Browsing posts from: Mx Medea
Content warning: discussions of trauma, abuse, substance abuse, and self harm
If you think about it, aren’t all games a game of the decade, or at least of a decade? Ah well, another 10 years go flying by and it’s time to engage in the Sisyphean task of rolling the “top games of x decade” rock up the hill once again nonetheless, so let’s not waste any time from this decade and just dive straight in.
“My entire life I suppose. How old am I now? God, like it even matters anymore, what’s the point of keeping track when you’re just running down the clock? I can hear them scrabbling about out there, in the mist, the damned impenetrable mist, I can always hear them. I can’t get that note out of my head. Is it even worth the risk of trying to get to the top of the Solar Cathedral? … Fuck it, maybe for once in my life I can finally know what it’s like to not be alone.”
Well, we all knew it was coming, and it looks like it’s finally here: subscription based gaming services – the “Spotifys of gaming” if you will (and tech companies definitely will). There has been much debate about the concept, however we find ourselves now amidst the full-steam execution, so what now?
Much of the idea is still nebulous and shrouded in corporate mystery. How will devs be paid? How is the amount they’re to be paid calculated? What the hell does “engagement” mean? All good questions, and crucially important, but we need to also address the dev-side of the equation and ask what this shift means for the future of the medium and our approach to video game development for these stream-based platforms.
Hello fandom, my old friend, I’ve come to write on you again. If you’ve been living under a rock, or simply have literally anything better to do with your time, it may come as news to you that Martin Scorsese has stridden into the media spotlight once again to drive a stake through the caped heart of the Rodent Empire. I am, of course, talking about his mildly contentious opinions regarding the validity of Marvel movies as “cinema”, whatever the hell that word means these days.
I’m not here to debate the finer points of what does and doesn’t constitute art beyond my personal belief that art goes into Marvel films, and that they have artistic merit in their craft and their themes. What has caught my attention, however, is the visceral response to relatively mild criticism of fandom staples that such critique engenders.
Hatred, Postal, Grand Theft Auto, Untitled Goose Game. What do these games have in common?
Violence is a go-to staple of video game design to say the least, whether in the form of flying gore and viscera or swift ‘bad-ass’ executions from the shadows, so it’s good to see a rise in the number of non-violent titles in recent years, especially in the indie scene. Untitled Goose Game (UGG from hereon) is not one of these.
If you’re one of the 5 people who hasn’t played it yet, UGG is a flat-shaded romp around town as the non-titular goose in his endless crusade to harass, trip, annoy, and torment people ostensibly minding their own business. UGG is many things, but it is anything but non-violent. It’s not graphically violent, of course, lacking arterial sprays and gibs soaring through the sky like small bloody geese as it does, but it fits into its own little niche of violence through psychological torment, one all too easy to excuse and internalize.
Rise and Shine, it’s time for the Daily Grind.
It’s a very bleak metaphor for the daily life of commuters when you think about it, why must our ambitions demolish our stamina into a fine powdered mash by which we brew our dreams using our hot scalding tears? No time for big questions, no time for even longer answers, YOU have places to be, people to meet, and Coffee Gets You There.
You hear something out of the ordinary from the hallway, or rather, you hear nothing – definitely not ordinary. Thank God you were in the kitchen when you didn’t hear it; with a blade fast at hand and a veritable lifetime of experience chopping vegetables, you head out into the mansion to see what’s making all that silence
These are the first few tentative steps into the beautiful nightmare that is Phantom Rose, a procedural turn-based adventure card game by developer makaroll. If my flawless riffle shuffle and love of Lisa: The Painful are any indication, there are two easy ways to win my heart: card games and complicated but rewarding status effect systems, both of which Phantom Rose provides in droves.
One room, two plants, four creatures, six bullets, no way out. I stared out my window, the inevitability of the situation setting in faster than the wallpaper was rotting off the walls. I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know how it happened, all I know is that my damn tv won’t stay off, and the alarm clock won’t stop beeping. Have I slept? Did I ever sleep? Sure as hell doesn’t feel like it, certainly haven’t been able to shake this headache for as long as I can remember. But no matter how bad things are in here, I know they’re A LOT NICER OUTSIDE, IT IS A REALLY NICE DAY OUTSIDE.
Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for! The list of the contributors to the meditations project who reached out to us with their details. We encourage you wholeheartedly to give the list a thorough look, the developers here are doing fantastic work, and we think you’ll find more than one or two projects that’ll just brighten up your day!
We reached out for comment from Rami Ismail and Jupiter Hadley regarding their thoughts on the meditations project and how it’s been handled. Here are their thoughts.