The first article I remember reading about EarthBound–in the sense of seeking out more information about the game, not just seeing it written up in Nintendo Power–bears the unforgettable title “It’s Not Bokista.” In it, the author, Tomato, explains the audio clip that plays several times in the opening naming sequence for a new game. He corrects misconceptions and lays out the facts in a way that has its own shorthand now in internet parlance: a Well, actually, but a gentle one.
Continue reading “MOTHER don’t go”Games in Print and Podcast
Some light reading for you: Boss Fight Books are on Humble Bundle at the moment. Enjoy!
And for listening, a conversation with C. Thi Nguyen on The Ezra Klein Show, in which they talk about The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits, and Baba Is You, among many other things.
If you’re feeling inspired to do a little writing, a CFP came out recently for a volume on the theme of “Gardeners of the Galaxies.”
Reading, writing, listening–whatever you’re up to, hope it’s going well!
New Year’s Eve Eve – Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Year
It’s the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere and here, snug in our Video Game Academy, we’ve been hibernating like a bunch of Moomins.
Continue reading “New Year’s Eve Eve – Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Year”Chasing the Clouds
September is on its way out already, and life has run on with its zigs and zags for us here at the Video Game Academy. Here are a few of the games the good professor has made time for lately.
Continue reading “Chasing the Clouds”What’s the Plural of Bonus?
As we catch up after the first week of the new school year, here’s not one but two helpings of The First Hour for you, featuring a couple of heavy hitters in Psychonauts 2 and Myst.
Continue reading “What’s the Plural of Bonus?”If it’s possible to do, it must be good and wise – Frog Fractions
In this epic and unpredictable journey, Professor Kozlowski guides a simple frog from his bug-eating, fraction-tallying existence on a humble lilypad, to becoming the president of Bug-Mars, to deep existential reflection on the fleeting nature of existence as it is perceived through Internet culture.
Content Warning: Some discussion of the sale and dissemination of bug porn (no images), and some horror iconography to drive home the mortality of all flesh.
The Sunday Afternoon of the Year
Welcome back, those who went on vacation. Hello again, those who stayed put. We’re glad to see you, just the way you are. And…we have a favor to ask.
Continue reading “The Sunday Afternoon of the Year”Career Counseling
In The First Hour this week, a brutal rendezvous with The Abbey of Crime, adapted from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose —
Continue reading “Career Counseling”In the Shadow of Huizinga: Games Studies and Cultural History
I first became aware of Johan Huizinga and his keywords homo ludens via the upper warrens of the video essay rabbit hole a few years ago, but once I was on the lookout for him, I started to see him everywhere. Not only in references and footnotes from other amateurs and scholars in the field of games studies, where his work is foundational, but all around me, subtly: in everyday interactions, in the fiction I read, in politics I couldn’t tune out; in just the way when you learn a new word, you suddenly find it coming up serendipitously left and right. Even where his name is absent, Huizinga’s key insights and concepts–the play aspect of culture, the game-like nature of human reality delineated by the magic circle or field of play–are so universal and so interesting as to crop up almost of their own accord and in the strangest places.
Continue reading “In the Shadow of Huizinga: Games Studies and Cultural History”A Spotify Songname Survey, by Patrick Ward
Its just for fun ya know
–Synopsis from the author
Many thanks to Pat for supplying our first Guest Lecture. Enjoy, and listen for the playlist at our next academy ball.
The intent of the survey was to identify the colloquial and canonical wisdom available in the body of traditional popular music on the topic of games in life.
Continue reading “A Spotify Songname Survey, by Patrick Ward”
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