[Originally posted on PopMatters] The American Civil War caused more American deaths than any other conflict in the country’s history. It is remembered as a war between former neighbors and friends. It was a war between kids over a dispute that somehow got far out of hand. It was a war for the rights of people … Continue reading Reveiw: Brother Against Brother: The Drawing of the Sword
I can’t remember how many turn-based strategy games I’ve played in a row but these days it seems like the games that excite me the most involve commanding sprites along a grid in small, squad-sized skirmishes. Case in point, the most recent I played was The Banner Saga. In The Banner Saga, the player guides two separate caravans … Continue reading Resource Based Humanity
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
If somebody were to make a game out of that one twitter bot that proposes random situations (@AndNowImagine) the result would look something like Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. I really enjoy the game (Review: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. PopMatters. Feb 19 2014.), though I admit that I had an extended honeymoon phase with … Continue reading Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Defamiliarization
This week, Mike Joffe at Video Games of the Oppressed has been proposing a number of games to play within other games. A number of his games have been based in retro console RPGs like Pokemon and Earthbound. The proposed games make for interesting opportunities to personalize experiences that are generally pretty consistent from player … Continue reading Meta-Game Fan Fiction
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