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Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus: An Epistemological Review
I return after the holiday season with a confession: I’m not, strictly speaking, a game studies scholar. Rather, I’ve been dabbling and stumbling professionally in this particular academic arena for...
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Fate of the World: An Epistemological Review
My work leads me to discover some very strange games. After Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus, I’d like to offer you another epistemological review of one such games. By epistemological, I mean that I won’t...
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Dialogue Options: Where’s the Rhetoric?
Last year, Stephen Beirne pointed out the way dialogue in video games is treated as an obstacle—not a part of gameplay. Beirne’s right. But, I’m going to look at why Beirne’s right, particularly for...
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DayZ of Indifference: Fighting Against the Injustice Engine
I hadn’t meant to be talking about DayZ this week, but after reading Jason’s post, I just couldn’t resist. As with many of us, I’ve been familiar with the ArmA II mod for a while now. I found it...
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Extremism as a Narrative Device
Playing DayZ has allowed me to reflect on extremism a little bit. DayZ appears to be a game that fosters a plethora of extremes: one is either an extremist bad guy (I’ll kill everyone!), an extremist...
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A Vulnerable Retrospective: Desolation Games
Welcome to a Higher Level Gamer Critical Retrospective! Retrospectives can take many forms: some focus on a single franchise while others are more expansive. For these retrospectives, I’ll be taking...
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A Severed Prosthetic Memory by NBA 2K14
The discourse of representation, stereotypes, and racism surrounding video games is fraught, and quite frankly not at all progressive. During “black history month,” I took notice to the number of my...
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Arguing for the Adoption of Persistent Time in Video Games: Part 2 Building a...
In the first of this two-part article, I outlined my thoughts on how persistent time can provide a new paradigm for permadeath in video games. In games like DayZ Standalone (Bohemia Interactive,...
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“We Just Want to Make Good Games.”
I’ve been writing a lot for I Search for Traps lately, but through my discussions of table-top RPGs I’ve come across an old question that I’ve encountered when I was studying the world of video games:...
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What I’m Playing Now: Combat Mission Red Thunder
In my ongoing effort to find a hybrid game uniting the best principles of table-top RPGs, wargames, and video games, I’ve been exploring the world of wargames a lot. Specifically, I’ve been following...
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