A Visit to My Crooked Neighbors A ludologist must never grow complacent. I have to see new games constantly and they each need to be more confusing than the last one, either in their procedure or in their appeal. One of the most beguiling questions I chase in my studies—
Travel allows one plenty of time to read Having spent some six or seven weeks this summer traveling, I churned through quite a bit of reading material without time to review it here on the blog. Rather than subject you all to a lengthy backlog of discourses on half-remembered
What Makes a Playing-Oriented Game? Last time we discussed Cyberpunk 2077 and how Role-oriented games are easier to make good, but harder to make interesting. Much like big-budget Hollywood movies, Role-oriented RPGs seem incapable of surprising me and in typical megalomaniacal fashion it’s all about
What Makes a Role-Oriented Game? Halfway through this series and we can safely say I’ve spent a lot of time pontificating on ideas which are probably either wholly self-evident or completely incoherent. Thus I’ve decided to provide examples which allow me to deploy some of this
In July I went to Iceland. I hate planes, and I touched down at Keflavík Airport roasted by lack of sleep and darn thirsty. I’d had a hallucinatory encounter with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan while onboard the Delta torture-tube and like Captain James Tiberius Kirk
Unfortunately It Is Her Temple of Doom As longtime followers know, I harbored some genuine excitement for the final installment of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart trilogy. The previous two books compelled and amused via their lush, sensual depiction of courtesan Phèdre’s horny alt-Renaissance adventures. But Kushiel’
The Incident We spent Parts I and II of this deranged manifesto with my sketch of Role-oriented games and Playing-oriented games, supported by my classification of CRPG choices as either expressive or effective. At the end of Part II I posited that the increasing divide we’ve seen
More Definitions Last week, we discussed a growing dichotomy in CRPG design modes: AAA games with high production values which have surprisingly limited narrative reactivity, and cheaply-made indie games with shockingly deep levels of narrative flexibility. I’m calling the first category “Role-oriented games” to reflect their emphasis
Towards a New Dichotomy of Role and Playing In January I promised I would deliver a detailed review of Avowed in the near future. I then proceeded to…not play it again. Instead, I picked up Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader to play with a friend of mine. Owlcat’s
A Strange House in the Republic of Heaven How much love can one bear to have for a book which will only ever be half-finished? No matter how long I wait or how wrenchingly I romance the text, this first half is all there is of Aspects, and all
Long-time readers may wonder if I will review the final season of The Bear. I’m happy to announce that I absolutely fucking WON’T. If you want to change my mind, you'll have to buy me lunch. And it better not be any of that molecular
But I Had to Use MGM+ to Watch It Desperation to entertain my family hemming me in, I activated yet another streaming service the other day in order to show my constituents American Classic. Don’t worry, I shan’t be out on the streets any time soon: it’s