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Papers, Please

Xavier Ho | Keywords in Play, Episode 30

…to mention I did a few papers on game jams and hackathons, that’s kind of how I got started and stumbled into games studies.

Mahli-Ann: Alright! I mean, I can see the progression, because I know the progression, it is similar but different, right? Still in design, in many ways. So, Pride at Play!

Xavier: Ok! Pride at Play!

Mahli-Ann: Do you want to walk us through the process of Pride at Play, maybe starting with what we displayed? And then I guess working back from how we got there.

Xavier: Yeah, Pride at…

May 5th

…Weidman calls for a resurgence in analysis about Antichamber and makes lots of interesting points about lateral thinking. Scott Juster finds the banality of evil in Papers, Please. Adam Biessener pleads with the designers of videogame morality systems: “stop making me kick puppies to shoot lightning.”

Nathan Altice (who only writes golden articles of wonderment) analyzes basically everything about Super Mario Bros. through vectors and how they work. Go learn.

Random Things That Are Good So Go Read Them

Andrew Vanden Bossche gives us magic. Roger Travis gets to the heart of immersion in Papo & Yo….

May 12th

…Mitch Alexander: locating the connections between Silent Hill and gay Irish/English artist Francis Bacon. Meanwhile our own Johannes Köller invites us to think of the picturesque Proteus as “art gore” (it’s not as gruesome as it sounds).

Finally, PopMatters Moving Pixels’ Jorge Albor elaborates on the systems of security theater in The Castle Doctrine and Papers, Please.

FUCK VIDEOGAMES PART DEUX

Following on Darius Kazemi’s Fuck Videogames from last week, Janet H. Murray offers a considerate response: “Videogame design is not exciting because it is ‘new.’ Nothing gets old faster than mere novelty. Videogame art is exciting…

September 15th

…enemies of Half-Life.

Back with Gamasutra, editor-at-large Leigh Alexander paints a loving portrait of the “gorgeous math” of Michael Brough’s 868-HACK.

On his blog Macrotransactions, Adrian Forest looks at The Golden Rule of tabletop games in contrast to Arkane’s Dishonored and wonders why would you set up a system with a particular ideal outcome when the bulk of the tools provided favor another?

Finally, on Polyneux, Sven Keil conducts an “interview” with the protagonist of Papers, Please, Viktor Goboran. (German)

(Still) Going Home

On Psychology of Games, Jamie Madigan puts a finer point on the…

October 27th

…and failure with regards to the art of Papers, Please.

Stephen Beirne sees Gone Home as three games wrapped into one.

Daniel Joseph sees Howling Dogs and Kentucky Route Zero as a new type of game entering into the general public’s view and hopefully laying down the groundwork for what the next world will look like.

Look Back

We also have a number of new writings on classic titles for the vintage player.

Ed Smith did a insightful retrospective of the original Tropico and how perfectly it mirrors how politics really works and why so…

November 10th

…and could exist.

Becky Chambers of The Mary Sue relates her experience with Papers, Please from both sides of the customs booth, both in the game and in real life. Levi Fowler wrote ‘What AntiChamber Teaches Us About The Nature of Religious Texts’ for GameChurch.

Bendan Vance talks about intrinsic and extrinsic features of a work and how Liz Ryerson’s Problem Attic is an example of a game fully designed with intrinsic meaning instead of “paying lip service to aesthetics.”

Ethan Gach asks “What is Final Fantasy?” in the respect that the games have always changed and…

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2013

…of The Stanley Parable since its meaning only becomes apparent when viewed as a possibility space and not a single true playthrough.

Eric Swain on his column at PopMatters, took a look at the use of the camera in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Kentucky Route Zero‘s indifference towards video games’ platonic ideal.

Also at PopMatters, is G. Christopher Williams piece about Rogue Legacy and its reflection about the contemporary economic status quo. And Scott Juster, of the Experience Points duo, labels Papers, Please as a game about the “banality of evil.”

Brian Boudreaux of…

February 9th

…subject I’m very keen on myself – the use of dialogue as merely a means to an end. Hubbell focuses his attention on the benefits of strong rhetoric for adding character to what’s otherwise a deadened exchange of information in the case of Mass Effect 3. Problem Machine wrote a nice wee thing on the tensions between design verbosity and concision, with examples from the adventure genre.

Many Different Videogames

Soul James uses Papers, Please to muse on the strengths of the medium. Peter Christiansen wrote about the mechanics of ideology in Civilization V. Mark Filipowich turned his…

April 6th

…Assassin’s Creed‘s historical settings are fraught with potential to reproduce the same systems of oppression the player is told they’re subverting, our next natural stop is over on Go Make Me a Sandwich, where wunderkind has penned a two part (thus far) series on avoiding appropriation and stereotypes when writing game settings.

Kotaku has delivered a trifecta of great articles this week, starting with this essay from first-generation American Patricia Hernandez, in which she shares her own anxieties about deportation, systematized marginalization, and how Lucas Pope’s celebrated Papers, Please is still a bit of a white power fantasy.

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November 9th

…victory coming from tactics and the willingness to do anything.

History

History Respawned invites Dr. Zach Doleshal on to discuss the Eastern Bloc through the lens of Papers, Please.

And the game history e-zine Memory Inefficient volume 2 issue 5 on religion and game history has come out, featuring articles from L. Rhodes, Austin C. Howe, Danielle Perry, Mauricio Quilpatay, Jon Peterson, Amsel von Spreckelsen and Stephanie Cloete.

Contemplation

Sometimes one needs to only lean back and think, letting the mind wander for no practical end and see what connections can be made.

Alex…