Author: Ana Valens

Ana Valens is a freelance games critic. Her work has been published in The Toast, FemHype, Bitch Media, and Unwinnable. She thinks the world would be a better place if there were more visual novels about queer women.
Miyamori
News

The Japanese folktales that inspired Miyamori

Last summer, we stumbled across Miyamori, a lovely folktale-infused videogame about Japanese mythology in the Tōhoku countryside. The game follows a Japanese woman named Suzume as she attempts to find her missing brother. Joined by the shrine guardian fox Izuna—who is looking for her partner Gedo—the game follows Suzume and Izuna’s journey through the countryside to find their missing halves. Since then, Miyamori has been seen in action for the first time to due to the arrival of its debut trailer, released earlier this month. Hence, it seems as good a time as any to talk to Joshua Hurd, one of…
YIIK
News

YIIK’s demo probably has everything you love about 1990s JRPGs

To say the Japanese role-playing game is a prominent genre is an understatement—it has influenced videogames tremendously over the years. From Final Fantasy VII (1997) to Earthbound (1994), Dragon’s Quest (1986) to Persona (1996), JRPGs introduced expansive stories and memorable characters that still live on in popularity today. Not to mention, the JRPG is a genre that’s constantly reinventing itself, exploring new problems, themes, and design styles. You can look at the overlapping cartoon realities of Kingdom Hearts and the World War II narrative of the Valkyria Chronicles series for a taste. Ackk Studios’s upcoming game YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is not only interested in…
News

A tribute album to the ‘90s aesthetic of SEGA’s most-loved games

Recently, the SEGA Dreamcast saw its 17th anniversary in North America. Released in 1999 as the last SEGA console in the company’s history, its birthday is a bittersweet event. Despite the company’s shortcomings, SEGA has a place in the hearts of those who, like me, grew up with games such as Sonic Adventure (1999) and NiGHTS Into Dreams… (1996). It’s the style, the aesthetic, even the background music of these classic Dreamcast titles that fosters such love among fans. Composer Christa Lee’s album Welcome to the Fantasy Zone is a tribute to that kind of love. Released in late August, Lee’s…
Perfect Woman
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An Xbox game about the difficult performance of being a woman comes out soon

Gender norms are a pain. For women, it means that every day there’s a pressure to conform to certain standards of living that don’t always match up with our personalities. We’re told to straighten our hair. Use makeup. Wear long dresses. Don’t become videogame journalists. These are just a few of the ways society has talked down to me personally, telling me what to do and how to live my life. Dealing with that pressure to conform is awful, and it can cause major stress down the road. Perfect Woman is a tongue-in-cheek game about the ways in which women are…
BlubBlub
News

Turns out that 11 to 14-year-old girls can make the cutest games

Let’s be frank: it’s not easy working as a woman in games. The past few years have been particularly tough for us. But as women in games, each of us feels a responsibility to help and support each other while working in this space. Especially when it comes to helping young women enter the field. Whether as designers or artists, programmers or journalists, we want to put our experience to use and give aspiring women the tools they need to pursue their interest in videogames. Girls Make Games is one initiative that fulfills that goal. Hosted by LearnDistrict, Girls Make Games…
Castles Made of Castles
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Castles Made of Castles lets you easily create complex architecture

There’s a sort of serene pleasure that comes from uniform design schemes. Whether it’s a car with two identical sides, a train that could be perfectly split in half, or a skyscraper in an evenly cubical shape; orderly architecture gives off a sense of harmony and pleasure to the viewer. These endeavors are testaments to the power of organization and stability. But why should we be confined to simply enjoying these designs as onlookers? Why not create our own? Nico Disseldorp’s online project Castles Made of Castles is a love letter to orderly architecture. Described as a “geometry toy,” Disseldorp’s…
Pocky
News

Now kids can learn how to code with Japanese snacks

First created in 1966, Japanese candy maker Ezaki Glico’s sugary biscuit sticks “Pocky” have since become a worldwide favorite. From chocolate to strawberry, cream cheese to pumpkin, the idea is for there to be a flavor available for every occasion imaginable. It’s this kind of thinking that Glico has applied to its latest way to enjoy Pocky: through coding. As reported by The Verge, Glico’s new educational tool Glicode represents basic programming commands through Pocky, Bisco, and Almond Peak snacks. The premise is simple: players use programming logic to move the Glico mascot HUG HUG around various courses, getting him…
News

Creating voice-driven interactive fiction just got a lot easier

Interactive fiction has seen a resurgence in the past few years. From Chris Klimas’s freeware hypertext software Twine, to the visual novel Python engine Ren’Py, branching narrative stories are more popular than ever in videogames. But most interactive fiction games rely on written text, usually through hyperlinking passages or narrative decisions. These stories tend to stay in the digital world, rarely calling on the player to interact with the game outside of using their mouse and keyboard. Amazon’s new program, the Interactive Adventure Game Tool, allows writers and developers around the world to create interactive fiction stories that rely on…
Miyamori
News

Miyamori will be a foxy love letter to Japanese folklore

Japanese folklore is a pretty common inspiration when it comes to storytelling in videogames. From Clover Studio’s Ōkami (2006) to ZUN’s iconic Touhou Project, Japan’s mythological spirits and creatures provide a familiar backdrop for Japanese game makers to tell their own, new stories to their audience through the cultural legacy of Japan’s mythology. But the upcoming action-adventure title Miyamori isn’t being made in Japan. Instead, the game features a production crew located across the Western world. Developed by Joshua Hurd, with pixel art from Lachlan Cartland, and promotional art by Kevin Hong, the game features a “folktale-inspired story about community, love,…