Weekend Reading: Oh The Places You’ll Pokémon Go

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While we at Kill Screen love to bring you our own crop of game critique and perspective, there are many articles on games, technology, and art around the web that are worth reading and sharing. So that is why this weekly reading list exists, bringing light to some of the articles that have captured our attention, and should also capture yours.

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Say You Don’t Know Me: One Night in Pokémon Go, Jenn Frank, Paste

Pokémon Go, a highly obscure indie gem that might’ve slipped your radar this week, is confronting players with the daunting reality of exiting the house to play a videogame in the hottest summer on record thus far. Paste’s Jenn Frank documents her first night as a Pokémon hunter, and reviews the history of extroverted videogames.

The ‘Pokémon Go’ Endgame: Getting You to Walk Into Chipotle, Leif Johnson, Motherboard

Yes, tales of corpse discoveries and armed ambushes are the most confounding tales of Pokémon Go to disturbingly emerge within the first few days of the game’s release, but there’s an even more obvious and ubiquitous impact on the world outside of plot points from Stand By Me (1987). Businesses, from the small shops to the fast food chains, certainly don’t seem to mind the attention from people looking to score a Seel. Motherboard’s Leif Johnson looks at how Pokémon Go is making new friends with Taco Bell franchises.  

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Animals Strike Curious Poses: On Prince’s Under the Cherry Moon, Chris Randle, Hazlitt

Somewhere in between the legendary Purple Rain (1984) and the nearly buried Sign o’ the Times (1987) is the strange Under the Cherry Moon (1986), a film gifted to Prince by the studios following the massive success of Purple Rain. A fashionable and nearly Lynchian joint, Under the Cherry Moon is a vanity project by the person whose vanity we adored most, and Hazlitt’s Chris Randle explores the history and allure of a film many have found confoundingly unwatchable.

The state of play for games on Kickstarter in 2016, Alec Meer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun

You may have heard that there’s been a steep decline of funds raised for games over Kickstarter compared to the heyday successes that lit up as recently as last year. Getting a one-on-one with Luke Crane, Kickstarter’s head of games, Alex Meer is told that it’s easy to cry fatigue right now, but the tone will change the instant the next bombshell lands.