This Week in Video Game Criticism: Altgames and Alternative Histories

This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Kris Ligman on topics ranging from game development's punk scene to game reviews from a timeline where the industry turned out very differently.

Spring on Jupiter and Mars

We start with the recently launched Offworld, where Zoe Quinn is talking about altgames, the punk scene of game making. A good starting place, to be certain, although not all-inclusive.

Meanwhile, at Heterogenous Tasks, Sam Kabo Ashwell-- well, I'm not going to spoil it for you. Just read it, and sigh nostalgically for histories which never were.

And, holy crud, Clint Hocking wrote a thing! Specifically, he responds to Ian Bogost's recent article in The Atlanic regarding the alleged limiting nature of narratives and characters in games, arguing that to juxtapose them with the analysis of systems is to create a false dichotomy:

Writing for his regular column on TechCrunch, Tadhg Kelly also responds to Bogost, arguing that it is the culture surrounding big-V Videogames that is stifling how we talk about games in a wider sense:

Back with Offworld, Gita Jackson has penned a feature which serves – in some ways – as a mission statement for the site: what reactionary gamers of big-V Videogames see as a colonizing force is anything but.

God Games

Here's a great piece which showed up in our inbox this week, by Christopher Howell over on Fare Forward: an analysis of The Last of Us from a Judeo-Christian theological perspective which includes some interesting observations.

Approaching faith in games from a different tack, Troy Goodfellow looks at how it is modeled in Rod Humble's recent strategy game, Cults and Daggers:

By Land or By Sea

Are you sick of hearing about Offworld yet? Because we aren't! This is the most exciting games publication to hit the scene in a very long time, and AM Cosmos's wonderfully diverse primer on Japanese-style dating sims is a great example of that.

Also a very unique piece this week, Irishman Stephen Beirne provides perhaps the world's only in-depth analysis of Folklore, an early-generation Playstation 3 game distinguished by being one of few titles set in Ireland and featuring a real Irish voice actress as its lead.

On FemHype -- another cool publication which recently made the scene -- Emm speaks with the anonymous creator of a mod which enabled women characters to date an exclusively heterosexual female party member in Dragon Age Inquisition... and which prompted so much backlash the creator was effectively driven from the internet. Emm asks why similar mods -- including ones to whitewash a character of color -- haven't produced the same furor.

And back with the PBS Game/Show, Jamin Warren believes the Legend of Zelda franchise is overdue for a female protagonist -- and while his argument is not the most robust (no mention of Metroid? really?) he draws on some interesting bits of lore and developer interviews to undergird his point.

Did Someone Mention Formalism

Not to reopen recently scabbed-over wounds, but on Medium, Rachel Simone Weil is able to put a fine point on why, specifically, the invocation of 'form' in games brings to mind a fraught history:

And yes, she has examples.

Not to do with formalism specifically, but of a similarly academic bent, Evan Tilton on Thinking While Playing responds to the citation guidelines of the Game Studies journal, arguing that a more comprehensive citation approach to games might include the technological and regional specificities of how the game was played.

Whose House Are You Haunting Tonight

Not Your Mama's Gamer's Ashley Barry -- in responding to this piece on FemHype -- laments that even when games manage to duck the most obvious pitfalls of treating mental illness as a lazy shortcut, it can still fail to address its subject matter in a meaningful way. (Content warning: discussion of ableism in both articles.)

And speaking of Not Your Mama's Gamer, have you noticed their shiny new site design? They're looking for new writers too!

And this doesn't really belong anywhere in particular, but is lovely nonetheless: a gorgeous curated collection of obscure Japanese games (Content warning: flashing animated gifs).

This is The End, Beautiful Friend

Oh, there's so much more I wish I could show you, but alas... It will have to wait till next time!

Till then, please keep sending in your links via email or by mentioning us on Twitter! And yes, since it's come up recently: you are more than welcome -- in fact, encouraged! -- to self-submit.

A few more items: we're approaching the end of the month, so please remember to send in your entries for Blogs of the Round Table and This Month in Let's Plays. Also, we'll be reopening our call for feature pitches soon, so watch out for that as well!

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