Videogames operate on a timescale that we don’t expect from any other medium. Poetry and music often take minutes; novels and films hours. The day is not an uncommon unit of measure for the time we spend with games, and for games like Destiny (2014) or World of Warcraft (2005), weeks can be the oper
There is a wild deer wandering the paved streets of San Andreas, the fictional city of Grand Theft Auto V (2013), freely roaming the 100 square miles of gangland and beaches. By “wild” I don’t mean that this creature is merely not of civilized society—a wild beast—I mean that it doesn’t fit in with
This is a preview of an article you can read on our new website dedicated to virtual reality, Versions. /// It seemed like magic. By hacking together a pair of VR headsets, a group of artists and DIY neuroscientists discovered that they could create empathy between two strangers. Men could empathize
Threadsteading is a strategy game about quilting, or perhaps more accurately, a strategy game that is quilting. Controlled by a quilting machine (or an embroidery machine in its portable form), Threadsteading is a two-player competitive game. In it, the players try to nab territories on a hexagonal
French architectural genius Axel de Stampa created a dancing ode to Tetris (1984) with the 2014 debut of his gif art gallery Architecture Animée. The introductory image sees large Tetris piece-shaped buildings fall from a blue sky to interlock themselves with the grounded structures below. The resul
Kafkaesque. It’s a word whose usage in everyday conversation has inspired an unfair status as a self-effacing pejorative of pseudo-intellectualism. Believe it or not, Kafkaesque does retain a meaning apart from these misconceptions; a shorthand description of the soul-crushing drudgery and ineffectu
Every time I unbox a board game it feels as though I’m ‘starting something’. There’s a secure rhythm in drawing out components, shuffling decks, placing pieces; it feels significant in the same way that the placement and positioning of elements in communion or offering feels holy. Mats are laid out,
It must be difficult for a game made on 89-year-old hardware to stand out anywhere, let alone at a conference brimming with excitement over upcoming virtual reality headsets like PlayStation VR and the HTC Vive—it wouldn’t help that this game assigns the player with a menial day job that’s now handl
In the eastern region of Kyoto, Japan, there lies an area named Higashiyama, filled with shrines, temples, and the Kyoto National Museum. It was here in Higashiyama that Nintendo built an office complex with buildings adjacent to one another that the company’s greatest designers worked in. Almost ev
If given the opportunity, what would you do to the melted clump of leftover Kraft Dinner that is Donald Trump’s visage? While this is surely a question with which much of the electorate has recently reckoned in a hypothetical sense, technology is making it tantalizingly real. Let’s start with the se
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Though virtual reality can be an immersive, solitary experience, multiplayer games are bringing people together for a new kind of group fun. With all the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding virtual reality (VR) games this year, it makes sen
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. Commedia dell’Arte (PC, Mac) A COLLABORATION BETWEEN STUDENTS AT THE ENJMIN AND EMCA SCHOOLS Surprisingly, improv is about more than Amy Poehler making fart jokes. At the heart of great improv
In a cabin near Walker’s Lake, in Mississippi, there’s a piece of driftwood that looks almost like a wolf’s head. From another angle, it appears as some bizarre sailing vessel, and from another still, it has the look of an alien weapon—perhaps a hybrid of a gun and a club. I remember turning it over
1979 Revolution, the upcoming adventure game following the political revolution that took place that year in Iran, just got a new trailer. It’s the most in-depth look at the game we’ve seen so far, and it paints a desperate picture for both the country and the game’s photojournalist protagonist Reza
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) wasn’t a tough sell. It had audiences entranced from its first trailer. A desert slashed with muted yellows and clay reds set against a crisp aquamarine sky spoke for itself. The dies irae of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem” was only there to make sure you never forgot. The first
The puzzle island of The Witness, released back in January, contains a theater in which you can unlock and watch movie clips. Among the documentaries and interviews about science progression and spiritual awakening is the last 10 minutes of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia (1983). Since it’s been disco
When Activision’s Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure first launched in 2011, it resonated with older kids by balancing the act of imagination with the act of playing a videogame. While it was more structured than a more free-form toy like Legos, Skylanders created the illusion that, by placing plastic fi
In his review of X-Men (2000), Roger Ebert begins with an evocation of the mythological gods of Ancient Greece, and ends with a plea to die hard comic book fans, whom he wishes would “linger in the lobby after each screening to answer questions.” Sixteen years later, viewed from a cinematic present
Okage: Shadow King (2001) was always the game that barely slipped away. The game Hot Topic would have capitalized on, had it discovered it in time. The game I (now regretfully) sold as a teen for store credit to put towards buying a PlayStation 3. Yet now, despite the odds, Okage is back. When it wa
This article contains spoilers for Life Is Strange. There are several moments in Life Is Strange (2015) which, even now, weeks after finishing it, come into my head on a daily basis. First is the closing sequence of Episode One. As Syd Matters’ “Obstacles” kicks in, we drift away from Max and Chloe
It is Saturday night, February 27th, and I am trapped in a submarine. Moments ago I was dancing on my tip-toes across the sidewalk, oddly gallant amid the bitter air of the Bristol harborside. Now there’s a tall man in a yellow jacket bent-double in the corner, sick from weeks of tinned peaches—I tr
Victor Widell, a Swedish web developer, released a piece of web code called dsxyliea a couple of weeks ago via GitHub. The code sets out to emulate an experience with dyslexia by keeping the first and last letter in each word the same, but mixing up the letters in the middle, to give the appearance
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel Ancient India produced some of the oldest and longest surviving games in history, and though the country’s videogame creators face modern day challenges, its contributions to game design are undeniable. They’ve gone by many different names and
Frequently placing second among Twitch’s most streamed games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012) has become an institution among the website’s community. At any given moment, there are hundreds of streamers playing the title, all vying for attention as they each try to figure out the most enter
“Kids play inside their homes now, and a lot had forgotten about catching insects. So had I. When I was making games, something clicked and I decided to make a game with that concept. Everything I did as a kid is kind of rolled into one—that’s what Pokémon is. Playing video games, watching TV, Ultra
