Last summer, we stumbled across Miyamori, a lovely folktale-infused videogame about Japanese mythology in the Tōhoku countryside. The game follows a Japanese woman named Suzume as she attempts to find her missing brother. Joined by the shrine guardian fox Izuna—who is looking for her partner Gedo—th
To say the Japanese role-playing game is a prominent genre is an understatement—it has influenced videogames tremendously over the years. From Final Fantasy VII (1997) to Earthbound (1994), Dragon’s Quest (1986) to Persona (1996), JRPGs introduced expansive stories and memorable characters that stil
Recently, the SEGA Dreamcast saw its 17th anniversary in North America. Released in 1999 as the last SEGA console in the company’s history, its birthday is a bittersweet event. Despite the company’s shortcomings, SEGA has a place in the hearts of those who, like me, grew up with games such as Sonic
Gender norms are a pain. For women, it means that every day there’s a pressure to conform to certain standards of living that don’t always match up with our personalities. We’re told to straighten our hair. Use makeup. Wear long dresses. Don’t become videogame journalists. These are just a few of th
Let’s be frank: it’s not easy working as a woman in games. The past few years have been particularly tough for us. But as women in games, each of us feels a responsibility to help and support each other while working in this space. Especially when it comes to helping young women enter the field. Whe
There’s a sort of serene pleasure that comes from uniform design schemes. Whether it’s a car with two identical sides, a train that could be perfectly split in half, or a skyscraper in an evenly cubical shape; orderly architecture gives off a sense of harmony and pleasure to the viewer. These endeav
First created in 1966, Japanese candy maker Ezaki Glico’s sugary biscuit sticks “Pocky” have since become a worldwide favorite. From chocolate to strawberry, cream cheese to pumpkin, the idea is for there to be a flavor available for every occasion imaginable. It’s this kind of thinking that Glico h
Interactive fiction has seen a resurgence in the past few years. From Chris Klimas’s freeware hypertext software Twine, to the visual novel Python engine Ren’Py, branching narrative stories are more popular than ever in videogames. But most interactive fiction games rely on written text, usually thr
Japanese folklore is a pretty common inspiration when it comes to storytelling in videogames. From Clover Studio’s Ōkami (2006) to ZUN’s iconic Touhou Project, Japan’s mythological spirits and creatures provide a familiar backdrop for Japanese game makers to tell their own, new stories to their audi
Dial-up modems, Windows 95 floppies, IRC channels, and free American Online disks. Ask anyone who lived through the internet boom of the ‘90s and these are guaranteed to be some of the first things that come to mind. But for New York-based game developer J.C. Holder, who uses they/them pronouns, the
The Professor Layton series of puzzle-adventure games has always been about one man and his boy sidekick. But that’s changing. As Gematsu reports, Level-5 has announced what I suppose you can call a reboot of the series with Lady Layton: The Millionaire Ariadone’s Conspiracy. As the title alludes to
For a medium born in the past 100 years, it can be hard to build a direct linearity through videogaming. The blocky, stiff movements of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid (1998) feels worlds apart from the fluid animations and semi-realistic graphics of such games as this year’s Quantum Break and Rocks
Game maker Anna Anthropy is no stranger to book publishing. She’s contributed to multiple anthologies in the past, including Merritt Kopas’s Videogames for Humans (2015) and Seven Stories Press’s The State of Play (2015). She’s also written multiple works of her own, including 2012’s Rise of the Vid
The SNES JRPG aesthetic has always had a certain charm. From chiptune album covers to horror stories about haunted game cartridges, many artists seem to gravitate towards the pixel art found throughout Nintendo’s RPG releases of yesteryear. What appears as a simple solution to the console’s limited
What happens to the world after war? Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming role-playing game Tyranny is interested in exploring that dilemma. Taking place in a fantasy realm sat right in the middle of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, the game begins after the evil dictator Kyros the Overlord has united
A 20-something girl stands in an elevator. There’s an eye patch on her face, a shotgun on her back, and a pistol in her right hand. The door opens, and she hits the ground running into a room full of drones. They hover over her, firing red lasers completely bent on killing her. After all, why wouldn
Colossal Cave Adventure (or, Adventure for short) isn’t exactly a familiar title today. Developed during the early 1970s, Adventure was written by programmer Will Crowther while working for Bolt, Beranek and Newman. Crowther was an advent cave explorer, and had vast experience surveying the Kentucky
