Search Results for:

journey

September 10th

…the trauma of loss | Kotaku Heather Alexandra’s take on the much-discussed Hellblade shifts focus away from the objectification of paranoid delusions, toward the fundamental psychological injury that caused them – loss.

“Boiling down mental illness to a Campbellian Hero’s Journey fails to provide the nuance required to say anything conclusive. Is the rot on Senua’s arm a representation of her growing self-doubt? Is it a bruise left by her abusive father? It is a literal mark of shame from the gods? It ends up being all of these things, because Hellblade shies away from anything too…

Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

September 24th

…Senua’s Sacrifice gets wrong about mental illness – Polygon (Content warning: mental illness) Dia Lacina takes issue with Hellblade’s portrayal of mental illness as a personal hero’s journey, rather than a state of being that is tightly entangled with social context.

“A person’s mental illness is inextricable from their social context. […] The closest we get to seeing Senua exist with other people is in flashbacks to conversations with Dillion or the trauma of her father’s extensive abuse. She never has to go to the store for milk.”

Less crystallized

These two pieces look

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2017

…of Hellblade and how they all contribute to the narrative and experience of Senua’s journey.

Night in the Woods

  • Night in the Woods and Nostalgia | Paste Magazine – Dante Douglas The nostalgia that Dante Douglas speaks of is for an image of America that has passed. The factories and mines have left, taken away by the greed of old men at the expense of the towns and people that live there.
  • Searching for Faith During a ‘Night in the Woods’ | Waypoint – Shonte Daniels Shonte Daniel uses faith as a lens to examine…

April 15th

…more nuanced than many give it credit for.

  • E-soterica: Retribution Never Felt so Punk | Unwinnable Alyse Stanley considers the place for symbolic resistance over factual argumentation about the nature of sexism.
  • “While every woman’s experience is different, a lifetime of confronting sexism in its many forms informs a certain shared recognition among one another”

    Plugs

    • A Profound Waste of Time A new videogames magazine was released this week, and it looks beautiful.
    • April 2018: The Long Journey – Critical Distance Taylor Hidalgo is looking for new BoRT writing! Take a…
    Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

    May 6th

    “The cult seems to stem from a kind of Christianity that sees women both as the temptress who caused humanity to be expelled from the Garden of Eden and as subordinates to men.”

    Plugs

    • April roundup: the long journey | Critical Distance Taylor Hidalgo brought us a new roundup of writing responding to the monthly Blogs of the Round Table prompt. Be sure to check it out!

     

    Subscribe

    Critical Distance is community-supported. Our readers support us from as little as one dollar a month. Would you consider joining them?

    Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

    June 24th

    …player into.

    • Encountering the wanderer in where the water tastes like wine | Videodame Rachel Watts examines attitudes toward agency and the journey in this game’s vignette stories.
    • Descending Into Madness with Cultist Simulator | Unwinnable Rosh Kelly examines the qualities of the mental state this game simulates, and finds something very relatable.

    “the madness behind the cultists doesn’t feel so alien. The all-consuming nature of their study becomes almost sympathetic. Cultist Simulator is not just a game, but a thought exercise.”

    Get on with it

    Dare I say it, “gamer…

    Braid 10th anniversary Critical Compilation

    …digital silence, and suggested how its circumstantial appearance in the game might help support certain interpretations of the narrative. Meanwhile at Rock Paper Shotgun, Julian Benson had a go at experimentally transcribing one of Braid’s levels into musical notation.

    Finally, illustrator David Hellman, who provided Braid‘s distinctive watercolour visuals, blogged about the process of creating and implementing the game’s artwork. There’s a shorter version of this at Gamasutra, but for a longer, sillier, more in depth journey you’ll need to head to Hellman’s blog, which is no longer so easier to navigate: p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7…

    July 29th

    Trauma, abuse, hell, and postmodernism are just some of the stops on this week’s journey through critical writing on games. Yet somehow, it’s a fun ride, with high-quality prose, a wide range of voices, and clear takeaways for anyone creating things in connection with the world of games.

    Story time

    Two video essays this week applied theories of narrative structure to videogames.

    • Nabokov, Her Story and You (Three-Year Anniversary Special) – YouTube Hamish Black brings to bear Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction in his reading of Her Story’s narrative techniques.
    • The Difficulty with Linearity |

    Calling for Critical Compilations!

    …Bioshock 2

  • Bioshock Infinite
  • Dear Esther
  • Deus Ex series
  • Dishonored series
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Fallout: New Vegas
  • Fallout 4
  • Far Cry series
  • Final Fantasy VII
  • Final Fantasy X and X-2
  • Final Fantasy XIII
  • Gone Home
  • Heavy Rain
  • Journey
  • Kentucky Route Zero
  • L.A. Noire
  • The Last of Us
  • Mass Effect series
  • Metal Gear series
  • Metro series
  • Nier Automata
  • Nier Gestalt and Replicant
  • No Man’s Sky
  • Papers, Please
  • Pathologic
  • Portal and Portal 2

  • Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

    December 16th

    …things up online.”

    Recovery Mode

    In what ways do games explore recovery? In what ways can they facilitate it? Four authors this week explore these questions via their own experiences.

    • Gris mirrors the stages of grief through art, sound and design – Polygon Ashley Oh follows Gris on a journey through depression, hope, and recovery.
    • In Love with a Dread Wolf | Ada Play Adarel roots for–and falls in love with–the villain. But is he?
    • How Pokémon Go Is Helping My Mom Quit Smoking – Videodame David O’Keefe documents the recuperative value of…