan

The Book of The Dead/Viral Dusty Dead Identity Quiz

The Static Speaks My Name
White Night

3 We Know The Devil

2 The Music Machine/Fingerbones/A Wolf In Autumn 

1 Undertale (No Mercy-Run)

New Interactive Fiction

80 Days

Beneath Floes

Conversations We Have In My Head
Final Girls
Hollywood Visionary

Morning Rituals
Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition

3 The Writer Will Do Something
2 The Book of The Dead/Viral Dusty Dead Identity Quiz

1 We Know The Devil

New Multiplayer Madness

Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime

3 TowerFall: Dark World
2 Penarium
1 ChargeShot

New Funny Games

Dropsy

3 The Writer Will Do Something
2 Tales From The Borderlands

1 Undertale

List of video games that have grown the most with time

Many games grow with time. Some become outdated and bested and do not. But perhaps it's not that simple. Super Mario Bros is certainly outdated and bested by its many successors, yet  in hindsight it seems even more impressive for its time. This list is more on-the-fly than well-thought-out, although I've taken the above into consideration while making the (chronological) list.


Super Mario KartI haven't played any other racing game which I've enjoyed as much as Super Mario Kart, and that  includes Mario Kart 64. So I guess it has to be on this list.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time/Super Double Dragon
My two favorite sidescrolling beat em ups have yet to be beaten!

Super Probotector: Alien Rebels/Contra
Yep, still my favorite run n guns.

Soul Blade
I thought that after having a bunch of Soul Caliburs around, this game would become moot. Well, I still love it. It has a slower pace compared to the newer titles, and I enjoy it much as I enjoy Street Fighter 2 after many years.

Micro Machines V3
We need more (racing)games with the main mechanic of Micro Machines! The running game Speedrunners utilizes it, and so should others.

Super Mario 64
They got so much right on the first try at 3D platforming it's crazy. The manveuering and camera controls aren't the best by todays standards, but the platform design is still super fresh.

Planescape Torment
Was not disappointed when replayed a couple of years ago. Still my favorite RPG.

Fallout 2
Although it's very buggy and I don't wish to play it again, the open world structure of the game is still very impressive. I don't like open world for the sake of open world, but this game has reactivity and makes the open world feel like one world, manages to fill it with narrative and soul.

Unreal Tournament
This is probably just me, but I still love this game and don't bother with any other area shooters, basically.

The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask
Could not appreciate the adult themes of Majoras Mask first-time around. It seems to have gotten a bit of a revival in the critical community the last couple of years due to its artistic integrity.

Metal Gear Solid 2
What made me appreciate Metal Gear Solid 2 on a whole new level and really see the MGS franchise in a different light was this article. Since then, the game has for me become the pinnacle of subversive play.

Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill hasn't delivered very much in the last 14 years, and I've gotten tired of most horror anyway. So this game, couched in psychonalytical themes, is still the gold standard.

Parsec47/rRootage/Noiz2sa (Kenta Cho)
After a couple of years playing a lot of shmups, I started getting tired of the lack of procedurality in most games. These three have a lot of it, and thus it never completely feels like starting over and just waiting to getting back to the level you were on before to give it another shot. Sadly, I've been searching for this type of game ever since and come up with, well, Geometry Wars, and nothing else I enjoyed.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
The formula was completed with this one, I believe. After that it was just a bonus, and not always a good one either.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
It was the first Zelda game for a new console that I played "as a grown-up". It couldn't have been anything else than disappointing, since the Zelda franchise (basically just A Link to The Past and Ocarina of Time) was such a big part of me growing up. I haven't replayed it since its release, but I have come to view it in a different light due to all the critical writing on it. And in retrospect it has perhaps even more weight, considering that the games that take place chronologically after Wind Waker don't have Ganondorf in them. So in a sense it's a goodbye to that villain.

The promise of home in the past

I've known nostalgia all my life. Even when I was young enough to “barely have anything to be nostalgic over“, as the grown-up would have you very well know. But all children understand that there are worlds upon worlds in their imagination, and that matters which are deemed small by the adult world may indeed be of great value to the child, and go deeper than anyone fully sane thought possible.

And thus, when I finally conquered the Green Hind-legged Boar (Ganon) in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (ALttP) at the age of seven, a sensation of bittersweet longing for not having done so washed over me. In a sense, the game was impossible to finish, since every time I loaded it up Ganon was still alive, and my Hero was ready for another round (because there was no option to save the game after having defeated Ganon). But in my heart I knew that things would never be the same, or that indeed they would always remain the same, in the game, but that I, having defeated ganon, had changed.

At some point I discovered that there were more things in the game besides my relationship with it that seemed incomplete. Sure, there was always the relatively insignificant matter of not having collected all the heart pieces, but there was also something at once more sinister and comforting going on. It seemed as if the map – and thus in extension the world itself – in A Link to the Past was… unfinished. The corners of the map were covered in clouds, which meant mystery. Every time I booted up the Super Nintendo cartridge and found myself having nothing left to explore, a feeling of melancholy would take hold of me, leaving me treading old ground, yet being unable to leave the world behind. I would just sit there in front of my TV, staring beyond the screen while traversing Hyrule with my well-worn and trusty Pegasus Boots, completely in control of what was going, yet in a sense – not there at all. 

At times I was more aware of what I was doing, or at least had a sense of purpose while doing it. I tried tracing the outlines of the clouds while high atop Death Mountain, the only place outside of the map where the clouds could actually be seen. Up there I felt closest to breaking some sort of barrier, but in the end I didn't manage to get on top of or beyond any of the clouds. When the meticulous method of trying to bomb my way through every inch of Death Mountain failed, I'd resort to shifting between the full world map and a smaller piece of it where my avatar was localized. Having done so, I'd haphazardly press buttons, hoping that by sheer force and willpower I'd finally come across the magic combination that would unlock secrets and dispel fogs, opening up the world to reveal something unseen - new.

Although my quest for something "new" took up quite some time, it was the familiarity of the world and it's mysteries that brought me back time and time again. Thus, when menacing storms were approaching in the world outside of video games, so would my need to return to my Hyrule, my clouds therein, and what was within and beyond them, grow.

§

Homes are what we make of them. I doubt that the designers behind ALttP had in mind that I as a player would be returning to certain places in Hyrule time and time again, effectively treating it as a sort of camp, stronghold, resting place – home. I found several such places of rest after I started playing ALttP as a walking simulator/interactive screen and/or life-saver. The former resting place of the Master Sword in the Lost Woods, a lush grove with enchanting music, was one such place. Embedded in that location was perhaps the strongest symbol of dissonance between completion and fundamental incompleteness which inhabited the limbo that the myth of my Hero of Time – and my save file – had become. 
 

In the credits of the video game, after I defeated Ganon, I was told by the game that the Master Sword “sleeps again - forever”. Surely I had defeated Ganon, and though the sword which “makes evil retreat“ had retreated evil, unfortunately it didn't retreat itself into it's proper resting place in the Lost Woods, but was back into the hands of my hero every time I booted up my save file. The pedestal at the corner of the world reserved for the Master Sword was empty, and Link was armed, as if evil had in fact never had been vanquished. But at the same time that grove in the deepest of Lost Woods seemed much less “lost” to me than the rest of Hyrule, where legions of evil still roamed the Overworld. And so it became a place of rest for me - discrepancies be damned.¹


Ending credits

There was another place that I would come to know as home, also this one bittersweet, perhaps wabi-sabi², even. Colloquially it's referred to as the Haunted Grove³. Sounds ghastly, no? It was haunted and haunting indeed, but seldom chilling. This too was a place seemingly untouched by the trappings of the world outside, with bushes blocking it off from prying enemies, further instilling a feeling of safety in the dwellers who'd find themselves there. In a sense then, what I had created was a koja (Swedish word which is used both for tree houses, but also the provisional, impermanent make-believe edifices which children build inside and outside their rooms out of for example pillows and furniture – often to the dismay of their parents, and in some, especially difficult cases - their pets). To get there, the fastest way was by “flute-bird-transporting“ to Link's home cabin or to Kakariko Village, and then from there going by foot. Which reminds me – the place wasn't completely devoid of other inhabitants. And actually, the Grove wasn't really unaffected by the dark forces at work in the outside world either. As in the resting place of the Master Sword, here too there were animals which as suddenly as they appeared, vanished. But there was something else as well. If I could only remember...

Ah, yes. The flute boy.

The Flute Boy is seen playing for the wild animals of the grove. Approach them, and both the animals and the apparition of the Flute Boy disappears⁴. Return to the Haunted Grove in the Dark World (after the fall of the Golden Land) and the Flute Boy is transformed into a strange creature (trickster fox), not unlike Link himself was turned (into an innocent bunny) upon his first arrival in the Dark World. Link goes on a journey to find the flute which the Flute Boy lost, and when he brings the flute back to the Flute Boy in the Dark World, the Flute Boy says he can't play it anymore, but that hee would very well like to hear it's melody one more time. Turns out, this would be his last wish, as Link's playing of the flute petrifies the boy into a tree. The Flute Boy's apparitions cease to exist, leaving only the tree stump, and the memores, behind.

§

I don't roam the world of Hyrule anymore⁵, barely even the newer versions of it⁶. After all, Koholint Island and perhaps even Hyrule is at risk of transforming into a nightmare if the dreamer stays too long⁷. I stopped playing A Link to the Past many years ago, and even though my world today is "more Corinthian than Kokirian"⁸, Hyrule still lives through me. Still has it's pull. Mostly in the form of theories concerning the nature of the world of Zelda and it's franchise (especially Hylian Dan's wonderful takes on the recurring themes of Zelda games⁹), but certainly in and of itself due to my fond memories of ALttP and other Zelda titles. Due to my need to retread, and stir up, and dig around old ground, and due to the fact that there always will be storms ahead of us, and the shifting tides of what our past means to us.

The Haunted Grove will probably always have a piece of my heart, as will other places I've known as home, as (songs of) healing, as topographical points of mindfulness, as reveries, as empyrean realms, ageless playing pens - to have and to hold, to cherish and behold. I believe that there will always be a returning sense of incompleteness in my life, simply because that's what life is with it's directional arrow of time. Peace will be hard to find, while regret – not as much. Today, I understand The Haunted Grove as a liminal Otherworld, a threshold where childhood bliss and youthful distress share possibility-spaces for both growth and stagnation. It's the center of the hurricane, if you will, a mirror into a lighter world, but a mirror which is neither only a Mask of Truth, nor but a dark, lo-mask of nostalgic untruth - but both. I hold it up toward both the past and the future, the need for a home and the need for travel¹⁰.

The grown-up accepts that the clouds of the Hyrule world are mere instrumental tools for the marking of the “game world proper” - a system for demarcating the terminal point of non-experiential, objective reality - but the child with the beginner's mind dreams of what lies beyond, and while doing so makes the world within and in the clouds both home and travel companion. From time to time, my present situation harkens me back to Hyrule, implores me to find old homes and stay there a while and listen. And I do, albeit not in any formal sense which involves controllers and cartridges. I barely even know why that is. But what I do know in my heart of hearts is that I will be forever returning to the 32-bit Hyrule of my childhood, and even if I do so by adult means, I'll always meet my younger self there - my link to the past. As Hylian Dan would have put it – we let go of the tree to explore the world beyond it, but the tree is never lost.






_______



Written for Critical Distance’s Blogs of the Round Table for November, Home Sweet Home. Click here to read other submissions for this month.

1 Another observation to make is that on the fan-made maps of Hyrule where the Lost Woods are edited into the overworld, the Grove where the Master Sword rests is nowhere to be seen, because it just doesn't fit into the gamespace. In order to go there, one just has to take a leap of faith and get lost, go beyond the symbolic realm of spatial representation and take on the stuff of legends. As Fado from Ocarina of time says: "Anybody who comes into the forest will be lost." By losing ourselves we find ourselves, right?
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

3 http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Grove

4The Flute Boy's father tells Link that Flute Boy went off in search of the Golden Power and never returned. When Link visits the Kakariko Village Inn, he is told by the Innkeeper how the Flute Boy had a pet bird who flew with him everywhere and how they went to Death Mountain but never returned.

5The hero leaves the unchanging world, even though zie is warned that those who leave will one day die.

6 http://tevisthompson.com/saving-zelda/

7 What would that be like, dreaming nightmares into existence? Perhaps something like this:
"In my restless dreams,

I see that town...

Kakariko Village"

81 Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

9
http://www.zeldauniverse.net/2011/09/14/immortal-childhood/

http://www.zeldauniverse.net/2011/09/17/the-philosophy-of-the-wind-waker-part-one/

http://www.zeldauniverse.net/2011/09/13/the-message-of-majoras-mask/

10Why leave at all? Koholint—sorry, Hyrule, is nothing less than a paradise, an infinitely beautiful and comforting home. The only way to leave the Kokiri Forest—my mistake, Koholint, is to awaken the Wind Fish. And as Link eventually learns, waking the Wind Fish means that Koholint will vanish, for the island is but a dream. But one needs remember that dreams are important, too.