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.

We Know The Devil

This is a follow-up post to an earlier post of mine where I mentioned We Know The Devil and A Good Gardener, two games I bought last week. This post will detail mainly We Know The Devil, seeing how A Good Gardener was somewhat of a disappointment and I barely have anything to write about it. Yes, some of the plants you grew looked like weapons, so that was a bit of environmental storytelling foreshadowing. But there was just too little of everything, even if the game was under an hour. It ends in a loop of Sisyphean prisoner-of-war effort, but I'm not sure it's very interesting or satisfying. I just wish the experience was more fleshed out, or more suggestive. As it is now, it's neither, just a short conceptual piece with gardening gameplay that feels like doing chores and doesn't lead anywhere in particular. I guess that's part of “the point”, but yeah, that's what I have to so about that!

 
So. In the visual novel We Know The Devil (WKTD), queer teens Jupiter, Venus and Neptune are in a Camp for bad teens. In this camp, participants are in groups of three, are told that the devil is among them, and that the devil will show hirself during camp week. You play through the last night of the week, and you will know the Devil.
 
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I understand WKTD to be about how structures of oppression are handed down from generation to generation and the rituals that are performed to solidify hierarchies and separate insiders from outsiders. The Camp is such a ritual, and the way in which the activities during that camp are set up shows us how such rituals might take place and also how one might resist them. The common knowledge in the game seems to be that being alone, or different, means that the chances of becoming the Devil dramatically increase. And yet the groups of threes (our planetary trio is named Group West) are told to fix sirens when they start wailing in the forest, but also that they must stay in their cabin. The groups can't do both, and thus pairings must take place. Ideology goes in, the Devil comes out.
 
But there is more to the indoctrination than double-binds and unfair camp experience design, as it would seem that to various degrees the participants have internalized the ideology or oppression handed down to them (even if they also resist that very same internalization and throughout the last day negotiate what it means to not like oneself, “be wrong”, wondering how normal teens would do, wanting to sacrifice oneself, being part of a group, apologizing all the time, having self-respect, wanting to be like their friends, having ones own identity, etc). One might wonder why they don't just stay in their respective groups, not leaving anyone alone, thus not bringing out the Devil at all. One might wonder why Neptune only brought two shot glasses, and why that means that only two of them can drink and drunk-talk together. And the answer is ideology and how structures of oppression work in a modern, self-policing, social context (post-Foucault).
 
"Group South does everything perfectly and is the fucking worst. The best kids in a camp for bad kids are absolutely certain to be the fucking worst.”
 
What does it mean to be good or bad? Is it a good thing to be awful? Is getting in trouble a good thing? Is being perfect too much? If it is, why would one be jealous of someone who is perfect? In WKTD, there are a lot of mixed emotions that Jupiter, Neptune and Venus express. Their communication is playful and especially Neptune can be quite sarcastic, and I believe that their speech patterns are a product of the double expectations and/or the wrong expectations placed upon them by the adult world and the imbalances which takes root in their hearts because of it. It becomes a way for them to maneuver the world, trying to make sense what is expected of them and who they really are. God might always be at the same frequency (109.8FM) in this world, and God is the one who finally announces what one person is the Devil, but other than that, our trio is very confused as to how they should behave. Even that doubleness in itself is a minefield of a double-bind: the system is designed to encourage fear and uncertainty in what one should do, and yet doubt is in its essence wrong – the Devil is never at the same frequency but is heard between radio stations, which means one has already taken a step away from Gods channel and tried at walking between the default paths.
 
There are more seeming paradoxes in how one navigates the world in WKTD. How one might be hanging out with the worst crowd so they'll leave you alone. How one might bully someone because one likes them. How one might be in a place where people force one to do things one doesn't want to do, yet is willing to pick dare in a game of truth or dare. How one might be considered good even when one claims that one isn't good because what else kind of person would hate themselves but someone who was really good?! And then there is the question of the Devil hirself. The Devil and the double nature of being good, the double nature of being bad, and the fetishistic appropriation of both. About the fear of turning into the Devil and the pain that brings, but also about the lure of being the Devil and how liberating it might feel not to care about the opinions of others anymore. How liberating it might feel not to hate oneself and hide anymore.

At one point, Neptune tells Venus that zie is too nice – that zie wants something and believes that being nice is going to get them that something, but that until they figure out what it is they want, every kindness of theirs will be full of that unknown want. Well, when Venus turns into the Devil, it is not as a man (everyone has referred to Venus as a man throughout the game and we aren't told otherwise), but as a woman. That zie doesn't have to be nice anymore seems to follow. But when our trio chooses to not separate at one of many crucial moments, it is not God who speaks to them and announces who has fallen – it is the Devil. What zie tells them is critical – “there is room for three in my world, but only room for two is His”. It's all about scapegoating in His world, then, and about trinity and multiplicity in the Devil's. Or as Jupiter says: “What's ugly isn’t having choosing one to be the scapegoat, but to choose at all”.
 
There is power in “not choosing”, and there is power in numbers. Group South fell back on the default path of being identical to each-other (learn teamwork, be the same!) in fear of becoming unique and alone, but when our Trio sticks together and doesn't leave anyone behind more than anyone else, they choose unity through difference and become Devil's all three. The planets align and the meaning of the adage “the devil is weak, humans are strong – even a child can kill the devil, all she has to do is try” is flipped on its head; “the devil is strong, humans are week – even a devil can kill an adult”.
 
But isn't becoming the Devil bad? In the non-true endings (which means the endings you probably got the first couple of times) it would mostly seem that way. But there is a difference in becoming the Devil alone and out of self-hate, and in becoming the Devil by ones own free will. When one does it by ones own free will, dares it together, then the opinions of others don't have to stop to matter and one doesn't have to unleash the beast inside and become a monster as the Devil. One doesn't have to shut out the world in order to give in and live out, but can negotiate a position in-between, as both part and whole.
 
The devil is lonely, it's been claimed, but here, in the true ending¹, the devils song is loud and lovely. There is nothing to fear when there is two against the devil, it's been claimed. But our trio has claims of their own now, and they can't wait to see what the others will do with their exorcism-radios and their spells and their God against the three worst girls since Eve.
 
 
 
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Caveat: there is danger in solely defining oneself as an outsider, even if there is power in that as well. I've always considered myself an outsider, and I've had it both empowering and disempowering me. I've long been fascinated with the liminal figure of the “alienated other” (the outsider who can see things in their capacity as outsider), and the idea of fetishistic attachment through distancing by means of the “oppositional stance”². Sometimes when we try our hardest to break free, we don't realize that the tools of fighting back have become so ingrained that we start fighting shadows as well as oppressors. And this is a dangerous thing. It is not the point of community, or society, or being a Master – it is the equivalent of someone screaming at you but really being mad about something else. Instead, every “circle” is the exploration of a modus vivendi which permits the situation to be lived in such way that when it comes undone, those who will have participated in the weaving come out of it more alive, having learned and become capable of teaching others what they have learned, capable of participating in other circles, other weaving processes³. One cannot do that if one decides to never leave a circle.
 
After the trio has become Devil's, it is claimed that the Camp Captain has no stories left to tell because they were all lies. I do wonder about that. Surely the Captain has a story with some truth in it? Thinking zie does not is turning hir into an unwilling Devil. And although it's not everyone's responsibility at all times to bring out the good in others or in trying to leave safe spaces, there is little to be gained from black-and-white color palettes.

 
Another danger I wish to warn about is related mostly to some trans women, who as Venus don't believe being mad is OK and rather would be made fun of than being “mean”. I think this can be a real problem. Trans women and other women might try to live their lives as women and thus follow ideals concerning women, which in turn might lead to confusing having integrity and being assertive with being masculine. When one associates masculinity with something negative (and ones own masculinity in particular) then one just might throw out the baby with the bathwater and in fear of being perceived as being masculine one might instead become submissive.
 
Related to this, for me, is the paradoxical relationship I have with queer communities in that I don't necessarily feel more comfortable or safe there than anywhere else. I've thought that this might mean that I probably don't have need for safe-spaces and thus don't belong in queer communities, but I think that's just the voice of the evil queer hive-mind in my head. I think it has to do more with a feeling of my not being able to assert myself the way I want to in those type of communities and often second-guess myself and my actions in a way that just makes me feel bad and isn't very productive for my personal or social growth. The norms in queer communities can be really hard to fit, much harder than those in society in general or other communities. That's part of the practice of constructing a safe space in a queer setting, but it's never been my safe space, and even if I get comfortable enough not to see Devil's everywhere and think others are out to get me, I'm just not sure queer communities will ever be for me what I think it is for other queer people who seem to live almost exclusively in queer communities. It goes without saying that it's not only in heteronormative communities that some people (often the loudest ones) confuse being an asshole with having integrity. And you know, “the best people in the worst group”...
 
If I have some bad things to say about WKTD, then it's that it's very static and non-responsive to input in the long run. Who in our trio becomes the Devil is not foreshadowed very much, instead it comes suddenly and only takes one small “mistake” from the player. The work would feel much more deep and genuine if it didn't just tally the pairings and make a judgment based on that at the end of the game, but instead changed some dialogue around depending on the pairings that the player chose and the conversations that took place because of that. As it is now, all dialogue is the same throughout, no matter what pairings are done during the game. When a game is so short, more could be expected I think. Or rather than to talk about expectations, let's just say that the experience would feel much more alive if it acknowledged the path chosen by the player more.
 
Shouldn't it be harder for one person not to become the Devil if they've been left out a couple of times already? In WKTD that doesn't matter as long as you just keep count and balance things out at the end. I also wonder if the Devil couldn't conceivably come out even if our trio is together, or paired. Surely one can be alone together with others, or hurt other people without excluding them. These sorts of things are not explored in WKTD and although it would take much more work to acknowledge these sorts of possibilities mechanically and in the narrative, I think the game would be much better for it and I wish the creators would try out a more rich approach in their future games. The dialogue and characterization are really strong in WKTD, and on that much can be built.
  

1Referred to as such by the developers.

2Being a rebel (without a cause or otherwise) means not necessarily that you are free and autonomous, as you are bound still with the object of your oppositional stance. Over-investing in this link can drain the existential life force out of you. You will never be able to join the community with those ties because as a rebel your identity depends on your autonomy being the result of a screaming and if not an indiscriminate “no”, then at least an over-invested one, that entails being a cynic, or a critic for whom individuation equals righteous insurrection or a taste so acquired as to be beyond the insulting world of mere mortals, a community of non-humans due to their being made simply all too human. The result is perpetual conflict.

3Capitalist Sorcery: Breaking the Spell, Isabelle Stenger

 

  
§§§LINK COLLECTION§§§
This is their rite of passage to join society: by creating an Other, by knowing that the devil is somewhere outside themselves, in their former friend, they hide the aspects of themselves that are also demonized by that wider culture, and learn to assimilate.

/.../

The conflict between Jupiter and her friends begins to arc toward concordance when she truly looks at the inner self that emerged from the shell of Venus’s old body and finds herself correcting her habitual “he” to “she.”

/.../

To be the devil is to be queer, to go against the strictures imposed on us by our rearing.

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In We Know The Devil, there are rules that must be followed, and authority figures are very insistent on letting everyone know that they will be punished for breaking them, yet the rules themselves are never made clear. This is true of a lot of things, obviously, but it’s as teenagers that we, that I, developed an acute awareness of how structural and unfair that is.

/.../

Venus deals with the rules by buckling and apologizing for any perceived slight the first chance she gets; she responds to the rules by making everyone aware of just how aware she is, in the hopes that they will deem her acceptable and let her move on. Jupiter internalizes the rules; she has become so good at following them or appearing to follow them that she sort of becomes the physical manifestation of the rules and the idealization of herself. Neptune, finally, kicks and screams and swears and claws at the rules every chance she gets; she defines the rules by being opposed to them and tries to get everyone else on her side.

/.../

the power trio don’t really fit into the world of We Know The Devil at all. No really, the shack where they have to face The Devil is literally 2/5ths too small for them. There is no room for Venus As a Girl or a mythologically incestuous lesbian power couple in God’s world, so they are left to pick at their bodies as much as they pick at their surroundings.

/.../

Group West is kidding themselves. They may have a future in God’s world, in the Real Scouts (the one where the buddy system works and you get transformation sequences), but only as deeply compromised selves. That future is one where others will hate who they really are, where they will hate themselves for who they really are. Already figures of authority—The Bonfire Captain, God—are teaching them to look for evil in each other or The other, The Devil, not in the system. In the mean time, those same figures of authority assume the worst of their charges.

/.../

one girl is far from unstoppable, even if she is The Devil. It is because they are together that they can fight against the third and drive her off. It is because they are together that they can weather God’s kingdom and convince themselves it is good. It is because two of them drew closer together that they did not notice the third hurting as much as she did. Friendships are a powerful tool for survival, but if you’re not careful with them, they can also be a trap: a little bit of honey that convinces you your situation might not be so bad after all.

/.../

if they could all become The Devil, then everything would just be fine and dandy, wouldn’t it? So, in the fourth, final ending, that’s what they do. They all become The Devil and they create literal Hell on Earth. And the jerks from South Campus join them, all the kids do. Of course those kids hated God’s world too! They were mean to the girls precisely because of how they embodied its rules to them.

§

Though God and the devil are central presences, it never really explores issues of faith. There’s no question of belief here: the main characters know for sure that these figures exist. Nor does it really tangle with the institutional power of religious organisations. It does, however, rely deeply on the cultural power of religion, its ability to define right and wrong for whole communities and the way that, over time, those definitions become unchangeable. The use of radios serves to highlight and emphasise this.
/.../the one who speaks least is the one whose problems you see most clearly. The one you exclude is the one pushed to the forefront. At the very beginning of the game the camp counselor says that he had two friends that he tried to treat equally, but he always secretly liked one of them more. This, he says, was a mistake. He should have been honest about his feelings, and it would have been easier in the long run. His words set up the dynamic for the rest of the game. Your choice defines who is liked less, who is slightly excluded, and this isolation lets the devil in./.../ It’s hard to say that the fourth ending is a truer ending than the others. All the endings are possibility spaces, outcomes that exist in the tangle of emotions and choices these characters could make. But while the three individual endings seem to spell out a painful inevitability—you can’t stay friends with everyone, you can’t help everyone, you can’t love everyone—the fourth is aspirational. It dreams a different way of approaching the world, and perhaps a different way of emerging into adulthood.
/.../
The defiant embrace of the weird and beautiful and bizarre in We Know the Devil is a challenge to any conception of a normal adulthood. It also acts as a challenge to the notion that we should strive to be our best selves. Rather, it proposes embracing the whole self, with all its contradictions and painful conflicted feelings.
[It could be argued that it is the faith in society, friendship and oneself that is explored. "Do I exist?", and "how do I exist?" are central questions explored.]

Crit Links 28/11

I found myself creating a series of characteristics that I believe would be found in any Great Work of gaming.  In short, I found myself identifying something like a Platonic Form for gaming’s great works, a Form I will call “The Meaningful Game.”

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The Delta of Randomness - Can You Balance for RNG? - Extra Credits

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Inquisition manages to undermine a lot of its own dramatic pauses.

Let's talk about a minstrel.
/.../
The combination of the two songs, neither of which has a counterpart for an alternate choice, very strongly suggests one "correct" narrative interpretation of events: the Inquisitor sided with the mages, supported the rebellion, and had to fight Samson.
/.../
Leliana's presence during Dragon Age II is mostly a secret. And yet in a way, in the pubs and taverns where the Bards have ears, she was there all along.


Because her work so often involves autobiographical events, [Nina] Freeman says she is sometimes accused of being self-absorbed or egotistical. But rather than an exercise in vanity, she sees her work as the opposite: an opportunity to look back at herself and her choices with an unflinching and critical eye.
“I think it’s good to be self-reflective, because otherwise, what are you doing? You’re just letting other people shape who you are instead of being self-critical and learning from your actions. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I do in retrospect, to try and be a better person, because I think I do a lot of things wrong.”


I like to think there's an element of subconscious deliberation at work, because a lot of the time I'll get half-way through making a game, and then suddenly its 'meaning' will dawn on me," she says. "I like this approach because a lot of the time it's cathartic and surprising. I didn't realize what Rain, House, Eternity was really about until I had nearly finished it, and it was a powerful, deeply personal moment for me, and it also allowed me to make an ending that was much more appropriate than what I'd planned."


While most games fetishize nostalgia (Final Fantasy VII Remake, Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, Downwell, Every Other Bit Game Ever), Homesickness reminds you why the past should stay in the past.


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More Ways to Use Randomness - What is the Goal of RNG? - Extra Credits

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Yet while most media coverage congratulated Nintendo for finally making a female version of the famed character an option, the actual context of Linkle's existence reeks of that unique Nintendo brand of faux progressivism. It might sound good on paper, but in practice only shows how little Nintendo actually understands about what the problem is.

As Anita Sarkeesian might point out, Linkle is a classic example of the "Ms. Male Character" trope.

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As a teenager I was duped by Metal Gear Solid. As an adult, I remain only cautiously optimistic about D4.


5 Queer Video Games Breaking the Mold

This '80s influence upon popular videogames continues on into the 2000s, managing to reveal itself both without much filter and in fusing with the anti-hero archetype that arose at the turn of the century.

This antihero archetype is what Brenton J. Malin dubs the “hypersensitive killer.” It arose with such TV shows as The Shield and The Sopranos. He is at once relentlessly immoral yet more in touch with his emotions than his peers, depicting the “extremely contradictory masculinity of the turn of the 21st century,” according to Malin.


It would seem that, finally, with Dad Quest, the concept of dadification is freed from the shackles of patriarchy. No longer are fathers supposed to be grizzly, gravely, possessive guardians. Instead, Dad Quest encourages parents to literally throw their children into situations that allow them to figure it out the world for themselves.

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These moments all share a common theme; they actively ask the player to step back from traditional forms of videogame interactivity. Yes, traditional methods of input are utilised: triangle allows Joel to pat the giraffe, and Conway and Shannon’s conversation is still navigated utilising clicks of the mouse. But these scenes are not dominated by their interactivity in terms of prescriptive button inputs and subsequent movements on screen. Rather, they are defined by their interactive inaction. And yet, they are deeply engaging moments.

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This blog is about my personal journey (roughly chronologically) through 40 years of computer role-playing games (CRPGs). I play each game and discuss its strengths and weaknesses, its place in the history of RPGs, its influences, and just what it's like to play the game today.

24/10 Videos

§VIDEOS
Game Maker's Toolkit - Adaptive Soundtracks

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Game Maker's Toolkit - Point and click puzzle design

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Balancing an MMO Ecosystem - Getting a Mix of Player Types - Extra Credits

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Power Creep in Hearthstone - What It Teaches Us About Games - Extra Credits

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Future Proofing Your Design - Looking at Hearthstone and Planning Ahead - Extra Credits

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Game Maker's Toolkit - Ico, and Design by Subtraction

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Game Maker's Toolkit - Redesigning Death

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The Power of the Abstract

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Why Do "Girl Games" Matter? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios

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"Video Games are Not Special" - Minicrit

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Shenmue, QTEs, and Mechanical Subversion - Minicrit

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Retro Review(s): Fatal Frame 1 & 2

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Assassin's Creed Syndicate Review

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What You Never Noticed About Myst | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios

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Frame Rate - How Does Frame Rate Affect Gameplay? - Extra Credits

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Game Maker's Toolkit - Puzzle Solving... or Problem Solving?

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Game Maker's Toolkit - Is Until Dawn a Good Horror Movie?

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Mechanical Minds - Nuclear Fruit, Part One

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Buried in Bundles - Final Bosman

14/6

A Eulogy for P.T.

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Why is Mario's Theme Music So Catchy?? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios

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The Minecraft Industrial Revolution

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Would You Believe There Have Been Only 14 Playable Black Women in Gaming?

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Game Theory: Why Video Game Movies SUCK!

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How Can Videogames Make You a Kinder Person? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios

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Every single game I can think of where I’d really like to skip an individual boss fight or mini-boss fight has a button available to skip lines of dialogue or entire conversations entirely. Players can willingly skip the parts of games I’m there to see, so why can’t I skip the parts of games that they’re there to see?

29/11

§KICKSTARTER
Late To The Party : A Cold War Espionage RPG in the Baltics
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pyrodactyl/late-to-the-party-a-cold-war-espionage-rpg-in-the/posts

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Unrest: An Honest Postmortem of a Kickstarter Success
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=23830




§MISC
Here’s what happened when Wreden and Pugh dug into the ideas behind The Stanley Parable’s disorienting and utterly impossible building.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/11/21/the-stanley-parable-architecture/

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The Game Design of IKEA | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKCDJ89ODyM

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queer as in fuck me – a design manifesto
/.../
((Provocation: Queerness resides not within the game but in the way we relate to the game and to each other. Answer: Design games that draw awareness to participation in relationships.))
http://www.mattiebrice.com/queer-as-in-fuck-me-a-design-manifesto/

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Extra Credits - Interactive Video - How Cloud Chamber Makes a Game out of Movies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU70hOX5_X8

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What is a game? And why it matters! | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0ReU2tvLFo

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I really liked Bioshock: Infinite, but upon replaying it with an audience, I have noticed one thing. When you aren’t hypnotized by the constant combats and strong visuals, and when you break apart from those to share your observations with somebody else, you perceive the interplay of dialogue and gameplay very differently. By which I mean you realize how award-winning game-changing Nobel-peace-prize-getting they really are
http://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=4762

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PS4: A One Year Anniversary
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/quhrmg/the-final-bosman-ps4--a-one-year-anniversary

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Extra Credits - The True Genius of Dark Souls II - How to Approach Game Difficulty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2dDF4B9a4

1/11

The second kickstarter project I backed (the first was A House in California, made by Jake Elliott of Kentucky Route fame) was Hadean Lands. Now, four years later, it's finally here. And I'm not going to play it. It's simple, really - the game is mainly a puzzle game, with very little story and very much heavy puzzle solving. I'm just not into that game of game. Ok, I loved Plotkins Dual Transform even though it basically had no story, but it was short, and experimental, and had a wonderful atmosphere. This game seems to be very long and very heavy. So yeah, sometimes you just have to pass up on games.

This week I've been playing Dragon Age 2 and some horror games, but more on those next week when I do a write-up!




§ARTICLES
I see people walking toward me, but they’re not really people, just strange aliens that don’t quite cohere into any particular shape when I get close. That’s what marks Bernband: nothing makes any more sense as you get closer to it. It’s stranger than that: the further away things are, the clearer they seem. There’s a night that covers the world and gives everything an enveloping calm.
http://thiscageisworms.com/2014/10/21/on-bernband/

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articles about games, in the end, still garner much less traffic and general interest than other cultural phenomena. serious discussion that happens in the videogame sphere is largely disregarded as niche and unimportant in broader cultural conversations - much to the frustration, by the way, of those of us who do see games' ubiquity and value. and so, in the absence of larger serious cultural attention, the boy genius rules as king.
http://ellaguro.blogspot.se/2014/10/embracing-new-flesh.html

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The trouble is I am find myself getting a little tired of this kind of subversion. The game looks like a shooter and the player can do nothing except shoot. Now you might point out that the player has another option - do nothing. It is in doing nothing that enlightenment can be found.
/.../
If the player cannot inhabit the role on offer, the game collapses into a system and meaning and metaphor are lost. But this is as much an issue of game education as it is acting.
/.../
A developer who chooses to subvert conventions, thinking that the results will be in the higher metaphorical level, may find players accusing them of being exploitative. The reason is the developer has broken the compact. The player has adopted the role they were supposed to, but the developer has used familiar labels to do quite different things. Now when I press a button in the lift for the basement, the building explodes. The system has been deliberately corrupted.
http://www.electrondance.com/your-game-isnt-as-clever-as-you-thought/

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What I’ve realized during my time engaging with the online community surrounding games media and development is that minoritized voices often only get visibility and resources when they are talking about their pain.
/.../
I am more than my pain. I am more than my pain. I am more than my pain.
http://www.mattiebrice.com/more-than-my-pain/

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Persona 3’s protagonist is a supernatural other, a messianic figure capable only of departing from their own realities and connecting to the feelings of others. The PC is a series of masks, but these masks are more than a costume for others to look at, the PC is a reflection of those that speak to them, the masks look outward and see the world in different ways. The PC’s masks are the source of their divine empathy.
http://big-tall-words.com/2014/10/30/masks-upon-masks/

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Could there be a viable concept of ‘player rights’, and if not, are there any grounds for legally restricting games?
/.../
It is not that players have rights so much as it is that players have responsibilities – and not least of all, to themselves.
http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2014/10/can-players-have-rights.html





§INDIECADE
http://blog.brendanvance.com/2014/10/24/notes-on-indiecade/
http://www.mattiebrice.com/dispatches-from-indiecade/

21/8

§HISTORY LESSON
A few years ago Kirk Battle, going under the pseudonym L.B. Jefferies, was one of the most prolific critics of the burgeoning amateur bloggers arising from the boom of 2007 and 2008.
http://www.critical-distance.com/2014/08/15/episode-19-a-critic-by-his-window/

§

43 hours after the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter launched it was funded. Fargo was at inXile's office outside Los Angeles at the time. The team was "doing a little jig" he says. "It was like a New Year's Eve countdown. The first 10 years I couldn't even get the trademark. Then another eight years of hardcore pitching getting nowhere. It was a great moment."
/.../
"It was amazing to me," Fargo recalls. "When you do contracts they come from anywhere but trust. You have 10 pages of pain about how to get paid. What happens if you're not on time? They could take your project away from you. They could take your trademark. They could shut down your company. They could take over your company. They could sue your company. You can have damages that are related not just to that but to their stock market price dropping. You can be on the hook literally for a billion dollars for screwing up a contract. I came from that world to, 'here's the money up front, Brian. We trust you.' What a difference."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-05-the-long-journey-of-wasteland-2

§

The Secret History of Videogames & The Military | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsNrHwPdIDc







§ZELDA

Some could argue that, because Yuga is the one who patronizes and objectifies women, and because Link eventually kicks Yuga’s ass, the game itself is presenting these behaviours as unacceptable. I disagree. Just as a text is not feminist just because its heroine is strong a game does not become un-sexist when it features a villain rather than a hero acting in a sexist manner. Let’s face it: The Legend of Zelda’s history does not do it any favours.
http://big-tall-words.com/2014/07/28/my-last-princess-women-as-objects-in-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-between-worlds/

The Zelda series is a garden you can keep inside your drawer, not a wide, expansive landscape that absorbs you. The environment in Oracle of Seasons, and to a less direct extent, in other Zelda games, is both an enemy and a lover. It’s the uncomfortable source of conflict, theme, plot — it’s something to be feared and understood and respected, but also something to overcome. It has authority over me as the game system, but it can also be gamed. It can destroy me, and it can also be destroyed. It has a precarious but learnable pattern. Master that pattern. When it swings left, go right. Harmonize with that pattern, like Din’s dance. Master the dance, and master nature.
http://www.pushselectmagazine.com/2013/07/17/man-vs-dungeon-ecology-in-zelda-and-the-conquest-of-nature/





§VIDEOS
Game Theory: World of Warcraft will SAVE the Economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDfNoCjtXvQ

§

Queer Mechanics in Tabletop Games
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vxuNdMCF-dlHcWFf5mYAGw55FwqNFtSYPYk83zB8O8I/edit#slide=id.g24620197_09

§

PlayStation Now Is Here. Streaming is Popularizing. God Save Us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeX38RD52-4

§

How Are Games Biased Against the Disabled? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyASY5wv_Qo








§DESIGN
Wayward Manor goes most wayward in terms of game design, such that the possibility of interacting inside a Gaiman story in a meaningful way becomes impossible. We are left with a game that, rather than immersing us in story, stands as proof that games don’t just need better writer to make game stories better.
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/how-does-wayward-manor-fit-neil-gaimans-ouevre-it-doesnt/

§

Violence is seldom framed for what it is: uncontrollable, self-perpetuating and unpredictable. Games treat violence as a stable fuel for their ambitions.
http://big-tall-words.com/2014/08/13/everything-looks-like-a-nail/

5/8

§NOW AND THEN
Extra Credits - Episode 200! - How Far Have Games Come Since 2008?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKmNzujz-Aw

§

Is Minecraft the Most Important Game Right Now? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkKNt6Xq1dY

§

Retro Review: System Shock 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnh0l_Ecpx4






§DESIGN
SWT - Inputs and the Rift
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEht8W6w2Rc

§

Players sit up and pay more attention when they think they might die. Permadeath games and the like don't even bother with the fake-out; if you make a mistake, boom, goodbye, thanks for playing.
/.../
Quicksaves, regenerating health and other sorts of developer generosity are well-intentioned but often diminish the experience. These systems make no demands, so the player sleepwalks through the game. Let's call it: some of these shooters are just walking simulators with a bit of colourful pizazz. There's nothing to lose, so there's nothing to play for. This isn't to say all games need extraordinary challenge, but how risk compensation affects player behaviour is not something that should be ignored. Tricks to simulate risk might work but it's all too possible players will figure them out after which point they begin to relax. Suddenly, it's a walking simulator.
http://www.electrondance.com/how-to-stop-making-players-lazy




§QUEER
Kim Kardashian is surfing this wave of male tears all the way to the bank. In a world with limited opportunities for famous women as they age, Kardashian broke the Internet simply by lending her likeness to a single mobile game. And to read Kardashian as a vapid figure who does not deserve her fame is to fundamentally misunderstand the ways in which women exercise agency within the sexist constraints of celebrity culture.
http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/hating-kim-kardashian-makes-her-stronger/

§

Let’s talk about how folks in fandom were rewriting [Mass Effect 3] in a massive variety of creative and clever ways for over a year before that one dudebro did it, in horribly out-of-character quasi-prose, and was the subject of front-page Kotaku articles showcasing his devotion to the series.

Let’s talk about how female-dominated fannish spaces have been around for decades. Let’s talk about how “fans brought back Star Trek in the 70s!” always brings to mind stereotypical Trekkie dudes and not the women who were actually organizing and running conventions.

Let’s talk about how women are over 50% of moviegoers. Let’s talk about how women make up nearly 50% of gamers. Let’s talk about how, despite all this, the industry is still almost entirely guys making content for guys.

I’m just saying. Let’s fucking talk about this.
http://eponymous-rose.tumblr.com/post/84698057207/wait-wait-wait-while-im-still-having-my-grumpy

26/5

Can Video Games Be A Spiritual Experience? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK91LAiMOio

§

Postmortem: The Chinese Room's Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/218372/Postmortem_The_Chinese_Rooms_Amnesia_A_Machine_for_Pigs.php

§

Glitchhikers belongs to a tradition of game authorship, rather than game design. The idea is to stop designing videogames in service of ‘fun’ (or any other phenomenological sense), and instead to author videogames that explore ideas, themes, the human condition and so forth using literary techniques rather than behavioural conditioning and psychological experimentation.
http://blog.brendanvance.com/2014/05/19/blowjobs-loneliness-and-glitchhikers/

§

This rather huge article is intended to collect and structure a complete overview of how gender design works and how gender design is currently done in games.
http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/05/press-x-make-sandwich-complete-guide-gender-design-games/

§

Matt Chat 242: Chris Avellone on Torment, Tides of Numenera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06YvwO3V4Ms

§

Extra Credits - How Games Empower Us - Education: Agency
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T39kYzzv_3Q

6/5

§QUEER
that is precisely what troubles me about the sexualization of certain races in BioWare fantasy worlds. Sexual and racial discrimination is written into these games in a way that shows awareness of and sensitivity to real-world social inequality [...] But the games want to have it both ways: characters like Liara may exhibit agency and self-determination, but like most romanceable NPCs, her ultimate purpose is to give in. For that reason and because her entire species is designed for the galaxy’s pleasure, her resistance is largely ornamental. This picturesque struggle with systemic oppression is the best case scenario for the sex class: even if you play the game for purity points, your playable character and yourself are made complicit in the fantasy world’s objectification of its sexualized demographic.
http://ontologicalgeek.com/the-sex-class-in-bioware-worlds/

§

Game Theory: Are Video Games Anti-LGBT?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdmJXHJLZ6M


§ZELDA
|||.......a little boy went out to play. when he opened his door, he saw the world. as he passed through the doorway, he caused a reflection. evil was born. evil was born, and followed the boy.......|||

let's talk about a videogame called Zelda...http://ellaguro.blogspot.se/2014/04/evil-was-born.html


§VIDEOS
Should All Videogames Be Free To Play? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-MIFSAz9as

SWT - Saints Row IV and Kitsch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT03ezSnVL8

Education: An End to Fear - Why Students Hate Homework - Extra Credits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWyPLNi8rD8

The Old Man and the Season Pass
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/l0ogbt/the-final-bosman-the-old-man-and-the-season-pass

11/4

§TEXTS
We’ve bought into the idea that storytelling is about a journey to an endpoint, an authored destination. The real destination is the creation of meaning, whether that be the reader’s interpretation or reconstructing the author’s intent.
/.../
Hypertext tales are often sold as games of choices, of agency, of your version of the narrative – when it would be better to embrace what they are good at, which is telling a different kind of fiction: one which is host to multiple narratives, narrative superposition for want of a better term, from which meaning can be derived.
http://www.electrondance.com/stop-crying-about-choice/

§

"I HATE how people who aren't straight white cisgender men are treated in the game industry. I HATE that so many women can't come to a professional event without getting hit on by some creepy dude… and I HATE that it never, ever happens to me. I mean, who even thinks this? Shouldn't I feel happy that I'm not getting hit on?! No, I feel like SHIT. I start to wonder, what's wrong with me? I clearly don't look manly or bearded or stubbly enough, so I don't get to be treated like a real human, but I'm also not hot enough for any of their creepy attention. I'm like invisible or something."
/.../
"I didn't last in the industry very long, as you can probably imagine," Deirdra Kiai continues after a long pause. "I was pushed over to the margins, where I quietly worked alone on my own projects, desperately struggling to find my voice."
"They could exclude me all they wanted, but they couldn't stop me from making games."
/.../
"I've been able to do these things, but only IN SPITE of the industry's social pressure not to. Imagine what I could have done if I'd been encouraged instead of IGNORED. Imagine how many other brilliant, talented people could be making weird, wonderful games along WITH ME."
http://tmi.kotaku.com/making-games-is-easy-belonging-is-hard-1551649858

§

...if the factors that lead to replay do not exist solely “in the games themselves” that does not mean they aren’t worth talking about – indeed, as Fernández-Vara’s insights show, the middle-ground between game and player is fundamental to a “game-type experience” as such.  This paper admits both to the elusive and idiosyncratic nature of replay value, while attempting a tentative outline for a mode in which replay value may be described and analyzed.
http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/the-games-people-replay/





§VIDEOS
Top 5 Reasons Game Reviews Don't Matter | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzkVlQ3nlVM

§

Game Theory: Are Gamers Killing Video Games?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q

§

Is VR the future of Gaming? A look at nearly every VR device shown at GDC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2myY_pQEMk

§

Net Neutrality - What a Closed Internet Means for Games - Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQtiIazfoQM






§DATA
A new study out of Ohio State University is suggesting that playing aggressive, Black characters in video games might make people who already have a tendency towards racism more racist.
http://www.samanthablackmon.net/notyourmamasgamer/?p=4882

§

Some data available from games with moral decision systems show that gamers are generally unwilling to play as evil characters. In a study, over 1000 gamers were surveyed to see how the average player interacts with a game system that allows the player to choose a "good" or "evil" path through a game story. The finding was that the average gamer prefers to be good or heroic in such games. Gamers are most interested in exploring a character whose moral choices closely match to their own. However, those players that experience a game for the second time are then more likely to choose evil. The article includes an exploration of which actions gamers felt particularly evil, and what kind of choices turn out to be more difficult for them.
http://gamescriticism.org/articles/lange-1-1/

27/3

§VR
"How would you feel to swap your body with another?" Philipe Bertrand asked me. "Would you better understand the other if you see through their eyes?"
http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/4/5423330/oculus-rift-vr-gender-swap-girl-mirror-look

§

It’s not about swapping gender, it’s about tricking your brain into thinking you’re a different sex – for a few minutes, in a safe environment where you can quickly step out if things aren’t going how you please. Sure you can put your eyeballs in the head of another for a few minutes (and yes, this is really interesting stuff!) but you’re not in that head yourself. You don’t know what it’s like to have had to live with that body.
http://www.sophiehoulden.com/a-machine-to-be-another/

§

Why You're Going to Suck At Oculus Rift and Virtual Reality | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGmy1V1u_ko

§

Using Virtual Reality to Treat PTSD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIj26r4VPaA

§

If the avatar is simply an extension of the player, violence by the avatar reflects a violent attitude held, even if hidden, by the player. This, I think most gamers would agree, is nonsense. But the lack of understanding of the role of the avatar leads many people, even as intelligent a person as Slavoj Žižek, to equate violence by the avatar with the player’s supposed internal desire for violence.
http://theanimistblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/my-second-self-understanding-the-relationship-between-players-and-avatars/




§DESIGN
Is Dark Souls the Future of Videogame Storytelling? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-YvxPvqOmE

§

For this month’s Queer Mechanic, we’re going to take a look at ways of toying with, subverting, destabilising and queering the concept of the straight male gaze.
http://gaygamer.net/2014/03/queer-mechanic-5-queering-the-male-gaze/

§

Extra Credits: Quest Design (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur6GQp5mCYs

§

Designing for Youth - Making Games for Players Under 14 - Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdFw8kvHAY8

§

In narratology, vraisemblance, or “versimilitude,” – the semblance of something to truth, or reality, or to agreed-upon rules – was first used in this meaning by Gérard Genette, and Tzvetan Todorov, in the same special no. of Communications in 1968 (and later adapted for her own purposes as doxa by Tel Aviv School member Ruth Amossy). For Genette, vraisemblance meant the aspects of a story that answered to “[...] a body of maxims accepted as true by the public to which the narrative is addressed; but these maxims, due to the very fact that they are accepted, most often remain implicit”12 – in other words, the parts of the story that need no explanation, in good and bad.
/.../
Barthes’ core thought, applied to Gone Home, is as follows: The insignificant signifiers, such as the bags of chips in the game, seem to refer directly to their referent. A bag of chips is, well, a bag of chips. In other words, these inconsequential details seem, at first, simply denote reality directly. But since the significance of the signifier is insignificant, it actually doesn’t!Instead, according to Barthes, the signified escapes, with a generic sense of “reality” replacing it. The bag of chips doesn’t actually mean what it means, it simply speaks to us of a kind of “reality”.
http://www.slowdown.vg/2014/03/13/gone-home-and-the-reality-effect/





§MISC
Science fiction in games (and, let’s be fair, science fiction outside of them as well) tends to treat Dick’s devices as just cool things to riff off of—they make a great excuse to set up an action scene—while ignoring the metaphysics that he’s really interested in. As a result cyberpunk, as a subgenre, is more easily recognized by its mask than by its face, so to speak.
http://big-tall-words.com/2014/03/14/ascentury-philip-k-dick-and-videogames/

§

A Defense of Cheating in Videogames | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er-E1vxEnic

§

...the very fact that the drive toward canonization ends up revealing certain latent ideologies or power structures makes the act itself, rather than whatever product results from it, appear eminently useful.
http://gamingvulture.com/2014/03/11/shots-fired/

§

Ugly Truth in Advertising
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/itrits/the-final-bosman-ugly-truth-in-advertising

§

Basically here's what happened: after the launch of Stanley Parable, I became a bit depressed.
http://www.galactic-cafe.com/2014/02/game-of-the-year/

7/3

§DESIGN
In short,  the concise approach’s predictability, intuitiveness, and designer control are both strengths and weaknesses. Predictability of response reduces frustration, but means the player is seldom surprised. Intuitiveness makes the game easier to learn, but keeps the player from attempting unorthodox solutions. Control means that the designer can keep the game progressing in a manner consistent with the design vision, but means as well that the game can never exceed what the designer imagined, have its systems truly come to life.
http://problemmachine.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/verbosity-and-concision/

§

13 Cutscene Tropes Holding Back Interactive Storytelling
http://playersdelight.blogspot.se/2014/02/13-cutscene-tropes-holding-back.html

§

Dumb fun is for everyone, even if you've never picked up a controller. It brings the seasoned pro down shoulder-to-shoulder with the bumbling newbie, and there's something really satisfying about that.
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2014/02/octodad-cluminess-in-gaming.html

§

Errant Signal - Thief (1998)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIhEtXPGzgs



§COMMUNITY
Are Angry Fanboys Bad for Games? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9YozVtUag




§VR
Swap Genders with Oculus Rift, Get Empathy
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/swap-gender-with-oculus-rift-get-empathy?utm_source=gravityUS

§

Zelda VR: The Legend Of Zelda remade for Oculus Rift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEXrNuw_J0Y

§

Who Are the 10 Best NPCs of All Time? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rAQ_SJ1wls






§QUEER

When we pushed him on why this made any real difference to him at all he relented with:

    “Look, if I am going to get into anything in my games then either I want to be the person or I want to feel validated in my desire to fuck them. How am I supposed to get my jollies thinking about Ellen Page in EPS 2014 if she was with a girl? Err… actually, now that I think about it-”
www.arcadianrhythms.com/2014/02/breaking-news-ellen-page-simulator-2014-cancelled/

§

As the game is called Broken Age, it’s not surprising that many of the themes in the game revolve around a broken, dystopian society. The Hunger Game-esque Maiden’s Feast involves sacrificing the town’s maidens in order to both save the town and save the maidens’ families from certain embarrassment. But, Vella is having none of it.
http://www.samanthablackmon.net/notyourmamasgamer/?p=4660

1/2 Crit Links

In 2012 I realized videogames were holding me back, artistically speaking. Or rather: my tunnel vision focus on videogames as "my" medium was holding me back.
/.../
Every medium is imbued with the exact same amount of possibility: it’s like the density of the Real Line. The density of the Real Line between 0 and 1 is infinite, as is the density between 0.2 and 0.4, which is the same as between 0 and 100, etc.

You can always drill down, and there will always be more to discover about a medium.
http://tinysubversions.com/fuckvideogames/#slide1



§DESIGN
Chess has problems.

Not for most of us, perhaps - not for the bluffers and the fudgers and the seat-of-the-pants players who prod a path through matchups in which each side's strategy is a winsome, wobbling comedy of errors. No, chess has problems at the grandmaster level. Those people who really love chess, that devoted few who have given their lives to it and for whom chess really should be a great game? They're not getting a great game - and they haven't been getting one for a while.

Chess, it turns out, has been in a bit of a rut for some time.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-03-chess-2-the-sequel-how-a-street-fightin-man-fixed-the-worlds-most-famous-game

§

Extra Credits: Affordances
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCSXEKHL6fc

§

DOET [Design of Everyday Things] judges the user’s needs most important, and her perspective most valuable. It is about the apotheosis of the user; it makes her into God, and with holy might it strikes the fear of Her into objects and those who make them.
/.../
DOET, alongside all the important research around it, culminated in something called User Centered Design, a philosophy in which “user error” does not exist and programmers are sad.
/.../
This school teaches that if it’s not fun (or at the very least quick and painless) to be taught about some feature, we shouldn’t include it; that clarity is better than complexity; that elegance is better than messiness; that one button is better than two. It teaches that the purpose of a game is to explain itself to you, and that somewhere in the act of explaining lies that game’s intrinsic value. We have thereby converted the scariest, most contentious question of all (what should this thing be?) from an artistic decision into a design decision.
/.../
Our belief in clarity and elegance, though it has yielded spectacular results, is not the very best way to make videogames; it may not even be a particularly good way. We suffer from the bar we’ve set for ourselves and the burdens we place upon designers. We are wrongly convinced, even in the critical community, that works like Problem Attic are unworthy of attention solely because they prioritize different features and challenge players in a way we deem to be unfashionable.
/.../
I plan on thinking much harder about how I evaluate potential game features. “Because then the user doesn’t have to think” or “but how do we teach that?” should not be trump cards in every single argument about whether to include stuff. It’s easy to turn everything into a neat little design decision, but making a few more artistic ones would be better in the long term for users and for my sanity
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BrendanVance/20140106/208092/The_Cult_of_the_Peacock.php?print=1

§

At its worst a backstory driven piece can seem soulless and lonely, as the player wanders desolate locations from which all the other humans have already fled.

But there’s also an argument to be made that the backstory mystery is one of the most natural possible shapes for interactive literature.
/.../
The problem I have with it in Gone Home is that this interaction style enforces the distance and lack of agency that is backstory’s chief defect, and it does so without offering much of value in exchange. The player’s task is purely ergodic, methodically working through every explorable space, even though this is a story about understanding and insight, not about effort and dedication.
/.../
Hypothetical reading is most interesting if the reader is likely at first to form incorrect hypotheses.

Gone Home misguides the player initially, but it does so in a way that is completely orthogonal to the actual substance of its story.
/.../
Nor does Gone Home let the reader take an active role in guessing and testing the guesses. One may form hypotheses about the relationships between the people in the house, why they are absent now, and where they have gone. But there is nothing the player can do that can either ask additional questions about these issues or hazard a guess at the answer. The exploration can’t be directed by the player in such a way that it elicits more information of the kind the player is most interested in; it can only be performed systematically and with a greater or lesser degree of thoroughness. Where in the house would you go to express, or investigate, the suspicion that the mother is having an affair?

The house, I felt, was a distraction, the 3D exploration a red herring.
http://emshort.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/reading-and-hypothesis/

§

Gone Home tells a great romance story, but it tells a particularly brilliant video game romance story because it finds a way around all these problems; you’re not part of the romance. By placing the player outside that relationship, Gone Home can develop a romance that feels realistically nuanced.
http://www.popmatters.com/post/177701-gone-home-is-the-best-romance-video-games-can-offer/

§

Half the men who got the number of the girl on the scary bridge tried to call her up. Only about 12 percent of the ones on the blase bridge in the control group made use of those same digits. Also, remember those stories the subjects were asked to make up about the ambiguous picture? Those who did so while swaying slightly back and forth over the Capilano River were much more likely to come up with narratives involving sex.
/.../
I think this explains why certain games get overrated.

Or at least certain aspects of games. Take the first season of The Walking Dead for example.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2013/12/fake-feels-and-free-passes/

§

The Importance of Quiet Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxR__N0_is

§

Fast-paced choices and moral quandaries are the most prominent feature of The Walking Dead, but they seem to have no real consequences. Why did this game receive approximately all of the awards in 2012 if its main selling point is used so inconsequentially? I suggest that the most important aspect about this game is not the many difficult choices it offers the player – it’s the illusion of choice the game constructs
/.../
The decisions you make in The Walking Dead don’t change what happens, they change how it happens.

Your actions determine what kind of person Lee is, how he reacts to certain situations, and how the other characters see him. You could almost say The Walking Dead is an RPG: Is Lee a failed family-man who sees Clementine as his second chance? Is he short-tempered and violent? Or does he keep a clear head and talks his way out of hairy situations? Does he regret what he did? Is he a cynic or a wide-eyed idealist? Will the other characters be his friends, or just his companions? Is there even any coherence between what he does and what he says? Maybe he doesn’t talk at all, which is really stupid but really funny. It doesn’t change the overarching story, but all of this and much more is up to you.
/.../
The Walking Dead is not about choices, it’s about decisions. It’s about making the right decision in a world where everything goes wrong. It’s about doing what you think is right, even when faced with absolute despair, even though all hope seems lost, and even though this bleak world doesn’t give a single fuck about your decision. But you have to do it. For Clementine.
http://ontologicalgeek.com/clementine-will-remember-all-of-that/




§QUEER
Diary of a Western Videogame Protagonist:
Day 1 – I got a haircut today. It’s a lot shorter now but not working class short, not army short. Back at home, Sarah said that she liked it, that she could see herself playfully gripping tufts of my hair during sex. I said, “Why don’t we test that hypothesis?” and she obliged. God, I love her so much. If anything were to happen to her, I swear…

Day 2 - Sarah’s dead. And just one day after our scene of mildly erotic domestic bliss, too. To mark my loss, I refused to shave today. Shaving would somehow cheapen her passing. And besides, revenge is a dish best served scruffy.
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663

§

One could read in Shadow a sexual politics in which the innate goodness of human-born-humans is counterpointed with the monstering of a man-made, non-human person. Without the involvement of sexual reproduction in their creation, gender becomes irrelevant precisely because the creature is unnatural. That this character became a villain is unfortunate, because it supports a conservative idea that morality relies on a heteronormative reproductive context. I prefer to see Homunculus as a queer anti-hero: a person who has very limited survival strategies, and opts to fight for their own existence at the expense of other people. Queer anti-heroes are unable to solve their problems using brute force or economic privilege, and must manipulate what advantages they do have with skill in order to get what they want. The hero must, in response, do the same.
Histories of gender & sexual diversity in games, Issue three June 2013, Gender in the shadows, Zoya Street

§

So, why do all but one of the females need to be warriors? The problem for me is, in the context of this whimsical game, I can’t really identify with a warrior-type character. The female characters in Rayman Legends simply aren’t as fun for me because they aren’t as whimsical and fun as their male counterparts are allowed to be. Not that there is anything wrong with playing a warrior in certain games or contexts (or, I guess, with playing a lovesick fool), but it just doesn’t work for me in this particular game. I would rather play a character like Rayman who is described as “always raring for a fresh adventure to save the world;” or Sir Gilbrax, “a very famous knight.” Out of the thirteen playable male characters only one, Raynesis, is described in a threatening manner similar to the warrior princesses: “A desperate case in need of serious anger management.” But, one threatening male character still leaves me twelve whimsical male characters to choose from.
http://www.samanthablackmon.net/notyourmamasgamer/?p=4447

§

In the first part of this study of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, I questioned whether the Bechdel Test was the best benchmark for judging whether or not a piece of media had something to offer in terms of good female characterization. Is the Bechdel Test enough, or does even this bare minimum set the bar too low?

In this second part, I’ll be looking at some of the games’ other character, particularly Clementine, in an effort to delve deeper into the presentation of women in a game praised for its characterization and narrative strength.
http://www.samanthablackmon.net/notyourmamasgamer/?p=4492

§

Long story short, I can see genre and contextual reasons that lead designers in some areas (like fighting games) to make broad-brush design choices that engage ethnic, gender, and sexual stereotypes. http://www.chaoticblue.com/blog/2014/01/shes-got-the-look/



§VIDEOS

Final Bosman
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/ur6ce9/the-final-bosman-nobody-finishes-video-games

§

Do You Think eSports Should Allow A.I. Teammates? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hkMhng4q74

§

Nintendoomed? A look at Nintendo's financials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_ho5Y-Yw8g

§

Final Bosman
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/7j4yfw/the-final-bosman-xbox-friends-with-benefits

§

Composing The Banner Saga
http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episodes/ntly7e/backtrack-composing-the-banner-saga

§

Why Comcast's 300GB Data Cap is Bad for Gaming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD8eqTIzjZM

§

Are Virtual Worlds Real or Fake? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiEu5wMoEDs




§REVIEWS
Errant Signal - The Novelist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VThsdoxwgc

§

Tim Schafer didn’t really give us what we said we wanted, which was an old school point-and-click adventure game. He gave us something better, a modern LucasArts game. He looked past our words to our intent and gave us a game that represents what we really wanted, not just what we thought we wanted.
www.popmatters.com/post/178507-the-beautiful-simplicity-of-broken-age/

§

Ice Pick Lodge seems to be reaching back into childhood to seek a resolution to very adult problems, the problems of memories that we don’t want to confront or that we think that we can simply hide out long enough from.
At some point, the game seems to argue, we need to be brave like children and make a run for it—even if that run might allow us to to be seen, to be found out for what we truly are.   
http://www.popmatters.com/post/178042-knock-knock-the-terrors-of-self-exposure/

§

Knock Knock is primarily an intellectual experience not an emotional one, which already makes it a poor horror game, but then it also fails to express anything intellectual because its central means of communication, the hide and seek puzzle mechanics, are awful. 
http://www.popmatters.com/post/178712-puzzles-arent-scary-in-knock-knock/




§COMMUNITY
Thoughts on Games Writing and Community Involvement
http://big-tall-words.com/2014/01/08/thoughts-on-games-writing/

§

Among the many elephants in the games criticism room, our relationship to academia is one that threatens to stomp on others the most often. It’s presence comes out in numerous ways, but most usually on methods of analyzing games and the craft of writing criticism. This month there seems to be a resurgence of it, so I want to spill some thoughts on how it effects me and some things I’d like to see develop.
http://www.mattiebrice.com/the-diy-of-games-criticism/

§

In the coming year, I want to see discussion and experiments on constructive, passionate uses of anger for social justice and change. I want people to express themselves honestly and without the degradation of others. We have our journals, our personal friends who understand us to be petty with. This doesn’t need to be an artificially happy place, but I’d like it to be somewhere no one is afraid to speak their mind and learn. I hope people who disagree with me contact me and let me know what they think, because I am ready for a change for the better, whatever it is we decide, as a community.
http://www.mattiebrice.com/on-anger/

§

What I want to dig into, and outline to respect, is the experience that Kim Delicious describes here in response to anti-toxicity articles. It’s a conflict between legit anger, anger that is cathartic and deserved, and understanding that it will wall off communication and education to another person. It shows where being an activist and simply existing as a minority identity blur.
http://www.mattiebrice.com/on-civility/



§MAGAZINES
The Arcade Review: Issue 1
http://arcadereview.net/main/?p=281




§PROFILE
I first encountered the unmistakable style of Stephen Murphy, aka thecatamites, back in 2009 with the hand-drawn adventure game Paul Moose in Space. Since then you may well have stumbled across any one of the otherworldly experience that he has provided on tap, like Space Funeral, Murder Dog IV: Trial of the Murder Dog, and The Pleasuredromes of Kubla Khan.
http://indiegames.com/2014/01/just_who_is_thecatamites_anywa.html

Crit Shit 18th december

§SWEDISH
Lösningen är inte att göra våldet i äventyrsspel mer realistiskt och känslomässigt laddat. Lösningen är att inse att det går att göra äventyrsspel utan att vada i blod. För någonstans måste spelutvecklare lära sig att konflikt sällan är lösningen på ett problem. Det brukar snarare vara orsaken.
http://www.blogemup.se/?p=16065
§

”Proteus” är nämligen, precis som ”Bioshock Infinite”, ett spel som ställer sin värld i centrum. Men till skillnad från ”Bioshock Infinite” gör det en poäng av att inte låta någonting komma mellan världen och spelaren. Alla system som normalt tävlar om din koncentrationsförmåga är helt bortstrippade."/.../
Bioshock Infinite” vill vara ”Proteus”, men istället reducerar det sin värld till en kuliss ju längre vi spelar. Det blir aldrig någonsin bättre än den magiska, första blicken av Columbia. Det ger oss en glimt av någonting vackert och egensinnigt och sen låter det oss slösa bort resten av vår tid med att hänga i krokar, åka linbana och skjuta ihjäl människor.
/.../
Ett verk som ”Bioshock Infinite” borde inte vara designat för folk som vill leka. Det borde vara spännande och intressant snarare än roligt. Utmanande intellektuellt snarare än spelmekaniskt. Bärande på sjukdomsinsikt istället för beroendeframkallande feedbackloopar. Det borde problematisera sina karaktärer istället för att förvandla dem till svartvita stereotyper. Varför förutsätter man att spelare inte är mottagliga för sådana värden i spel? Varför antar man att de är dumma, naiva, knappt läskunniga, ständigt på jakt efter en stunds förgänglig underhållning? Varför tror man att de inte klarar av att inse storheten i Columbias värld om de inte betraktar den från ett vapensikte?
http://www.blogemup.se/?p=16010


§CLIPS
Incentive Systems and Politics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa-vQ0L77LY

§

Errant Signal on The Stanley Parable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiCLKmEAa1I
§

The Importance of Modding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvNzj0GVMDI

§

Interviews with people from the business
http://criticalpathproject.com/

§

On Contrast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apyzYGPAqSw




§METAL GEAR SOLID
Let's Analyze Metal Gear - The Hexagon Motif
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn9dfDheSSo

§

Metal Gear Rising is, politically and philosophically, absolutely 100% a Metal Gear title, and it’s enthusiasm to show that it is makes it possibly the most thematically blunt Metal Gear ever made.
http://hapticfeedbackgames.blogspot.se/2013/12/quick-notes-on-metal-gearrising-how-you.html




§GONE HOME
I began to query my experiences in order to disentangle the strange contradiction of a company making the kind of game that I dearly want to be made, but that I could not enjoy in its intended form. I wanted to know what made my first experience of it so unpleasant, and why it never quite worked for me as a narrative. This investigation turned out to shed light on some wider issues of interest.
/.../
My problem with Gone Home is related to the literary versus genre divide, except in games we must deal with both functional genres (FPS, adventure, RPG) as well as fictional genre.
/.../
Indeed, it is by waving the flag for this ideal that the game tries to convince you it has something challenging to say about its moral precepts, which alas it doesn’t since it never seriously engages with its ‘opposition’. The game (knowingly?) relies upon you sharing its values for its narrative appeal – which would be what you’d expect in most genre fiction. It’s a long way from what is expected in literary fiction, though.
http://blog.ihobo.com/2013/12/gone-home-and-the-constraint-of-genre.html




§THE LAST OF US
Uncharted is adolescent, TLOU is adult, say they.

In truth, TLOU is naught but a grown up Uncharted.
/.../
To top it off, your short-term ludic goals are supplemented with long-term activities in levelling up Joel and his weapons. And true to form, their thinness fail to conceal their purpose at distracting you from the game’s insecurities.
/.../
The writers of Naughty Dog still live within cutscenes – this is where the bulk of the plot occurs, where the characters most vividly interact. TLOU, like Uncharted, divorces narrative from gameplay, as mandated by the idiom: here is a shooting segment, here is a puzzle segment, here is a walking segment, here is a cutscene.
http://normallyrascal.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/the-ladder-of-us/

§

In depth on The Last of Us Part 3: The Highlights and Low Points of the Narrative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvZLnpBA1mM

§

[The Walking Dead & The Last Of Us]... are works of Neo-Romanticism.
http://complicatethenarrative.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-romantic-dead.html






§DESIGN
The worse things in a game can become, the better it feels when you beat it.

And then I wonder why I don’t want to play more Dishonored. And I think the reason comes from Arkane’s own admission that the game is a power fantasy. In some ways, games are better when they are – and this is a peculiar-sounding phrase – a vulnerability fantasy.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/23/games-are-best-when-things-go-wrong/

§

I'd argue that Metro 2033's failure to communicate it's intentions not only doesn't hinder its point, it *is* the point.
/.../
If Bioshock is trying to make the point that unchecked greed leads to the destruction of the thief as much as the victim, it only supports this up to a point. The player consumes just as much Adam and ammo following the selfless route as the selfish. Metro 2033 looks good in this light: quieter, more meditative, waiting patiently for you to learn what you've been doing wrong all these years. It's a game that could only have come from an eastern European development culture whose holy grail is absolute simulation as opposed to absolute cinematic integrity, where implementing ideas that a player may never experience is not a failure but the defining characteristic of interactive media.
http://exitwarp.blogspot.se/2010/10/novus-homo-thoughts-on-metro-2033.html




§QUEER
Would it Matter if Master Chief Were Gay?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPVjgTG1Rqg

§

Looking at Dys4ia, LIM, Howling Dogs, and Mainichi, the differences in design is so apparent, that being developed by queer women is the least interesting thing about them. Yet, that’s how they are packaged, and the only time they are allowed to be highlighted.
http://www.mattiebrice.com/not-a-monolith/


Society has taught us that the female voice is the most trustworthy.
/.../
Cara Ellison already breached this topic last year in her article “Mother’s Legacy: Engendering AI in Video Games,” stating that the terror stems from an instinct to see the female as the mother, the fear coming from seeing your mother as your “own worst enemy.” “Videogames use this idea of the controlling mother figure to play with us, to scare us,” she stated. “She’s meant to be caring, protective and helpful but she often turns out a bitch from hell.”
/.../
When we hear GlaDos in the beginning of Portal, we have to listen to her. We trust her despite the seedy undertones of her tests, and when she ultimately betrays us, we are let down and disturbed. SHODAN is the same way, especially in System Shock 2, when she uses the voice of one of the female survivors to lure you to her lair and gain your allegiance. You’ve been manipulated both times into believing that this voice is your chance for survival when in actuality, it doesn’t care about you.
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/articles/glados-stanley-parable-and-evil-female-ai/





§OTHER
What this discussion highlights is the strange inter-disciplinary space we now find ourselves within, where each research domain has its own specialty but where the mythologies that are effective within each domain can be different without contradiction.
http://blog.ihobo.com/2013/12/neuromythology-for-game-design.html





§BONUS
HULK BELIEVES WE DON'T WATCH MOVIES JUST TO SIT THERE AND HAVE THE "BELIEVABILITY METER" GO UP AND DOWN. WE DON'T WATCH FILMS TO AVOID BASIC TRUTHS IN THE NAME OF THE CONSTANT SEARCH FOR THAT INDESCRIBABLE "SOMETHING ELSE". WE WATCH FILMS BECAUSE THEY FEED OUR SOULS. THE CINEMA OF MORALISM HAS ALWAYS HAD REAL VALUE TO US AS A CULTURE.
/.../
MEANING CLOUD ATLAS IS AT ONCE HIGHLY STYLIZED GRANDEUR, BUT IT TRULY MANAGES TO FEED YOUR SOUL. HULK KNOWS THAT SOUNDS FLOWERY. HULK KNOWS THAT THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE MAY FEEL THE EXACT SAME WAY...

YOU JUST HAVE TO EMBRACE THE CONCEIT.
http://badassdigest.com/2012/10/08/fantastic-fest-review-cloud-atlas-david-foster-wallace-and-the-cinema-of-mo/