[This week, our partnership with game criticism site CriticalDistance brings us picks from Kris Ligman on topics including thealgorithmically ideal game of Battleship, the lowest difficultysetting for life in the U.S., and more.] Are you ready? You'd better be! It's time for This Week in Video Game Criticism and I'm not going to hold back! We start with Leigh Alexander's recent essay for Gamasutra on the resurgence of the text adventure as an indie genre, supported by crowdfunding resources such asKickstarter. On the subject thereof, Jay "Rampant Coyote" Barnson evangelizes on why indie matters , while Nightmare Mode's Ethan Gach proposes a neurobiological basis and industrial precedent for independent production. More broadly on the subject of industry, Michael Thomsen's newessay for Kill Screen aims to identify some of the 20th century industrialistunderpinnings of free-to-play models , saying: "As videogames have been added to the list of professional pastimesin the 21st century, we see the same essential values favored inthem, with the added perversity of requiring their audience tospend money to buy into them. That the high cost of the disc andcartridge has been circumvented by the "free-to-play" model onlyamplifies the nature of videogames as non-productive labor." On the other hand, several authors this week gave us a differenttake on the past. Charles Wheeler's "Rules on the Field" blog,which we made mention of last week, ventures into the analog worldof Japanese obstacle course game shows and their "level" designs: "One of the core fundamentals of any game design process isiteration.
[…] [T]hat's exactly what the history of the Sasuke obstacle courses gives us. We basically have a record of each ofiteration that the course design in Sasuke went through. And, because each season was televised, we can alsoget a sense of why each change was made." Meanwhile, in reference to Hasbro's latestboard-game-turned-blockbuster stunt, io9 reminds us of this fascinating study in search of the algorithmically ideal gameof Battleship , courtesy of Nick Berry. Yes, there are diagrams. And speaking of diagrams, Patrick Stafford waxes nostalgic this week at Unwinnable about player-created extragame materialssuch as maps and shorthands, noting in particular theirreappearance with fan blogs dedicated to recent games such as Fez.
Kill Screen's Darshana Jayemanne also provides us with aretrospective this week with another fond look back at Planescape: Torment : " Planescape: Torment points to why we subject ourselves to these strange disciplinaryapparatuses, innumerable tiny calamities, odd temporal lariats andergonomic heresies: to find ourselves at the end of play." RockPaperShotgun's Adam Smith takes issue with the term 'cinematic.' Meanwhile, throwing ludology to the wind, Eric Lockaby stomps backin from the cold this week with the first chapter of his 'playable critique' of The Great Gatsby . While his design is still a little rough, Lockaby's work is, asalways, worth investigating simply for the strangeness of it. Cody Steffen breaks down the portrayal of sex and gender in The Witcher 2 and finds it wanting. On a more high profile subject, we could notgo this week without mentioning Brandon Sheffield's interview with Jon Cadice , developer for controversial (and cancelled) Kickstarter card game Tentacle Bento (trigger warning for discussion of rape). And kudos (?) to our oldfriend John Brindle for pointing to this video rebuttal by ShaneDuarte, the name for which should be warning enough: Lynch Mob Kawaii.
Speaking of John Brindle, did you know he has a Twitter now? Because he has a Twitter. He also went to GameCamp last week and has brought us back treasures: "Several groups were given the task of inventing and testingrulesets for a stand-off between two teams: one human, one CareBear. "So the Care Bears defeat the humans by hugging them," I mused.There were nods around the table; it made sense. "And…theycan freeze the humans in a beam of peace and serenity." The nodswere more uncertain this time.
"And…the humans can breakeach other out of this, but only by shouting insults at eachother." Looks were exchanged, but for some reason, that's what wetried." Lastly, I would be remiss in failing to mention what was inarguablyone of the most-shared articles of the week: John Scalzi's essay onprivilege, " Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is ": "Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty muchanywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playinggame, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve theacquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not alwaysat the same time. Let's call it The Real World. You have installedThe Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, butfirst you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle withyour defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Gotit? Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, "StraightWhite Male" is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-playercharacters in the game are easier on you than they would beotherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests arelower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. Youautomatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others haveto work for.
The game is easier to play, automatically, and whenyou need help, by default it's easier to get." It's recommended that you read the article in its entirety. And ifyou still feel compelled to go "Ah, but," don't worry: he's made a follow-up post to address that . Had enough yet? Well? Have you? If you haven't, you'll just have tostop by next week for another round. Have a real knockout for us inthe meantime? Be sure you tweet or email it over and really let us have it! Related news: This week in Video Game Criticism: From valorizing warfare todesigning like a bastard This week in Video Game Criticism: From PlaGMaDa to video gamezinesters This week in Video Game Criticism: From the state of music games toWu-Tang Clan. I am Chemical Waste writer, reports some information about replacing garbage disposal , dazzle capture cards.
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