Somewhere right now there’s a guest author at some university telling an enthralled gathering of undergrad wannabes “all stories are conflicts.” That isn’t true, but fiction in European, expansionist traditions treats conflict as the foundation of storytelling. Of course stories can and do exist without conflict, especially outside the aforementioned traditions,1 but the assumed truism … Continue reading Invasion Tactics
Every New Years I get swept up in the same retrospective fever as the rest of the internet. However, I never feel like I have enough to add to the conversation because most years I only have enough money to buy one triple A title a year (this year I haven’t even come to that, … Continue reading GOTY: resembling a goat; in the manner or fashion of goats
[Originally posted on The Border House] It’s no secret there’s a not-so-subtle undertone of colonialism in a lot of games, particularly in strategy games. Eador: Masters of the Broken World has the player reorganize the universe into its “proper” state by conquering every available territory in the game (Filipowich, Mark. “Eador: Masters of the Broken … Continue reading Expeditions Conquistador and Post-Imperial Arrogance
I wrote my most recent article on the value of chance in video games (“Gaming the Dice: How Randomness Contributes to Game Experiences”. PopMatters. Jun 11 2013) based, mostly, on Expeditions Conquistador. In Expeditions Conquistador (God, what an awful title) I chose to play the game on the Ironman setting. With Ironman activated, the player … Continue reading The Universe Rolls 20’s
[Originally posted on PopMatters] There’s a story to Risk and Settlers of Catan and Monopoly but not in the games themselves. Sure, there’s an identifiable setting that makes them more than flat pieces of cardboard—the unconquered world, the geological absurdity that is Catan island, Britain street(?)—and the point of these games is to become emotionally engaged … Continue reading Gaming the Dice: How Randomness Contributes to Game Experiences
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