Recent Posts

A Response to the Concept of Caricature

May 02, 12 A Response to the Concept of Caricature

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This post is the second in a multi-part series on the issues raised by Longbow Games’ ancient real time strategy series, Hegemony. Jeremiah McCall will continue this series in the next installment. Hegemony: Philip of Macedon was released in 2010 and was followed by Hegemony Gold, which included the Peloponnesian war. Longbow is...

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The Icon of (Minecraft) Mario

Apr 24, 12 The Icon of (Minecraft) Mario

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In my previous post examining religious elements in Minecraft, I looked at the presence of pilgrimage in the Minecraft Middle Earth project.  Today I want to continue this line of thought and now look at video game recreations utilizing the Minecraft game system and how these recreations take on characteristics similar religious...

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Detour to the Magic Kingdom (rules of the text 7)

Apr 19, 12 Detour to the Magic Kingdom (rules of the text 7)

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I haven’t had the opportunity to move forward in my thinking about Mass Effect enough to feel that I can write a good post about the central issues I to which referred in my last one, but in the intervening period my attention was grabbed by something very much worth an excursus: Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, which may be the...

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Playing the Powerless in Videogames about the Powerless

Apr 17, 12 Playing the Powerless in Videogames about the Powerless

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In the 1993 afterward to The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison explains the origins of her devastating debut novel. It began in 1962 with an examination of racial self-loathing. “I focused,” Morrison writes, “on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take hold inside the most delicate...

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The Concept of Caricature as a General Philosophy for Implementing History as Game Mechanics


Apr 12, 12 The Concept of Caricature as a General Philosophy for Implementing History as Game Mechanics


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This contribution from guest writer Jim McNally, President and Lead Designer at Longbow Games, is the first in a multi-part series on the issues raised by Longbow Games’ ancient real time strategy series, Hegemony.  Hegemony: Philip of Macedon was released in 2010 and was followed by Hegemony Gold, which included the...

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The Limits of Playing the Powerless and the Doomed in Videogames

Apr 10, 12 The Limits of Playing the Powerless and the Doomed in Videogames

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In an unusually redemptive reading of the widely disparaged Atari VCS game E.T. (1982), Ian Bogost observes that the game perfectly (though perhaps not intentionally) captured the essence of Spielberg’s hit movie. “It was a film about alienation, not about aliens,” Bogost writes in How to Do Things with Videogames....

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A galactic ruleset under siege: the Mass Effect 3 controversy (rules of the text 5)

Apr 05, 12 A galactic ruleset under siege: the Mass Effect 3 controversy (rules of the text 5)

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Two weeks have passed since the CEO of BioWare attempted to quiet the fans of Mass Effect with an announcement that the Mass Effect 3 development team would be working on a modification to the game’s ending. The announcement was gracious, and whether because internet rage tends to die down more quickly than anyone expects or...

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