climate change
What is the Environmental Weight of a Rendered Frame?
Kara Stone and Joshua Dawson are making work about a world in crisis. They're also reckoning with what it means to build inside the systems driving it.
narrative
opera
A New Opera Wrestles With A School Shooting. Could Games Ever?
A review of Innocence at the Met raises old questions about aestheticizing pain—and newer ones about whether games could handle it differently.
game design
Gayatri Kodikal: Excavating the ruins of history, time, and play
Artist Gayatri Kodikal transforms an archaeological mystery of a severed hand into an immersive game installation that challenges Western notions of time and history while weaving together colonial narratives, resistance stories, and South Asian perspectives.
postcolonial
Studio Oleomingus deconstructed colonial histories of India
Studio Oleomingus founder Dhruv Jani discusses how architectural training, postcolonial thought, and Indian political history shape his experimental approach to game design.
News
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
News
A Normal Lost Phone aims to find the personal stories in our digital lives
If you’re trying to reach as many people as possible with a game it makes sense that you use an interface they’re already familiar with. Rather than requiring players to learn the ins-and-outs of a new interface it’s probably easier to use one that already exists in their daily life. This is part of
News
Night Call will bring you stylish French noir from the back of a taxi
Night Call‘s shade of noir-infused drama seems to be one part Drive (2011) and two parts Taxi Driver (1976). Upcoming for PC, iOS, and Android, Night Call will have you playing as a Parisian taxi driver who hopes to find the killer who has orchestrated a number of recent murders around the city. But
News
A theatrical game about the difficult art of conversation
A Ghost in the Static doesn’t tell you anything. All you know is that you’re a figurine constructed out of some sort of wire and are left to explore a dark, mysterious room. Then you encounter another character in the room with you, and that’s when something unique happens. Much of A Ghost in the St
feature
In praise of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s most unusual level
On the Level is a series that closely analyzes individual videogame sections, examining how small moments in games can resonate throughout—and beyond—the games themselves. /// Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare‘s (2007) writers understand brevity. Each loading screen provides a satellite image of the up
Review
The Banner Saga 2 still goes at it hard
The world is breaking. This is what you’re told at the outset of The Banner Saga 2. It’s delivered in a sigh, an exhale, and carries with it the weight of responsibility you bear—not all of those entrusted to your care will make it through the ordeal. There’s an inevitable doom to the proceedings bu
News
Rainy Day is a powerful and sobering look at anxiety
Rainy Day, a recent interactive narrative by Thais Weiller, is a quick and impactful glimpse of the paralyzing power of anxiety. It was born out of creative frustration when she moved from a design role to production, where she often stayed quiet about her own creative ideas so as not to disrupt the
News
The First Tree looks foxy (and tragic) in its first trailer
The last time that we talked to David Wehle about his upcoming game The First Tree, it wasn’t much more than a few screenshots of a fox and his earnest desire to tell a story about the nature of life and death. It aims to weave two stories together—a fox searching for her lost kits and a human coupl