Hey y’all - here is my piece on god simulator Crest. It’s an interesting thing - it comes from a good place but stumbles in its representations of Africa, specifically in following the “Africa is a country” trope, and its weird claim of being Afrofuturist. I would love some feedback on this, keep in mind its quite long though.
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This is tremendous work. I really appreciate how you ground your criticism in your own cultural perspective, while being direct. You make your argument nuanced, but never back down from it. Referencing and giving examples of a lot of Afro-futurism grounds your argument in voices outside your own, which is important when talking about things outside of your own cultural background.
(edit: I’d love to hear other people talk about this though. My perspective here is definitely limited.)
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Thank you so much, this means a lot!
Sometime I feel like I am way too cautious haha but I think it was important here. And yes you’re right - unfortunately I looked around for similar takes on uses of Afrofuturism, or its use in Crest, but haven’t found anything. Anyone who may know of something like this, feel free to share!
Absolutely fantastic piece. My academic background is rooted in world religions so it’s great seeing you delve into the idea of The Other. How we (white westerners) almost dictate the experience of the other.
One of the first things that stood out to me was the use of commandments in the game, a word with massive judeo-Christian connotations that likely flooded the continent when Christianity did.
Im also a sucker for anything Said. One of the first things drummed into me were the problems of orientalism. Also any work that aims to represent or portray Africa tends to fail from the get go because there is no Africa, in the sense it isn’t a unified place with one culture. The game attempts to combat this by focusing on 3 particular cultures but as you explore in the piece, parts of each culture come to play a stereotype of Africa
Also I’m a white working lad from Liverpool so like you I wonder is it at all my place to even comment on the ‘African experience’
But seriously I love the work
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Thank you so much!!!
And oh my god how did I not see that about the import of Christianity and bringing its destructive aspects to the continent I’m kicking myself hahaha That’s such a great point.
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I released a new video as part of my series The Writing Game. Which is a show about writing, storytelling and narrative design in video games. This episode is about choices and consequences:
I really appreciate this approach, as someone who comes at games mostly from a media crit angle, it is always enlightening to read about technical aspects, especially when done with such authority, cool!
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I started a new blog series looking at cheap indie games, and my first installment is over a cool South Korean Earthbound like!
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Really good read. Speculative work is a fantastic instrument for thought, empathy, and change – and I have been incredibly grateful for artists like Monae, Jemisin, and Waypoint’s own Austin Walker who can use the language and tools of science fiction to help me understand a little bit of their experience and can create visions of ways forward.
I’m grateful to these voices, because I rage against many of the problems these works address and feel unqualified to address them. I think about how I would feel if a neurotypical writer decided to have a main character who suffered from depression and ADHD without bringing on a co-author who had these traits.
One day I would love to lend my voice and thoughts to this really interesting conversation – but I just don’t have the context, and won’t without either partners with the lived experience of racial oppression or by living in a world so steeped in the acceptance of that experience that it no longer needs my signal boosting.
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I put some thoughts to paper on Sea of Thieves. Hopefully its interesting
Any feedback and criticism is much appreciated
I wrote a bit about valves card trading ideas for artifact and how theyre kind of half baked
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Hey, all. I’m new to these forums but I wanted to share something I wrote. This may become a regular series where I try to explore the influences of occult ideas in games or, in my first article’s case, look at a game through an occult lens. The first one deals with the Kabbalah and Monster Hunter’s Elder Dragons. Slight spoilers for Monster Hunter World, as a warning. This is my first try at games writing/criticism so we’ll see how it goes in the future.
Any feedback and criticism is greatly, greatly appreciated! 
It took me a while due to being busy with work/life but I have finally published a way-too-long piece on the lessons that could be learned from the history of unionisation in the games industry.
Surprise! Almost nothing because in the US, unsurprisingly, there is no history of unionisation in the games industry, so I had to look elsewhere. I think the main point is that long term success must include an understanding of the growing international nature of the industry. I really hope this conversation continues - there was a lot of talk around this last week but already this week there is much less discussion of these issues.
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Hey I wrote some thoughts on We Know the Devil and how that game deals with Self Hatred
A new IndieCent went up, this time over a game you all have probably played recently: Into the Breach! Check the description for the timecode to the main discussion. Also, woo, an episode that’s actually reasonably long for a change!
Celeste
There was a resolute girl named Celeste
Climbed a mountain 'till she wasn’t depressed
Counts times that you’ve died
To show how hard you’ve tried
A meditative reflection with strawberries for the obsessed
Maybe this doesn’t go here, but I started a Watch_Dogs 2 photo diary, using just the in game camera (there is still writing in the diary though). I’m also going to add more in the next couple of days when I get a minute.
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That’s a really cool idea!
I just started playing Watch Dogs 2 and I also find it simultaneously overstimulating and boring. The most engaging moments for me have been just traveling around the world, ignoring the incessant objective indicators, and observing random (or are they?) occurrences in the clockwork city they’ve built.
If I had more time, I’d piggyback on your idea and be a “photojournalist” documenting seemingly significant things that happen on the periphery.
I always thought of myself as a “PC guy”, not in an elitist way, but just because that has always been my primary mode of interaction with games. Recently realising that my experiences with consoles are a bit broader than I generally thought, I decided to construct a microhistory of these experiences, in the process realising that they were crucial to how I interpret games, and that microhistory is a viable way of engaging with systemic issues.
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