Kill Screen archive
…disagree
"undertale"
August 27th
…genuine emotion is a feat no other game has accomplished, at least in our experience. I thought about that game for days after, and because of that, I strongly urge everyone to experience it.
Monsters Together
Despite our best efforts, even with art that can illustrate humanity, we can also be monsters. Not incorrigible, but at times less merciful than we intend.
- The Undertale Drama | Kotaku Chloe Spencer speaks on the mercy-requiring yet merciless public opinion of the Undertale community.
- Inside and the Monstrosity of Collectivism | Pop Matters G. Christopher…
September 17th
…song “Undertale” Hits Home | Game Score Fanfare – YouTube (video: auto-captions) Game Score Fanfare argues that the music played at a turning point in Undertale is composed to reflect the emotions not of the player or protagonist, but of their would-be antagonists.
Next, these three articles consider games as reflections on sickness, excess, and the drive for recognition. I shouldn’t get sick for this
May 27th
…week look at grief, while one looks at commodified emotions in the videogames industry as reflected in one game that features a hypercapitalist societal collapse.
- How Undertale Helped Me Grieve – Pixel Poppers Doctor Professor tells a beautiful story of using Undertale’s two major modes of engagement to punctuate important life moments.
- The Loss Levels | Unwinnable Daniel Fries explores a personal game made for public spaces, arguing that it deals deftly with the public and private dimensions of grief.
- Mixed Media: The Big Crunch – Haywire Magazine April Tyack links the toothless portrayal of societal
…
Kotaku UK archive
…2015/10/30 Tips Playing Assassins Creed Syndicate 2015/10/31 Undertale The Kotaku Review 2015/11/02 Curse Kiseki One Japans Biggest Rpgs Barely Made America 2015/11/03 Ways Activision Avoiding Saying Destiny Actually Sold 2015/11/04 Great Board Game Pandemic Even Better Risk Legacy Treatment 2015/11/04 League Of Legends Is Changing Everything In 2016 2015/11/04 Video Game Glitch Became Full Blown Conspiracy Theory 2015/11/05 The Gamer Who Didnt Leave His House For Over A Year 2015/11/06 The Life And Creativity Of A Great Bethesda Artist 2015/11/11 Examining Career Pro Street Fighter Legend 2015/11/12 Diablo Iii Consoles Cheating Problem 2015/11/14 What Makes Open Worlds Work 2015/11/19 The…
October 3rd
…
A few different themes run through our opening section this week–videogame morality, branching paths, player choices, and observation are the big ones–as our first three selected writers unpack the deeper ideological nuances in popular games.
- How Disco Elysium’s Centrist Path Observes the Player | Unwinnable Ruth Cassidy reflects on Disco Elysium‘s heightened awareness and commentary on different moral play paths in games.
- Some Thoughts On Some Undertale Articles | The Overflow Chute NARFNra engages with key texts in Undertale‘s critical discourse to argue for why the game’s genocide run is an important keystone for understanding its
…
October 18th
…to draw on that shorthand.
Meanwhile, Tim Conkling makes a salient point of the perception of design:
The notion that design is intellectually relevant is uncontroversial. Nobody would ever seriously write off, for example, an Eames chair or a Gehry building; whether these objects fit some random definition of “art” is inconsequential to their perceived cultural value. But outside the industry, I don’t think that games are really understood as designed objects.
Kill Screen’s Jake Muncy reviews Undertale and confronts a moral dissonance between playing the game in a way that feels true to…
November 1st
…possibilities in Undertale make it such an inviting game, especially for the LGBT+ community.
Kill Screen’s Jess Joho is sceptical of the tech demo for Detroit: Become Human. Like many works with developer David Cage’s signature on it, Detroit seems as though its best ideas are lost in the game’s overall thematic clumsiness:
In the trailer to Detroit: Become Human, a half-assed allusion to slavery is attempted instead—I think? (I hope not, but I think so.) With the title’s uncomfortable juxtaposition of Detroit—a city known for its history of race riots and current race-related drug, education, and
…
Episode 31 – Back to the 2015
…Undertale is Tearing GameFAQs Apart by Patricia Hernandez
Hideo Kojima is the Jonathan Franzen of Videogames by Kevin Nguyen
Punk Games by Zoe Quinn
We are not colonists by Gita Jackson
The queer masculinity of stealth games by Riley MacLeod
Video Games’ Blackness Problem by Evan Narcisse et al
Peter Molyneux Interview by John Walker
The vast, unplayable history of videogames by Gita Jackson
Should I Stay or Should I Go: How to Stay Afloat in the Games Media by Luke Winkie
Opening Theme: ‘Close’ by The Alpha Conspiracy
Closing…
January 17th
…videogame.
At Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Bianca Batti checks out the relationship between games, their mechanics, and life.
The Term of the Week Is: Ludonarrative Dissonance
Did you think we were done discussing mechanics? Sorry, bucko. A few of the works from this week brought up the term “ludonarrative dissonance,” which means a disconnect between a game’s mechanics and overarching message. The more you know!
Uninterpretative’s Zack Fair contemplates how Undertale’s theme of distrust affects whether the game features ludonarrative dissonance or not. (I’m totally digging the Hello Kitty blog theme, by the way.)
After…