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Continue reading →: Mourning a Lost FeedSince the unexpected and shocking death of my friend Hannah Frank last week, I have been thinking a lot about the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” (Series 2, Episode 1, dir. Owen Harris, 2013). Since the time I first saw it, I’ve thought it was a very good slice of speculative fiction, but it was…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: The Fabulous Screech / Remembering Hannah FrankI began this series as a lark, inspired by my friend Hannah Frank’s Tumblr omgcatrevolution. I linked to her Tumblr here, she reciprocated by posting some of this material over there. We chuckled about trading some of the meager traffic our endeavors attract; it gave us a chance to chat. A chance to chat with…
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Continue reading →: A Hodology of Videogames: Post-Socialist RailsFor this entry in my series on “hodological space,” I decided to do something a bit different: a video. Way back in January, I promised that I would write some further thoughts on 35MM (Sergei Nosgov, 2016). The more I tried to pull my thoughts together, though, it became clear that, as much as I like that…
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Continue reading →: A Hodology of Videogames: Silent HillI have wanted to write about the original Silent Hill (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo “Team Silent,” 1999) for a very long time. But it has been difficult to find a “way in.” Unlike its pseudo-remake, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Climax, 2009), which I have successfully gotten around to writing about, Silent Hill doesn’t have much in the way of…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: NaniI have written about Beyond Eyes (Tiger and Squid / Team17 Digital Ltd, 2015) before, and mentioned briefly that it is about a blind girl searching for a stray cat that hasn’t come by her home recently, named Nani. What I didn’t mention was that Beyond Eyes has one of the most arbitrarily cruel endings in the history of storytelling.…
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Continue reading →: Let’s Study The WitnessThis past March, at SCMS, I walked out on a paper being delivered by Oscar Moralde on The Witness (Thekla, Inc, 2016). I did so not out of disinterest. (I’ve enjoyed Moralde’s papers in the past.) Nor did I do so out of rudeness. Rather, I did it because of spoilers. Moralde was kind enough to warn…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: A Purr TaleIt’s hard to take good screenshots of A Purr Tale (Matias Selzer, 2014), because the cat never appears. You are the cat, in first person, for one. And, on top of this, you never catch even the slightest glimpse of a paw or a tail. It’s also hard to take good screenshots of A Purr Tale because, frankly,…
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Continue reading →: The Process Genre in Videogames: Walden, a game pt 2Today marks the 163rd anniversary of the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods. I am celebrating the occasion by resurrecting my old “Process Genre in Videogames” blog post series, and turning an eye toward the USC Game Innovation Lab’s recently-released Walden, a game, across two posts. In this series, I borrow the term process genre from Salomé…
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Continue reading →: The Process Genre in Videogames: Walden, a game pt 1Tomorrow marks the 163rd anniversary of the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods. I have decided to celebrate the occasion by resurrecting my old “Process Genre in Videogames” blog post series, turning an eye toward the USC Game Innovation Lab’s recently-released Walden, a game. I ended up having too a bit too much…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: MollySo, at one moment in What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow, 2017) you play as a girl named Molly, who suddenly finds that she can inhabit a cat. The moment happens fairly early on, but I still don’t want to share much about it, since surprise and novelty are such essential parts of Edith Finch‘s toolbox. The…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: Ronan O’ConnorOkay, so technically the name of the cat you play as in Murdered: Soul Suspect (Airtight Games, 2014) isn’t Ronan O’Connor. I don’t know what the cat’s name is. Ronan O’Connor is the name of the man whose ghost you’re playing as, who can possess local cats at will. This is necessary, because cats can do…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: KittyIf you’re lucky enough to play The Stone Prisoner DLC for Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare, 2009), you’ll meet Kitty. Kitty is a cat. A cat who can talk. Wouldn’t Kitty’s ability to talk indicate she’s not actually a cat? Nonsense. Kitty is a cat, really. The reason she can talk is that she’s the best cat. A beautiful cat.…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: MorganaAs I mentioned last week, Atlus has so far developed two games released on eighth generation consoles: Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE (2015) on the Wii U, and Persona 5 (2016) on the PS4. Both are set in Tokyo, with certain locations—such as Shibuya and its landmarks—featured prominently. And both have a cat.
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Continue reading →: “The scariest stuff is like really really boring”: Night in the WoodsNight in the Woods tells the most vital story of any game in 2017. We’re only halfway through the year, but I doubt very much that it will be bested in this regard. Find out why below the fold, but beware of spoilers if you haven’t played it yet, and plan to. I will be discussing…
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Continue reading →: Interesting Games of 2017: The Year So FarMy goodness. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a non-silly post. The new job has kept me busy, and on top of that I have made a real push to catch up on games released in 2017, now that we have passed the year’s halfway point. This latter task has given me plenty to mull…
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Continue reading →: Videogame Cat of the Week: Little DevilThis week, finishing off our run of cats exclusive to Nintendo platforms, I turn to Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE (Atlus, 2015). It’s a game about J-Pop stars using the powers of the performing arts to battle monsters and shake the residents of Tokyo out of their collective ennui, thereby saving them from certain doom. Obviously, it goes without…
