This week, our partnership with game criticism site <a href="http://www.critical-distance.com/">Critical Distance</a> brings us picks from Kris Ligman on topics ranging from a game review of Google Doodles to a return to basics with ludonarrative dissonance.
This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Kris Ligman on topics ranging from a game review of Google Doodles to a return to basics with ludonarrative dissonance. A Look Back to Look Forward We kick things off with Austin Walker and Cameron Kunzelman, who over at Paste have offered up a productive postmortem of IndiE3, the counter-E3 "unconference" which took place several weeks ago. Also at Paste, Cara Ellison pens a letter to dear ol' mum on the palatability of games among the mainstream -- including what makes a game, and why Google's Star Trek doodle may prove an excellent example of how to make games ready and accessible. At Abnormal Mapping, Jackson Tyler takes a look back at the Uncharted franchise and decides that its hero Nathan Drake is caught between "a wide-eyed naivete and violent paternalism":
The universe visibly contorts to ensure Drake's triumphant survival, as he freefalls out of a plane (the plane is exploding, but in this series that is always implicit), before somehow catching a parachute in mid-air, and landing safely on the ground. Drake is permanently accompanied by a literal Deus Ex Machina, the grinding of its gears louder than all the bombast and destruction it choreographs, and yet the camera angles, the soundtrack and pacing are all and perfectly designed to help the player buy into the lie and ratchet up the false tension. That's because the fantasy of Uncharted is not to be able to catch the parachute, the fantasy is to fall and pretend for a moment that you were ever in danger at all.
At Midnight Resistance, Owen Grieve animatedly challenges the idea that public criticism of game design is tantamount to censorship of game developers. Meanwhile, on Gamasutra's Member Blogs, TownCraft developer Leigh Harris suggests a small and easy way developers can fight against the male-as-default problem of game avatars. You Keep Using That Word The ever-delightful Brendan Keogh shares some excellent thoughts on the underrated Final Fantasy XII, even if he defines "ludonarrative dissonance" incorrectly. Sorry, Brendan. But also, for shame, Brendan. By contrast, this week's Errant Signal video (by Chris Franklin) expertly captures the real meaning of ludonarrative dissonance as it applies to Entwined: when a game's "big picture" themes and ideology are at odds with its systems. Interviews The good folks at Idle Thumbs have released their newest Terminal 7 podcast interviewing Netrunner co-designer Damon Stone. At First Person Scholar, Meghan Blythe Adams interviews LIM and Space/Off developer Merritt Kopas:
I think there is a push among, I guess, critical consumers of games towards this politics of representation, of wanting images that reflect who we are and that's important and that's really valuable, but I think that the risk there is that we come to believe that if we just have perfect representation, everything will be fine and that's the end goal. It reminds me of the ways that the politics of inclusion manifest in other spaces, so things like the acronym LGBTQ–whatever, it's this idea that if we just get the right combination of letters, everyone will be included. And you can't possibly, that's a fantasy. And in ways, that's one of the promises of or impetuses behind words like queer, it's this word that in ways encompasses things but also leaves a lot of room. I think abstraction [in game design] does the same thing.
+1 Signal Boost On Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Porpentine's column of curated free indie games has come to an end, so it's quite worth it to page through the archives for its many gems. Soha Kareem and several others have started up a tumblr advocating for intersectionality at conference panels. And last but certainly not least, the newest issue of Zoya Street's Memory Insufficient zine is now live, covering the topic of gender and sexuality. Great stuff! Usual Footer Business Thanks again for reading! We love getting your submissions, so please keep sending in your links by dropping us a line over email or mentioning us on Twitter. And hey, just a reminder: like I said up above, Critical Distance is funded through our readership. So if you like what we do here and want to see us continue to exist and all that, consider pledging to our Patreon! That would be really cool of you.
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