It’s 2013! A new year and a time for resolutions, and I’m not talking about ‘1080p’ here. New Year’s Resolutions can be fun and inspiring, but there’s a balance between setting a formidable challenge and an unrealistic goal. Videogame players are no strangers to challenge of course, and that’s the theme of this month’s Blogs of the Round Table – Challenge.

"The past few years have seen a resurgence of challenging games: Dark Souls, Spelunky, FTL: Faster Than Light, XCOM: Enemy Unknown to name but a few. Do you think videogames have more value in providing a stern challenge for the player to overcome, or does difficulty serve to alienate and deter potential players, impeding their potential for inclusiveness?

Alternatively, write about the greatest challenge you have overcome in a game (this can be a personal or emotional challenge rather than one of dexterity)."

Please email us your submissions or tweet them to @critdistance with the #BoRT hashtag, or tweet me @agbear. Don’t forget the Rules of the Round Table:

• If your work contains potentially disturbing content, please include a trigger warning at the start of the essay. Obviously, no hate speech etc. Use your common sense.
• Your article does have to be connected to the topic. We’ll let you know if we think it’s too tenuous.
• You can submit as many articles as you like throughout the month, and it doesn’t matter if they are commercially published or available for free. Write early and often!

Happy New Year! Whatever your resolutions are, make sure one of them is to write for Blogs of the Round Table!