Curses, key cards, and the study of horror video game design.<br><br>By <a href="http://twitter.com/c_pruett">@c_pruett</a>
I have to admit that my enthusiasm for writing about video games has waned a bit in recent years because so often my thoughts are criticisms and I am loathe to fault fellow developers doing good work. As I ve experienced the challenges of building and selling independent games first hand, and as my position in [ ]
The monster appears, the whole theater jumps, and for a moment the digital surround sound system is drowned out by the whisper of a hundred held breaths released in unison. On the screen the characters crash through a hall, pursued by the relentless creature, ferocious and bloodthirsty and unstoppable. They don’t stand a chance. And [ ]
Note: This article was originally published in Well Played 3.0 in 2011. I wrote about the book here at the time, but the old links are dead and these days you actually have to buy the book or go wading through academic PDF sites if you want to read it. So I am reposting it [ ]
August marked 20 years since my first post to Chris s Survival Horror Quest. For nearly half of my lifetime I have been writing, or trying to write, about horror games for this blog, a term that was not in wide circulation when I started. In the two decade lifespan of web site my children were [ ]
RETURNAL was touted as one of PlayStation 5 s premier AAA exclusive games, and it plays the part well. An incessantly beautiful game, RETURNAL s vibe is a nightmare alien forest strewn with stone relics of an ancient society, INDIANA JONES raids AVATAR s Pandora. A novel location in part because lush is a hard adjective for rendering [ ]
DEATHLOOP is the latest in Arkane’s catalog of Thief-inspired systems-as-narrative games. As a fan of this genre I deeply enjoyed DEATHLOOP, particularly the way it makes my style of play much lower-stress than in other immersive sims. I am the type who wants to stealth perfectly and maintain a moral high ground, and DEATHLOOP gives [ ]
Another year has come and gone and frankly, I can barely remember it. This post wasn t even written on time 2022 is just starting down the tarmac and I m already nearly three months behind. To what shall we attribute these time slips, these missing hours? The pandemic? Probably. General stress? Almost certainly. But I ve also found [ ]
As the grip of the global pandemic has tightened around the world, one of the very few upsides has been increased time for video games. I managed to make it through more titles than usual this year, although a great many remain in the towering to be played pile. As with previous years, today I m [ ]
The principal trope of the zombie genre is that in an undead-infested apocalypse, it s the other humans you need to worry about. A zombie plague is a natural disaster, an epidemic, an indiscriminate force of nature that is driven by neither logic nor passion it just is. What the genre has to teach us is that [ ]
The plastic plate affixed to the entrance to the changing room says Automatic, but I have to press it anyway. The door glides open, a Star Trek gateway 245 years early, and quieter too. After removing my shoes I pass through a cloth curtain hanging over a entry into the main changing area, where I strip [ ]