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June Roundup: Time

…in Night in the Woods, time is as much an economic influence as it is an intellectual one.

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Seth Tomko

Perceptions of Time in Fallout 4

At Level Skip, Seth Tomko compares the protagonist of Fallout 4 to other characters forcibly removed from their moment in history like Captain America and Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse-Five. For Tomko, Fallout 4 reworks notions of time as a linear process by displacing the player in several key moments. Like other stories featuring an “out of time” protagonist, Fallout 4 humanizes the player character by removing…

August 6th

…Mafia III and the Soundtrack of History | Ontological Geek Harry Mackin talks the subversion of music on cultural and historical context, and how Mafia III uses music in a way no videogame has before.

“In a postmodern, media-dominated world, it can feel as though cultural memory is history – or at least, it’s replaced history. Historical truths are fluid and complicated; hard to pin down. Narrative isn’t nearly as difficult: America’s lost innocence, the end of an era. Juxtaposed with the dramatic imagery and music of the era, the symbolism becomes so tempting that it’s difficult…

August 20th

…personal history against your working expectations. In an age where we’re doing more re-releases, maybe incorporating classic moments into newer projects is a better choice.’

  • Why Hard Work Gets You Nowhere in Assassin’s Creed | Kotaku Games reinforce capitalist ideas that work is good and rewarding. ‘Grinding’ in MMOs is repetitive, and games often subject players to ‘work-like activities’ under the guise of freedom and control. Assassin’s Creed I subverts this. How? Altair’s killings do not improve life in the cities, guards still harass civilians regardless of how many times he intervenes. The article is a deep…
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September 3rd

…explanations dating from the 19th century. This is, they focus on the tale of great men and great nations that prove their right to rule by defeating their enemies through the use of violence (Venegas Ramos, A., 2016). However, nowadays the video game medium is mature enough to write the history of Humanity, and the Spanish Conquista in particular, by leaving the myth of the mounted musketeer back in the Iberian Peninsula.”

A kind of co-optation

The ongoing conflicts occurring in digital space, both fictional and real, are discussed in these two pieces that both offer takeaways…

October 8th

…interesting pieces on strategic design decisions made by games companies, two critics investigate the compromises and bargains made in order to seduce the right developers and players.

  • Why ‘Rocket League’ Killed All Its Weird Maps – Waypoint Andrew Hayward examines how level design priorities shift as a game becomes a sport.
  • How Sony’s biggest failure led to an indie renaissance | ZAM – The Largest Collection of Online Gaming Information Matt Suckley reports on the history of how indie-friendly business practices developed out of a desperation to attract developers.

“The formal approval process at

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November 12th

…videogames contributing to the lack of imagination regarding our possible futures? Darshana Jayemanne and Ben Abraham look for climate fiction.

  • Everything Is Dying and It’s All Our Fault | First Person Scholar Cat Goodfellow adds further texture to how we evaluate climate change narratives, and gives us a survey of necropastoral games.
  • The War of the Worlds, as told by videogames | ZAM – The Largest Collection of Online Gaming Information Matt Suckley’s history of videogame adaptations of War of the Worlds asks how a story so influential is not a more lucrative media franchise.

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    January 28th

    …highlight design strategies and define emotional and aesthetic outcomes for players.

  • Playing with Money (1): The Adventurer Shop – ihobo Chris explores the history of merchants in RPGs, and traces their changing significance as they moved from tabletop to videogames.
  • Everything I learned about game design last year I learned from Dead by Daylight – Eurogamer.net Keith Stuart finds remarkable opportunities for role-play in a multiplayer horror game without an AI enemy – and has stories to tell about beautiful moments emerging from player improv.
  • They Are Billions: Steampunk, Colonialism and the Undead – Paste Playing a…

    • February 4th

    …That Best Describes Our Uncanny Reality – Waypoint Liz Ryerson surveys the spatial narratives and remarkable subversions that have been created through Doom mods.

  • How Dark Souls, Bloodborne and more imagine the cosmos • Eurogamer.net Andreas Inderwildi offers a richly-illustrated account of the cosmologies of a number of lore-heavy games.
  • In praise of video game castles • Eurogamer.net Phillip Boyes surveys the history of castles in games, from their roots in Tolkienesque D&D to their subversion in mid-1990s Final Fantasy games, to their relative denouement as a trope in game design.

    • “As every reader of…

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    February 18th

    …Al-Aaser surveys a history of indie games that subvert their genre conventions.

    “DDLC is hardly alone in the way it combines the cute and the disturbing. Rather than seeing the game in opposition to its medium, it might be more useful to see the ways that it is part of that ongoing conversation.”

    Package

    In a fascinating set of articles on porting, remakes, and emulation, critics engage with the technology on which games run, asking how it should affect our reading of, and concern for, their cultural significance.

    • The retro gaming industry…

    Critical Distance Awards 2018

    …large community of viewers with a passion for game design. His series on dungeon design across the history of Zelda games has been just one of the remarkable undertakings of this channel in the past year, combining a broad scope with focused arguments, and managing to sustain a regular output of content for viewers despite the scale of the project at hand. On top of that, he allowed his audience a great deal of insight into the process of making sense of game spaces and design change over time, providing an insight into useful critical methods for people who write…