Feature Excerpt Lo-Fi Hip Hop Beats To Have a Nervous Breakdown To By Ana Diaz • June 25th, 2019 At least an entire generation working themselves to death can listen to some cozy beats while they do it.
Feature Excerpt Order and Chaos By Justin Reeve • June 24th, 2019 Behind Hitman 2‘s stark, modernist buildings lies a symbolic crusade to reclaim the architectural style.
Feature Excerpt Godzilla is Political By Haru Nicol • May 6th, 2019 It’s impossible to untangle Godzilla from the nuclear anxieties that lead to the kaiju’s creation.
Feature Excerpt Hints of Depth in Pikuniku’s Flat World By Jon Bailes • May 6th, 2019 While Pikuniku’s narrative mostly sticks to the shallow end, it offers neat observations about the distractions of consumerism
Feature Excerpt Donut County and the Boisterous History of White Guilt By Jason Dafnis • March 26th, 2019 The quirky indie game makes a statement on gentrification, capitalism, and – in the raccoon BK’s character – the weaponization of racial guilt.
Feature Excerpt Replaying Deus Ex In An Age of Conspiracy Theorists By Mark Hill • March 26th, 2019 Nineteen years after its release, Deus Ex’s story reveals its age far more than its clunky graphics ever could.
Feature Excerpt A Legacy of Movement By Khee Hoon Chan • March 1st, 2019 Doom may have defined the first-person shooter, but Mirror’s Edge made it flow.
Representing Disabilities: An Evolution in Gaming By Quin Callahan • March 1st, 2019 We’re finally seeing more people with disabilities in games, but casual representation still pales in comparison to those defined by tragic backstories.
Feature Excerpt Friday Nights in the Hostile Environment By Rob Haines • January 28th, 2019 British developer PanicBarn’s Not Tonight offers a Brexit-flavored critique of the past ten years of the hostile environment.
Feature Excerpt Teaching Crunch By Melissa Brinks • January 28th, 2019 Many students enter the video game industry well aware of its infamous crunch culture. After all, their colleges groomed them for it.
Feature Excerpt Videogames in Kuwait By David Wolinsky and Tali XOXO • January 7th, 2019 David Wolinsky and Tali XOXO share their impressions of GX and Kuwait Battle Royale.
Feature Excerpt Go to Jail: The Complicated World of Pirated Board Games By Ryan Cooper • January 7th, 2019 Tabletop Simulator lets board game fans recreate their favorite games and craft a globalized shared space. . . even if that means breaking a few laws to do so.
Feature Excerpt Scorched Earth By Devin Raposo • January 7th, 2019 Fornite’s 50v50 mode can feel like performance art or improvisational city-planning, with outcomes based more on luck than coordination.
Feature Excerpt Crack the Network: It’s Called Cyberpunk Not Cybersecurity By Liam Conlon • November 23rd, 2018 While disappointed by Cyberpunk 2077’s announcement to exclude a non-binary option, Conlon thinks it’s necessary to desire more than small kernels of representation.
Feature Excerpt Flash Forever By Phantom • November 21st, 2018 A history of the delightful weirdness of Flash games.
Feature Excerpt God of Shame By Kenneth Shepard • November 1st, 2018 Violence is a language with meaning in God of War, rather than the gratuitous thrill of the game’s predecessors. And this legacy is exactly what Kratos means to hide from his son.
Feature Excerpt A History in Translation By Odile Strik • October 25th, 2018 Heaven’s Vault turns learning a language into a game mechanic.
Feature Excerpt Your Hands Are Always Tied By Adam Goodall • September 27th, 2018 A card game wrestles with the darker side of the clothing production and its own mission to change how players see the world.
Feature Excerpt Climbing the Virtual Mountain By Rowan Evans • August 23rd, 2018 When rendered in videogames, a mountain becomes more than an obstacle. They’re living sites, where introspection, healing and learning take place.
Feature Excerpt Never Alone Again (Digitally) By Gavin Craig and David Wolinsky • August 20th, 2018 Meditations and musings on the lack of solitary videogame experiences, and what that might mean.
Feature Excerpt For She Has Tasted the Fruit By Katherine Cross • August 1st, 2018 In a universe divided by Sith and Jedi, Knights of the Old Republic 2’s Kreia forges her own philosophy in one of Star Wars’ rare instances of feminism.
Feature Excerpt The In-game Museum By Daniel Fries • July 26th, 2018 Devoid of physical limitations, games examine what museums represent and what they soon could be.
Feature Excerpt Skin Deep By Malindy Hetfeld • July 25th, 2018 For a modern racial allegory, David Cage repeats a lot of history’s mistakes
Feature Excerpt A New York Adventure By Alyssa Hatmaker • July 12th, 2018 The Blackwell Convergence captures the ambiance and rumble of “old” New York as it tells the story behind one author’s decades-long writer’s block.
Feature Excerpt Remembering Doom on SNES By Ben Sailer • July 12th, 2018 Doom for the Super Nintendo was an incredible feat of technical trickery. It’s also my favorite game of all time that I never want to play again.
Feature Excerpt Gorogoa and the Power of the Frame By Rachel Watts • July 2nd, 2018 An exploration into how the beautifully crafted puzzle game Gorogoa uses the power of framing and panel composition to create a unique puzzle mechanic and an immersive storytelling technique.
Feature Excerpt The Mass Effect Issue: At All Costs By David Shimomura • June 6th, 2018 Humanity never needed Cerberus.
Another Look The Mass Effect Issue: Artificial Immortality By Yussef Cole • June 6th, 2018 Mass Effect makes us question our preconceived notions about artificial intelligence.
Feature Excerpt The Origins of Assassin’s Creed By Yussef Cole • April 20th, 2018 Yussef Cole explores the complex relationship between Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Egypt and blackness.
Excerpt The Games of Appalachia By Dylan Bishop • April 11th, 2018 If game development can flourish in the foothills of West Virginia, it can also crop up in a small town near you.
Excerpt The Man of Many Ways By Kate Gray • March 21st, 2018 Was it Mario who blinded the cyclops or Odysseus? I forget.
Feature Excerpt Observer’s Videogame Aesthetic By Edward Smith • February 26th, 2018 It is not discursive or a broad parable; Observer’s themes are emotional and less tangible.
Feature Excerpt Peaks and Valleys in Observer By Reid McCarter • February 22nd, 2018 Reid McCarter explores a cyberpunk landscape made of emotions and memories.
Feature Excerpt Social Media Life Crisis By Denis Farr • January 30th, 2018 On social media, videogames and the Self.
Feature Excerpt A Tale of Two Worlds By Yussef Cole • January 24th, 2018 The more perfect the theme park, the larger its landfills.
Feature Excerpt Lasagna Cat and the Internet We Lost By David Wolinsky • January 16th, 2018 David Wolinsky talks to Jeffrey Max and Zach Johnson – collectively known as Fatal Frame – about the return of Lasagna Cat and the internet we used to have.
Feature Excerpt A Most Curious Black Hole By Maxwell Neely-Cohen • December 21st, 2017 Is Crusader Kings II a strategy game? A simulation of history? A storytelling engine? Maxwell Neely-Cohen dives into the black hole to find out.
Feature Excerpt Localize It! By Jun Wilkinson • December 20th, 2017 Earthbound is a masterpiece of localization. How did they do it?
Feature Excerpt The Successful Sidescroller By Aron Garst • December 6th, 2017 What makes a successful sidescroller? Aron Garst turns to the developers of Shovel Knight and Runbow to find out.
Feature Excerpt Industrial Waste is Good for You By Agustin Lopez • December 1st, 2017 Don’t worry about all that trash our society produces – we’re going to need it to survive the post-apocalypse.
