Early this year, I started work on a novel. It isn’t my first longer writing project: I have a bad middle-school fantasy epic under my belt, and last year I…
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Dear Lara, First of all, you should know you were my first video game girlfriend. Princess Peach? Just a kindergarten crush. Samus Aran? She always frightened me a bit, like…
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Session Report is a monthly series that explores the intersection of narrative and broader themes of game design by focusing on a specific tabletop (or tabletop-adjacent) game each month. This…
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Irrational Games’ BioShock: Infinite, released in 2013, transitions from the underwater world of Rapture to Columbia, a floating city in the sky that makes parallels with the United States capital,…
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“Who is John Galt?” is the opening line of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Perhaps as an homage to the famous question, “Who is Atlas?” posters riddle…
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Nostalgia is a powerful manipulator. Whether it’s the latest Star Wars or superhero retread or yet another video game sequel, nostalgia is big business. But who exactly wants to go…
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The tower seemed manageable as I stood at the base looking up. The moon was out but it was a clear night, allowing me to see the very top and…
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Session Report is a monthly series that explores the intersection of narrative and broader themes of game design by focusing on a specific tabletop game each month. This month’s game…
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Parry. Putt. Rub the dogs and pineapples. Watch your lover die, over and over and over. Stare bewildered at the cactus, the only life form you’ve seen in the past…
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There’s been a lot of interesting experimentation in overlapping the mediums of video games, poetry, and art. Video games by thatgamecompany like Flow, Flower, and Journey allow viewers to appreciate…
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Photo via Petur HK (and his girlfriend’s camera). Often, reality is too narrow. The hour has just passed noon, the building opposite my bedroom is reflecting the winter light (always…
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At their best, monsters are metaphors for ideas, or cultural phenomena, in real life that scare us, from the most basic ‘Other’/foreigner to, say, sex/desire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Zombies…
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With the recent trailer release of The Last of Us: Part II, which may, for all we know, come out in the very far future, and even as fanboys have…
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The Past, Present, and Future of Japanese Role-Playing Games Whenever I’m asked what my favorite video game is, I’m torn between Super Mario Bros. 3, Metal Gear Solid, and Final…