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Leon Xiao | Keywords in Play, Episode 15

…on the game’s official websites. We chose this method of finding loot boxes and probability disclosures through gameplay rather than say, for example, watching videos of other players engaging with loot boxes, because very few videos will actually show a player accessing the probability disclosures. So, we basically had to do this through gameplay in order to ensure that we did manage to find the probability disclosures. I think we spent a considerable effort when trying to find the probability disclosures above and beyond what a normal player would find. So, I would say that in our opinion, if we…

August 15th

…appeal to Kate. They pale in comparison to the loneliness and immense disconnect that her old life contained.”

Style, Story, and Structure

Our next section this week threads together ideas and analyses about storytelling structure, narrative choices, and game design in a variety of forms and contexts.

  • In games, the environmental crisis is just another bedtime story | Input Magazine Lewis Gordon considers the tone and framing at play in contemporary environmental storytelling of another sort.
  • Zarf Updates: Design ruminations: Subverting the ending Andrew Plotkin discusses design and stoytelling approaches to breaking promises and…
Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

December 16th

…worlds as lived places via Bat-Puncher and Spider-Cop.

“Open world games want us to love their worlds as much as Spider-Man loves New York. Even though they’re mostly just amusement parks than they are real places. The best of these amusement parks allow you to learn landmarks and understand the world for what it is.”

Just for Fun

Two articles to close out with this week! I apologize for nothing.

  • I Watched Some Fortnite Porn So I Finally Could Figure Out What Fortnite Is | Jezebel Tracy Clark-Flory learns about Fortnite via…

June 2020

…Donate to the Black Trans Protesters Emergency Fund

  • Buy the Visual Novel Romance Collection for Black Trans Lives

    • In Critical Distance news, do make sure to check out the excellent critical compilations we’ve put up recently on Pathologic and Resident Evil 2, along with the latest episode of Keywords in Play. Also, a shoutout to Chris, who is tirelessly holding it, us and everything together over there in blogland.

    This Month In Videogame Vlogging rounds up the best vods of videogame criticism from the previous calendar month.

     

    Re/Play

    As circumstances

    …

    99 Free Games from 2009

    …we’re-not-taking-this-too-seriously fashion. Just the thing to while away and idle quarter of an hour or so, rolling down hills and knocking down pins in the Unity engine.

    10. Today I Die

    Daniel Benmergui’s playful rumination on games and language isn’t perfect, but it forges ahead and treads where few games have gone before. Anytime that this developer puts up something for nothing you should run right over and check it out, and this time is certainly no exception to that general rule.

    11. Miami Shark

    You are a shark. A shark that leaps from the water…

    The Stanley Parable

    …compelling story within a repetitive roguelike framework. And in a piece on Firewatch and the walking simulator trend for the New York Times, Chris Sullentrop briefly mentions TSP as another example of a story-driven game that centers around a non-violent narrative.

    DESIGN & EXTRAPOLATIONS

    Some critics drew from philosophical traditions to analyze The Stanley Parable, such as Sam Tjahjono who performed Structuralist and Post-Structuralist reads of the game.

    Most importantly, [The Stanley Parable] demonstrates that even in its attempt to study the structures of game narrative, it cannot escape those very same confines.

    …

    Elizabeth LaPensée, Ph.D | Critical Distance: Keywords in Play, Episode 1

    …interview that they had never actually played the games. So their argumentation was undone, but that was only thanks to the fact that there were people who knew about games who were able to come forward and became sort this like media fighting media. Ah, you had Fox News saying “this trains eco-terrorists”. And that went out across national news and then that bigger story broke into smaller stories which hit all of the state television news shows, right.

    Darshana: Sure

    Elizabeth: And so there was just sort of this smattering that happened. And then you had the…

    January 10th

    …Breaking the Surface: Learning to Live with Death and Depression in Iris and the Giant — Gamers with Glasses Tof Eklund plays and responds to a deckbuilding game woven with a narrative and design cues about living with depression and a desire to die (content notification for indirect reference to suicide).

  • Wood Pigeon – New Rules Pema Monaghan narrates the play of watching birds amidst quarantine and depression.

    • “It is clear to me that wood pigeons have a dry sense of humour, for example, and that they prefer to make one or two good friends based…

    December 8th

    …moments, but I’m not sure about the comparison to Dishonored. Doesn’t the latter essentially let the player adjust their own level of peril? Also at RPS, they’re running down their favorite games of the year – worth a look.

    There’s a lot to love about the Critical Path project; the design, the content, the classy search function. This interview with Clint Hocking about Far Cry 2’s weather systems is a highlight. Haven’t watched the rest of them yet – let us know your favorites and we can feature them in future. If we get all of the Critical Distance…

    This Year In Video Game Blogging 2011

    …Mason posted a provocative piece on Hearts of Iron III and how he re-fought World War II only to lose as he tried to improve the outcome.

    New York Times writer Jonah Weiner gave us an expose on the creator of Dwarf Fortress, the game itself and the dedicated community of games that sprung up around its dense systems.

    Kill Screen ran a contender for the greatest review of all time with J. Nicholas Geist’s interactive review of Infinity Blade using the form to further explain the play experience of the iOS gem.

    Jorge Albor wrote about…