[Originally posted on PopMatters] Leene’s bell chimes three times from the town square and a teenage adventurer is awakened by his mother, a cadet at Skyloft’s knight academy throws together his belongings and dashes to his practicum, a busty archeologist hones her skills on an obstacle course in the gardens while her gremlin of a … Continue reading Where the Heart Is: The Use of Home in Videogames
Challenge is a very interesting and divisive feature of game design and criticism. As I’ve argued before in the last handful of months, I think that difficulty is a great way to make a player invested in the game’s events (“Challenge is Conflict: How Difficulty Makes Game Narratives Work.” Medium Difficulty. Nov 6 2012; “How Agnes Taught … Continue reading Further Thoughts on Challenge
[Originally posted on PopMatters] At a certain point, video game developers and critics seem to have agreed that all video game storytelling must include the player. There’s a familiar chorus to this discussion: “games must unite the player and the protagonist,” “the player’s decisions must dictate the flow of the narrative,” and “the world must … Continue reading In the Third Person: Against Player Authority
Pfft. Shooters are so lame. They’re all the same thing anymore. They’re all just the same game following the same gruff testosterone-poisoned manfridge from chest-high wall to chest-high wall committing a genocide against Hitler or Hitler-eque aliens. They aren’t nearly as original as your average RPG or point-and-click adventure game or platformer or action game … Continue reading The Shooter Can Do Anything
In my most recent article I talked about heroism in video games and how few protagonists are forced into an undignified position (“Forced Failure and the Undignified Hero.” PopMatters. Jul 23 2012.). Arguing games as a literary media runs into a wall with the word “game.” A few years ago, Roger Ebert wrote an article … Continue reading Why More Games Need to Make us Fail
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