Area of Effect The Call is Coming from Inside the Courtroom By Jay Castello • February 13th, 2024 Great Ace Attorney, set in Meiji era Japan and Victorian London, manages to upend the sacred space of the courtroom.
Area of Effect Space at Sea By Jay Castello • January 5th, 2024 The oceans are a space of freedom, terror, traversal, piracy, exploration, exploitation, warfare, monsters, beauty, death and a thousand other things depending on their social context.
Area of Effect Open World Vampires By Jay Castello • November 7th, 2023 The open world map is almost nothing but a center for consumption.
Area of Effect Space in Translation By Jay Castello • October 4th, 2023 What Baldur’s Gate 3 loses in creativity by being a simulation, it gains in slapstick.
Area of Effect Space in Space By Jay Castello • August 9th, 2023 Mars First Logistics being about delivery, moving through the open world becomes something very deliberate, rather than feeling like an accident with, at best, an improvised solution.
Funeral Rites Making Friends with Swords in The Vorpal Almanac By Jay Castello • July 25th, 2023 Swords, writes Levi Combs in the book’s introduction, need “to feel lived in.” And that’s exactly the focus of the 22 blades of The Vorpal Almanac, beautifully illustrated by Sally Cantirino.
Area of Effect All’s Well in the Kingdom By Jay Castello • July 11th, 2023 The wells in Hyrule are incredible. I want someone to talk to me about all the wells in Hyrule, as well.
Area of Effect Flooded Memories By Jay Castello • June 8th, 2023 What traces will our current sea level rise leave in the record? Cities under the water, yes, but what myths emerge from real Atlantises?
Area of Effect Moving Sitting Still By Jay Castello • April 11th, 2023 Skipping between the individual characters’ stories requires continent-hopping, back and forth over and over across the map.
Area of Effect “The Abundant Nature” By Jay Castello • February 7th, 2023 The only thing I remembered from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s advertisement cycle was the shot where they cut to a deeply bland outdoor scene overlaid with the phrase in question.
