I’ve been playing a lot of 2016’s DOOM lately. It hearkens back to the shooters of my youth. There’s a lot of catharsis in blasting demons with cool weapons and punching them in the face. The levels are large and they reward exploration with opportunities to customize your preferred blasting methods and adorable figurines. Perhaps… Continue reading Ballad of the Doomguy
Tag: storytelling
D&D Matters
I’m really glad I started playing Dungeons & Dragons again. It’s taken me the better part of a year to feel comfortable going out-of-doors again. I was walking around like a man with my skin peeled off, and the fresh air and particulates of the outside world stung like a son-of-a-bitch. I had to take… Continue reading D&D Matters
Making Words Happen
Writers are a curious breed, by and large. They can be very difficult to live with. They have a tendency to live inside their own heads. Over and above anything else, they are richly imaginative creatures that bring whole new worlds to life. To make those worlds viable and accessible for an audience, a writer… Continue reading Making Words Happen
Papers, Please – A Love/Hate Relationship
Glory to Arstotzka. Let me be clear right from the off: I adore the fact that Papers, Please exists. For those of you who don’t know, Papers, Please is a video game described as “a dystopian document thriller.” You are a citizen in Arstotzka, a fictional country ruled by an authoritarian regime, and you are… Continue reading Papers, Please – A Love/Hate Relationship
Tabletalk: Let's Tell A Story
As someone who writes tales about people who don’t actually exist, the process of telling stories fascinates me. While working alone allows me to be the final arbiter of what does and does not happen, some of the best storytelling experiences I’ve had come not from a word processing document, but from other books and… Continue reading Tabletalk: Let's Tell A Story
DLC Review: Burial At Sea
Ken Levine’s games have taken us into the cold darkness of deep spaces, the unplumbed depths of the ocean, and into a variety of parallel dimensions. But unless you count the sequel we don’t talk about, fans of BioShock have be waiting for the game or experience that takes them to a very specific place:… Continue reading DLC Review: Burial At Sea
Levine's Infinite Fancy
For years, Ken Levine has been keeping gamers on their toes. System Shock 2 built on player expectations of both shooting games and the original System Shock. BioShock reminded modern audiences that action and terror could be balanced well and coupled with good storytelling and multi-dimensional, memorable characters. And now, BioShock Infinite has delivered one… Continue reading Levine's Infinite Fancy
Can Gamers Change The World?
I find myself asking a question that should be at the core of game design: what do gamers want? I don’t want the answer given by market demographics and sales figures. Sure, games make money, and the companies that publish them have profit as their end goal, but why should that also be the end… Continue reading Can Gamers Change The World?
The New Mythology
Some of our stories are hundreds or even thousands of years old. Every once in a while, a book or TV series will claim it has an ‘all-new’ story, but in reality most of the plot points and character turns have probably been told before. This is likely not a conscious decision of the writer,… Continue reading The New Mythology
