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Why We’re Striking on International Women’s Day

As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes—the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized. – Hillary Clinton Today, on International Women’s Day, women in the US are striking by abstaining from work and spending to demonstrate their economic power. It is a deeply ironic and upsetting proof of concept that many women cannot participate in the strike, either because their employers…

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Release your inner hoarder with the roguelike Loot Rascals

Are you the type of player who thinks, man, RPGs like Skyrim and The Witcher 3 are great, but I wish all this lush fantasy storyelling didn’t get in the way of my iron casket and rare weapon collecting. Or maybe you were the rare voice among No Man’s Sky dissenters who criticized the game for not letting you focus enough on collecting and managing resources. You, my friend, have a looter’s soul, and the gaming world is happy to oblige your pirate-like love of digital bounty. If any of the above sounds like you, then you’re in luck because the turn-based roguelike Loot Rascals just released today.…

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Angsty adventure game Night in the Woods released after several delays

A little over a week ago, the indie-favorite 2D game Night in the Woods released after nearly four years in development and several delays. Night in the Woods focuses on narrative, telling the story of recent college drop out Mae after returning to her old coal-mining town of Possum Springs. All is not well in the Rust Belt state, as creepy supernatural happenings intermingle with economic strife. You meander through the town and get to know the many personalities that populate it throughout this 10 hour experience. Originally slated for fall of 2016, then January of 2017, then finally released on February…

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Gorgeous comic book gives Afro-Brazilian mythology the Avengers treatment

A lot of nerd culture is dominated by European mythology, from Thor to Lord of the Rings or even Harry Potter, just to name a few. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m as crazy for Norse mythology as the next girl. But far from just a disservice to African or Asian or Middle Eastern cultures, this blind spot is a an even bigger disservice to nerds everywhere. There is a huge well of awesome mythology that has gone untapped, with epic characters and stories that would make even the most dignified comic book fan salivate. That’s where Brazilian artist Hugo Canuto comes in, who decided to give the gods and…

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Acclaimed electronic musician Moiré releases glitchy hellscape alongside album

The most experimental and daring (read: LIT) indie music artists have been flirting with videogames for a while now. Grimes headlined Moogfest with a Microsoft Kinect-powered interactive installation last year; the bassist from the noise-rock band Lighting Bolt, Brian Gibson, recently created the VR-favorite rhythm hell game Thumper; and Björk literally cannot even right now with how much she loves VR. Today, architect/electronic musician Moiré joined the digital revolution, forgoing the usual music video to instead release a browser glitch art game in conjunction with his newest album, No Future. Created with interactive experience designer Isaac Cohen (AKA Cabbibo), MONOLITH consists of large, glitchy, empty spaces populated by a smattering of human avatars,…

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Creator from Alto’s Adventure releases trailer for new coming-of-age adventure

When you’re young, everything can feel like the end of the world. Your crush doesn’t like you back, or you didn’t get selected for the varsity soccer team, or mom embarrassed you in front of everyone at Career Day. The universe seems to collapse under you, the tenuous building blocks that made up your life snapping under their own weight. That’s the basic concept behind Where Cards Fall, a narrative-driven puzzle game by the makers of Alto’s Adventure and and an ex Giant Sparrow designer. The newest trailer sets the release for this fall on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, and PC. As a coming of age story, it explores…

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Hidden Folks, released today, offers a delightfully handmade iOS experience

Hidden Folks, which Kill Screen‘s Kathryn Madden originally covered last year, can best be described as an interactive Where’s Waldo? overflowing with personality. With little to no focus on goals, points, or challenge, players simply explore intricate landscapes in search of specific “targets” (or “folks”)  hidden throughout each scene. So much of the digital toy’s charm derives from its handmade feel, with illustrator Sylvain Tegroeg’s heavily inked art style creating lively scenes that feel populated without seeming overly busy. Indeed, the unusual joy of Hidden Folks is just how human and authored it feels, especially when most games (particularly in the free-to-play saturated app marketplace) tend to come…

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Study finds female players may not be into guns, but are still into killing

The Quantic Lab, a survey data-based social science research project investigating the psychology of gaming, recently published interesting findings on players and their motivations. A portion of their research explores difference across gender, diving deeper into stereotypical assumptions about female players. For example, some might point to Quantic Lab’s finding that, out of all the genres, women are least likely to play tactical shooters as proof that female player don’t like violent games. But another recent survey found that, upon further investigation, it’s safer to assume that women just find guns kinda boring and prefer to murder virtual people through other methods. According to the Lab’s blog, by…

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Celebrate what diversity does for games at the Game Devs of Color Expo

For the second year in a row, New York-based indie studio Brooklyn Gamery is organizing a day-long Game Devs of Color Expo at the Schomburg Center on June 24th. The intimate expo, which welcomes creators of all races, genders, and sexual orientations, will include panels, talks, educational workshops, and an arcade. A celebration of game creators from various races could not come at a more welcome time, as America appears to continue its hard reverse into the pre-civil rights era. Bombarded by story after story on the collapse of our republic into a dystopia uninhabitable to any except the lizard people running the oval office (alternative fact: Steve Bannon is a gutter cigarette in human form), it…