Numbers going up in videogames is boring. It is pervasive and a hamster wheel. Receiving text in games is what makes them worth playing due to their potential to move me and speak to me in ways numbers could never. Numbers go up as a genre is everywhere. We are
While reading Artemis’ writing on Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, I was struck by how their major problem with Disco Elysium is the reason I love it so. It provoked and pushed me to further interrogate why I feel that way. I have not played Zero Parades (yet) and so
This piece was originally published in 2023 on my Tumblr and as a Google Doc. I have republished here to create a more centralized collection of my writing as well as due to the enthusiasm over the upcoming Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. Within Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
All throughout Aava’s ascent of Kami she comes across remnants of a group who bear the misnomer of troglodyte. I share the same distaste for this term that Jay Castello notes in their writing on Cairn for Unwinnable, “Called only ‘troglodytes’ (literally ‘cave dwellers’ but with an unfortunate association
There was a certain woman named Aava who desired to scale the highest mountain in the world: Kami. Her father was a renowned mountaineer, and had placed Aava on the rock wall as early as three. She fulfilled her inheritance, making famous climbs of various mountains, but had at last
While climbing in Cairn you control each of Aava’s limbs individually. It can be a bit odd at first. The game automatically switches from one limb to the next as you attempt to determine which cracks offer an optimum hold for Aava to grasp onto as you push her
[Today marks 10 years since the release of Hyper Light Drifter. Special thanks to Artemis Octavio for their edits/suggestions on this piece.] I did not play it while I was sick. I did not play it preceding or during or after a death. Playing it did not teach me
less posting and more conversation This article is part of my series on responding to games writing and is a good faith attempt at starting a dialogue, not a personal attack or to feed the chuds on the usual channels of toxicity and trolling. Thank you for your time. This
developed (primarily) by Julián Cordero and Sebastián Valbuena (and many others) spoilers for Despelote Everyone is taller than you. Inanimate objects obtain movement when you touch them. Posters wink at you or sparkle or embiggen the number one, projecting the dream of Ecuador’s football team winning the 2002 World
“Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole."
A text worthy of exploration
or a theory on how to break through circuitous discourse