Undertales
I played Undertale and I’m not sure if I’m going to actually be able to write about it. It’s a remarkable game, but I don’t know what to remark. I guess I’ll try, even though I’m sure people have written a…
Category Criticism
Core Souls
From Software (yes, that’s the actual name of the company) seemingly came out of nowhere in 2009 with the sleeper hit Demon’s Souls, which was followed in 2011 by its better known and hugely successful successor Dark Souls. Well, it…
Dropsy
For a while now, I’ve thought of the point and click adventure as a more-or-less static genre. We understand the design, its conventions, what it can achieve and how. And yet, while sticking close alongside those conventions, Dropsy turns the…
Water and Fire
There’s a disease artists seem to catch as they become more experienced. They begin to see art entirely in terms of its creation, in terms of the simple components that go into making it. As artists become more skillful, the…
Fallout
I’ve been playing and replaying old Fallout games – there may be some kind of tenuous connection between that and the release of Fallout 4, but mostly I just finally got around to playing through New Vegas and that whetted…
Shovel Knight
Every aspect of a game communicates something about the overall experience of the game. It’s very easy, and very common, for these signals to be confusing and conflicted: Yet it’s hard to say definitively that these conflicts are flaws or…
Meaning It
Children will believe basically anything. That’s their job. At some point later in life, there’s usually some form of disillusionment, and we learn to distrust the motives of others, to believe that we are being manipulated. Afterwards we find that…
Adventure Time
Adventure Time feels like a very lonely place, and I don’t think that’s happenstance. Adventure Time takes place in a world where everyone is unique. Everyone is created in some special way and shape, special made for the specific destiny…
Hexagon
The biggest difference between Super Hexagon and other similar games, fast paced reaction endurance challenges like Flappy Bird and Canabalt and Race the Sun, is that the presentation is inverted. You aren’t running away from or towards anything, but rolling…
Battleblock Theater
It’s strange how many games have announcers and narrators now. Though Bastion was noteworthy for the extent and character of its narration, the seeds were sown earlier – somewhere in the gap between the expected announcers of sports games and…