All of this was originally an illustrative example within the earlier post Agency and Narrative. However, at one point this example ended up taking up about half the essay, so I decided to post it up later as supplemental material.…
Short update today, things have been busy. I think I have some bonus material I can put up to compensate on Monday morning though… I, like most white people, am fond of Halloween. There’s a few things I like about…
There’s a huge subject I’d like to tackle, but it’s a bit difficult for me to pin down. It’s something I feel very strongly about, and because I feel so strongly it tends to bleed into a lot of apparently…
In games everything has a clear cause and effect. If you get your face stomped by a cyclops, it’s because you forgot to re-equip your Axe of Extravagant Evisceration after using the Feather Duster of Tidiness for that side-quest, or…
“Anyone who prioritizes the delivery of narrative over support for player agency fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the medium.” – Bizarro Hepler I recently encountered this quotation in my twitter feed, and it got me thinking. I generally agree with…
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience…
A few weeks ago Steam came out with their hotly if somewhat anxiously anticipated Greenlight system, and so far it’s… definitely a thing? I wanted to talk about this a couple of weeks ago, but at the time I wanted…
I just played FTL for the first time. As the game recommends, since it was my first time playing I went ahead and played on easy mode, and everything was going pretty well up until the last couple of star…
A little while back, I discussed how experienced and incisive players of video games begin to perceive the hand of the designer, to predict his aims, and infer information which the surface layer of the game doesn’t communicate in order…
Has it just been a week since Ludum Dare ended? It seems much longer. I must be busy. I’ve had a chance to look at some of the other entries. Some of them are pretty amazing, I gotta say. Many…
