The Kafkaesque Beginner's Guide
*Huge spoilers for Davey Wreden's The Beginner's Guide (2015) and also a lot of Kafka stories (but, come on, it's been like a hundred...
Playing Feminist (fun!)
In Feminist Challenge 2k18, self-proclaimed "friendly neighborhood feminist" Lydia sends out a series of challenges once a week over the...
Meow Wolf and archival adventuring
I was recently in Albuquerque for a wedding (yay Liz and Tyler!) and was thrilled to be able to check out The House of Eternal Return,...
Hard fun and work-play
On a train between North Wales and London, I read the first 100 pages of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow, the most famous psychology book...
Cheating, Bullshit, and Illocutionary Acts
This post is thick and theoretical, so take comfort from this cute gamer snek picture and then buckle up. In Harry Frankfurt's 1986 essay...
Graphic vs. Text-based open worlds
Jon Ingold, Creative Director of Inkle Studios, said something interesting in his 2013 GDC talk (well, he said lots of interesting...
Firewatch, Precarious Manhood, and Walking Simulators
I recently read an article by Jennifer K. Bosson and Joseph A. Vandello in Current Directions in Psychological Science, titled...
Survival Horror (Resident Evil 7)
I didn't play Resident Evil 7. I watched a YouTuber play it (ChristopherOdd, who was fantastic). I heard great things about the Resident...
Dear Esther
This image does no justice to how beautiful Dear Esther is. If the point of walking sims is to immerse you in a gorgeous environment...
Time travel and narratology (99. Life is Strange (2015), 76. Braid (2008))
There needs to be an article on time travel mechanics in gameplay. Braid, Life is Strange and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask all give...