Here Be Monsters The Discomfort of “Hello Neighbor” in Contemporary America By Emma Kostopolus • November 7th, 2024 The people under the tightest scrutiny are already the most vulnerable – our queer, trans, and POC neighbors.
Here Be Monsters Spoopy, Not Spooky: The Intersections of Cozy Games and Horror By Emma Kostopolus • September 4th, 2024 While on the surface they’re fairly dissimilar, there’s pretty substantial evidence that the Venn Diagram of spooky vs. cozy game enjoyers has a large middle section.
Here Be Monsters HR is Having a Field Day: Still Wakes the Deep as the Lovecraftian Banal By Emma Kostopolus • August 7th, 2024 Still Wakes the Deep is essentially just being stuck in Hell with all your worst coworkers.
Here Be Monsters I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: The Terror of Tamagotchi By Emma Kostopolus • May 31st, 2024 This is not a cute piece of nerd nostalgia, but a brutal PsyOp designed to drive us to the brink of despair.
Here Be Monsters In Defense of the Jump Scare: A Manifesto By Emma Kostopolus • March 5th, 2024 Jump scares function as a necessary pressure-release valve for the experience of watching horror, thus allowing the experience to be less unrelentingly tiring.
Here Be Monsters Loading the Gun: Simulation and Realism in Horror Mechanics By Emma Kostopolus • February 8th, 2024 Horror in game mechanics arises from the difference in how we interact with things that are realistic versus things that absolutely are not.
Here Be Monsters It’s an Evil Effing Room: Level Design in Horror By Emma Kostopolus • January 3rd, 2024 In thinking about horror level design, we can work to uncover a lot of the general horror philosophy behind some of our most beloved franchises.
Here Be Monsters A Different Sort of Vampire: The Endemic Issue Behind Redfall’s Critical Flop By Emma Kostopolus • November 2nd, 2023 Redfall is an excellent test case for how capitalist gamer culture has turned some gaming consumers into a particularly odious, never-satisfied group of soulsuckers.
Here Be Monsters RE7 as American Folk Horror By Emma Kostopolus • September 28th, 2023 Folk horror is having a minute in the scholarly study of horror.
Here Be Monsters We Can’t Get Out Without Talking About Slenderman By Emma Kostopolus • September 7th, 2023 Born of a 2009 creepypasta and culminating in the 2014 violent assault of a twelve-year-old girl by two classmates, Slenderman was largely responsible for a digital Satanic Panic in miniature.
