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Friction Burns

Friction Burns
Two images from the game Card Shark, once where a play holds a hand of playing cards, and another with a man pouring wine into a glass, suspiciously

In Card Shark, The Devil Finds Work For Busy Hands

By Ruth Cassidy • June 16th, 2022

The easiest mark is one distracted by believing they’re getting one over on someone else.

Friction Burns
The cover for Citizen Sleeper, featuring the robot Sleeper looking over a space station washed in starlight and some vehicles flying around

Conversation In The Ruins Of Interplanetary Capitalism

By Ruth Cassidy • June 3rd, 2022

An interview with Gareth Damian Martin about Citizen Sleeper, and its bodies

Friction Burns
A screenshot from the game NORCO showing a tree of connected, or disconnected, relationships

NORCO Is A Connected Web Of Estrangement

By Ruth Cassidy • May 12th, 2022

The desire for connection and rejection of it shapes the core family in a web, but it plays out across the story’s politics too.

Friction Burns
Detective Kim Kitsuragi leangs against his blue police lorry reading a newspaper while his partner Detective Harry Du Boi sits in the cab holding a sword and the painterly white of the Pale looms behind them

In Disco Elysium, Cops Aren’t Community

By Ruth Cassidy • April 14th, 2022

No matter how kindly or redemptively you play Harry, and for all Kim speaks to his belief that the RCM are doing good, Disco Elysium itself recognises that cops are not social care.

Friction Burns
a still frame of the reload animation for a Hi-Power in Fallout New Vegas.

Weapon Degradation – Or Ephemeral Equipment?

By Ruth Cassidy • March 4th, 2022

Does having the specific language to spot a mechanic – or a narrative trope – prime players and critics to see what they know, instead of what they’re experiencing?

Friction Burns
An approximation of the character art for Boyfriend Dungeon except it'sa piece of broccoli

Broccoli Dungeon

By Ruth Cassidy • February 25th, 2022

I want to come to the defense of challenging art, but I’d found Boyfriend Dungeon to feel too safe.

Friction Burns
the turtle-faced alien Wrex from Mass Effect

For Commander Shepard, Ignorance Is Access

By Ruth Cassidy • January 31st, 2022

Shepard’s xenophobia and its invisibility are both tools to give players what they want: as much access to the game’s world as possible, without the social cost.

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