2012 November » Digital Spirit Guide

Women who make or play games – share your stories!

Elixir, Writing about games writing No Responses »

Nov 282012

Today’s post was going to be some narrative theory stuff I’ve been working on, but it’s currently disappeared up its own high-concept backside, so instead I’d like to address something much more pressing and topical – women gamers and game-makers – and why they’re very relevant to the mission of this blog (run as it is by a thirty-something white male).

In case you haven’t heard, there’s been something of a protest/solidarity movement happening on Twitter over the last day or so, with women (and supporters) posting under the hashtag #1ReasonWhy (in answer to “why aren’t there more women in the games industry?”). The tweets have been about bringing to light the rampant sexism and abuse that females have had to deal with due to working in our industry (or even just playing games). Go check out the thread – it’s pretty sobering stuff, although it has brought out a fair bit of love and support, as well (and the #1ReasonToBe tag is providing a more hopeful flip-side).

It’s great to see this stuff being brought into the open. But the discussion needs to keep spreading and deepening if anything is to change on a fundamental level. Continue reading »

How Telltale’s The Walking Dead tricks us into feeling

Writing about games 7 Responses »

Nov 242012

[This post contains no story spoilers, but does contain discussion of game mechanics which could be considered slightly spoiler-ish.]

This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play.

This is the message that greets the player at the beginning of every episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead game. But is it true?

After finishing the final episode last night, I resisted the call of the pillow and had a bit of a dig around some spoiler-heavy threads on the game’s official forum. Like me, most people had really enjoyed the experience, but there was one recurring negative response. In essence:

“The decisions I make don’t actually change anything! Everything’s the same at the end! Telltale are liars!” Continue reading »

Narrative News, November 22nd

Narrative News No Responses »

Nov 222012

Thanks to everyone who’s checked out and given feedback on Katherine’s story! I intend to publish a lot more third-party stories in future, and also plenty of theory articles about narrative in and around games. But for for today, I just want to get into a good old-fashioned link-fest. Here are some game narrative-relevant stories from around the web this week:

Developer with Tourette’s explains his syndrome with a game (NBC)
“If a tic goes off while you’re trying to carefully navigate between a group of dormant goblins, there’s a moment of panic, followed by a frantic race to escape. The game becomes infinitely more interesting when you start to think of the game as a metaphor and not just a dungeon crawler. What if the goblins are just people, and you’re an intruder disrupting their lives?”. Continue reading »

Gaming and Heroism: How video games changed my life for the better

Elixir, Writing about games 7 Responses »

Nov 192012

Today’s blog is the first in what I hope will be a long series of guest posts discussing games which have had a significant impact on the authors’ own life narrative. In this biographical piece, Katherine Owen describes how one series of games has helped her cope with – and grow through – her chronic injury.

For years there has been unceasing and usually negative media attention on video games and the perilous effects they are said to have upon impressionable young minds. Computer games certainly did affect my mind in a profound way, though with a different outcome than that which is commonly feared. One series in particular, a role-playing/adventure hybrid called Quest for Glory, changed my life for the better and convinced me that anyone can help to make the world a better place.

How Doom killed Quest for Glory, and why you should help reincarnate it

Writing about games 2 Responses »

Nov 162012

It’s 1993. I’m thirteen years old, and my favourite cousin is in town. He’s just been to the games shop, where I know he was picking up the latest instalment of the greatest of all game series: Quest for Glory 4. I walk in into the bedroom, hopped up on excitement, and freeze. There on the computer screen is … what?

Definitely not the painterly pixels of a QfG game, that’s for sure. Instead, a strange fleshy pustule fills the screen, more lifelike than anything I’ve ever seen in a game. I felt a flash of disappointment. Then my cousin hit the spacebar, and it passed – the player view rose to overlook a forsaken plain, awash with the tortured cried of demons.

The age of heroes had ended, and the time of space marines had begun.

Is the greater games industry (finally) waking up?

Writing about games writing 1 Response »

Nov 142012

Was that even a review? It felt like an english lit piece.
I really just want a review of the game. I’ll work out the broader implications myself. No need to talk about how awesome or in depth the plot is, I just want to know if it’s fun, how the gameplay works and if the graphics are sweet. None of which you mentioned.

– Reader comment posted by user “rowan” on Kotaku AU, a response to the Kotaku review of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, by Patricia Hernandez.

Hope can spring from the strangest of places. Having skim-read the review of a game I will never play on a site I rarely read, I came upon the above comment, and promptly went back and read the review in detail. And it made me inordinately excited, because it cemented my belief that we – the greater games industry – are having a Moment.