Everyone feels trapped. Helpless. We have a problem, and it’s a trolley problem. We are on rails, and the scope of our choices sharply constrained. There is no preventing the harm, only, perhaps, reducing it. In the face of impending…
A few nights ago I was wedged between my bed and the shelves I was trying to cram into my closet. I was soaked in sweat, and resting my head against the flimsy particle board backing of the shelves, which…
I finished my playthrough of Sekiro a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve had some time to sit and reflect on the experience. If you aren’t familiar with Sekiro, it’s the newest game by From Software, developers of the Dark…
For those who may be unfamiliar with The Return of the Obra Dinn, it’s a first-person adventure game by Lucas Pope (the developer of Papers, Please – a game which I keep intending to play but putting off, probably at…
Everything in a game is there for a reason – whether that reason is because it’s necessary for the player to progress, because of aesthetic appeal, or because of an oversight on the part of the developers, there’s some history…
I always love hearing about the points in game development where a big decision was made not to do something. Every game has moments like that – cut features, changes in design focus, unused assets – and they’re always fascinating,…
This week my first attempt at a legendary difficulty campaign of the XCOM 2 expansion, War of the Chosen, went down in flames. Also this week, I started my first real and persistent attempts at learning Unity and building a…
I’ve noticed that when I get frustrated with playing a game, there’s usually a very specific way it happens. When I play, I keep in my mind a model of how the game works, what optimal and interesting play is,…
I’ve been playing a lot of XCOM 2 recently, and after a discussion on the differences between it and its precursor the other day I started thinking about the nature of decisions in games. In XCOM (the first one), you’re…
This week I played through Doki Doki Literature Club, which is a game I’d been vaguely aware of as a harrowing anime experience but, honestly, that describes several games, so it wasn’t really distinct in my mind. I’d like to…
