essays

Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.

Gaming Daily: Empty shell protagonists
Craig Lager argues that blank slate player-characters allow the real stars of a game – the NPCs – room to shine.

Gamasutra: A Circular Wall? Reformulating the Fourth Wall for Video Games
Stephen Conway exposes how video games manipulate the so-called fourth wall, bringing a whole new aspect of play to the experience.

Hit Self-Destruct: Cadmium
Duncan Fyfe goes back to the very beginning for the last ever Hit Self-Destruct post.

The Brainy Gamer: Early Suda
Michael Abbott discovers something of value when reappraising the earlier work of No More Heroes designer Goichi Suda.

GamesRadar: How indie games took on the world (and won)
Alec Meer celebrates the indie revolution and finds out what 2D Boy, Ed McMillen, Dylan Fitterer and others think “indie” really means.

Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.

Jumpbutton: L1V3S (thirteen lives)
First in a series of thirteen short stories that each “focus on one character–one life–that is somehow connected to the world of video games.”

NPR: On ‘The Path,’ Everything A Big Bad Wolf Could Want
Heather Chaplin explores the themes of Tale of Tales’ The Path for a semi-mainstream media outlet. Interesting to see.

Groping The Elephant: Who Are You?
Justin Keverne wonders who exactly is the author of a silent video game protagonist?

Lingua Franca: Memberships, Hierarchy and Lore of the Gorons
Daniel Johnson delivers a remarkable cultural analysis of Zelda’s mountain-swelling tribe.

The Amateur: The Game Design Lessons Of Permadeath
Andrew Doull examines permanent death informs the player’s experience, particularly in the Roguelike genre.

Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.

Gamasutra: Ken Levine on Studio Culture: From Looking Glass to 2K Boston
Christian Nutt chats with one of the industry’s most passionate and creative thinkers.

Versus Clu Clu Land: So Close!
Iroquois Pliskin offers this superb analysis of the failings of Mirror’s Edge.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Some Stuff About Open World Games
Jim Rossignol muses on the heightened demands players place on games that opt for the open world.

Critical Distance: Critical Compilation: Fallout 3
Comprehensive essay on what the blogosphere (including me!) discovered while exploring the wasteland.

Offworld: One More Go: Final Fantasy XII, Wasting your time the scientific way
Margaret Robertson reflects on her persistent obsession with Square’s flawed RPG.

Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.

GameSetWatch: Can Murder And Games Meaningfully Meet?
Christian Nutt ponders how murder can carry weight as a narrative device when gaming’s body count is, well… countless.

GameSetWatch: Can Games Become ‘Virtual Murder?’
On the flipside, Benj Edwards assesses just how close games have come to being real “murder simulators”.

Eurogamer: Koda Game Lab
The ever-eloquent Simon Parkin creates “the best unicycle-based, sea-predator-themed, crooner-soundtracked shoot-’em-up you’ve never played” with Microsoft’s design kit Kodu.

Critical Distance: Critical Compilation: BioShock
Michael Clarkson presents a sterling summary of everything of value ever written about Rapture.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Gaming Made Me
The lads from RPS (and some developer friends) explore their gaming influences in fascinating, funny and deeply personal fashion.

Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.

Chewing Pixels: Lest We Forget
Simon Parkin ponders what it means to make a realistic or authentic military game.

Suicide Girls: Brutal Legend And The Worlds Of Tim Schafer
PixelVixen argues that our favourite Tim doesn’t just design games, he builds entire worlds.

GameSetWatch: Plotting, Emergent Narratives, and ‘Story Spaces‘
Tom Cross explores how games abdicate authorship to redefine what a narrative actually is. Part 2 is here.

The Escapist: Designing Religion
Alan Au examines how Sid Meier’s Civilization series has handled religious matters from game to game.

The Brainy Gamer: The Darkness
Michael Abbott inspires me to revisit Starbreeze’s disturbingly well-conceived shooter.

Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.

Experience Points: Fires in Africa: Politics in Far Cry 2
Part One of an excellent essay. Part Two can be found here.

OffWorld: Milo and Kate, or Artificial People Are The New Games
Jim Rossignol suggests that the future of games is “artificial life”.

Robin Burkinshaw: Alice And Kev
Amazing visual diary of the lives of a homeless father and daughter in The Sims 3.

Click Nothing: Ethical Decision Making
Ubisoft Montreal’s Clint Hocking stimulates a fascinating debate around how ethical dilemmas in games differ from those in other media.

Hit Self-Destruct: Prometheus Unlocked
Anyone who writes – or wants to write – about games should read this and feel inspired. More »

After a short E3-related interlude, the Sunday Supplement returns with its usual dose of links to great videogame writing. Enjoy!

Steven Poole: Poetry in motion?
EDGE columnist Poole dispute’s the notion that Flower is a videogame poem, but still finds much merit in its focus and finesse.

Groping The Elephant: From out of the shadows
CrashT explores how so many games fail to understand the power of stealth.

The Brainy Gamer: Teach me to play
Michael Abbott looks at the differing methods of teaching games utilise in their tutorials.

GameSetWatch: Australian Larrikinism in Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow
Daniel Johnson takes “a squiz at a game which features an Aussie bloke.”

Wired Game|Life: Q&A: Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More
Chris Kohler chats with the always fascinating Nintendo legend. Awesome interview.

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Today’s wrap of the best video game writing is an eclectic affair. We tread the Path; peel back the Façade; explore a ghost story; realise we’re all Doomed; and act like a turtle. Enjoy.

Fullbright: Single-A Games
2K Marin designer Steve Gaynor ruminates on the midpoint between the triple-A blockbuster game and the lo-fi indie darling.

GameSetWatch: ‘Homer In Silicon’: Sub-Façade
The always-excellent Emily Short examines the many ways in which a game’s conversation system can be managed.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Touched By The Hand Of Mod: Dear Esther
Brilliant piece on a very creepy Half-Life 2 mod I’d never heard of, but now very much want to play.

Gamasutra: Doomed to Invent Our Mistakes
Designer Adam Saltsman on the lessons to be learned from replaying DOOM.

CrispyGamer: Turtle, Turtle, Turtle: RTSes for Basebodies
Tom Chick lays down the golden rules for tower defence games.

Welcome to the Sunday Supplement, your weekly wrap of interesting games writing beyond the usual news, previews and reviews. Today we look at sexism, racism and… architecture!

Groping The Elephant: Playing the Sex card
CrashT asks whether it’s okay to include overtly sexist mechanics and characters in a game.

BLDG BLOG: Evil Lair: On the Architecture of the Enemy in Videogame Worlds
Jim Rossignol tackles the way designers use architecture to convey just how evil our in-game enemies really are.

Narrative Flood: To Be Continued…
Richard Cobbett criticises games that don’t provide satisfying narrative closure.

Racialicious: Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: the Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft
Racism is alive and well in attitudes towards gold farmers in the WOW community.

Eurogamer: Retrospective: Pathologic
Lewis Denby dissects a quite extraordinary Russian developed adventure.