Why I Play Spy
I’ve always been fascinated with being unknown. I tend to dress simply and I tend to speak quietly and I tend not to be noticed. I love the anonymity of the internet and am constantly dismayed by the abuse of…
Category Essays
A Story
Well, I can’t think of anything to write about. There are many interesting things to say and many interesting things to say about games but right now they elude me. It was guaranteed to happen at some point. A more…
The Problem Machine
“Simple things are never problems. Unfortunate, maybe, but if it isn’t complicated it isn’t really a problem.” The lie that makes video games so appealing to us is the idea that everything which is challenging is challenging in the same…
Character Customization
Wouldn’t it be nice to just have a stat sheet? My days are strange and chaotic and emotionally draining. There seem to be a lot of storms at varying levels of metaphoria. I don’t want to complain, I just want…
Spiraling Shape
This could lead to excellence Or serious injury Only one way to know Go, go, go Go ahead, wreck your life That might be good Who can say what’s wrong or right? Nobody can There is no coherent way for…
A Light Touch in the Dark
I distrust certainty. I don’t trust people who are certain what they want, because it seems to me that they haven’t asked enough questions, and how can you trust people who simply accept what they’re told or, worse, maybe, always…
Resume From Last Checkpoint
A common problem in games, and one which is rarely solved well, is how to get a player who has left the game for a month or more caught back up on whatever’s going on at any given moment. I…
Abstraction Layer
Video games are, at their most fundamental level, a collection of numbers. Anyone who’s done any programming has seen this in action, of course, and had a direct hand in what those numbers are and what they represent. There are…
Hotline Miami: Critical Analysis
Doing reviews and analyses of specific games is kind of out of form for Problem Machine, but I seem to be doing it a lot nowadays regardless. The thing is, I’ve been playing these games and they’re just too damn…
Frog Fractions
Last week I played Frog Fractions. Frog Fractions is a fun game! In Frog Fractions, you play as a 4frog. Bugs try to eat your fruit so you have to eat the bugs. When you eat the bugs you get…