I never lived in the dorms at my old university. But I have had my fair share of semi-unpleasant roommates. The scariest part of social anxiety, at least in my personal battle with it, is that it can stem from being thrust into a room with complete strangers, or even just being in the midst of any o
Never Alone (2014) is a game steeped in culture. Not just for videogames in the role of cultural accuracy, but in preserving the waning history of Alaskan Natives. The game, based on Alaskan Iñupiat (a hunter-gatherer indigenous people of Alaska) folklore, was an anomaly in the videogame space when
The first time I ever watched Princess Mononoke (1997) was on a grainy bootleg from a relative. I was a kid, maybe nine-years-old, but the otherwise beautiful film’s terrible quality was ingrained in my psyche. Since I was only nine, its fuzziness didn’t bother me. It wasn’t until I was much older,
It’s easy to get lost in perception-skewing art. Artist Bradley G. Munkowitz, better known as GMUNK, is easily one of the most intriguing (and prolific) visual designers around. His portfolio spans from the astounding holographic sequences of Tron: Legacy (2010) to Box, an artistic and technical pro
The year 1995 was a turning point for the videogame industry. It was the first year of E3—now the biggest videogame awards and announcement show, which still runs annually. It was the year of the release of Sony’s PlayStation in Europe and North America (it had been released the year prior in Japan)
The in-development motorcycle-grinding game FutureGrind is a lot like the classic NES game Uniracers (1994), except that its lone-wheeling ways is perhaps the only similarity that ties the two together. FutureGrind can be more favorably compared to its extreme sports game influences, such as the kic
Cyberpunk worlds always seem to draw me in. Whether it’s the derelict planets visited by Spike Spiegel and his bounty hunting companions in the cult classic anime Cowboy Bebop (1997-98), or the replicant-laden world of the famed Blade Runner (1982), cyberpunk has always remained a static aesthetic i
I don’t know precisely when it was I realized that I suffered from depression, but it certainly wasn’t from playing a videogame. Maybe it was from watching a red-haired, mecha-piloting girl mentally tear herself apart under the weight of her own expectations, and feeling a similar sense of despair i
I have a lot of memories with the Tony Hawk games. The Tony Hawk series, perhaps most notably Tony Hawk’s Underground (2003), represented a scrape-and-bruise-free foray into youthful anarchy. Tony Hawk’s skateboard games were the anti-sport for kids like me that didn’t have any sports of their own t
Threadsteading is a strategy game about quilting, or perhaps more accurately, a strategy game that is quilting. Controlled by a quilting machine (or an embroidery machine in its portable form), Threadsteading is a two-player competitive game. In it, the players try to nab territories on a hexagonal
Okage: Shadow King (2001) was always the game that barely slipped away. The game Hot Topic would have capitalized on, had it discovered it in time. The game I (now regretfully) sold as a teen for store credit to put towards buying a PlayStation 3. Yet now, despite the odds, Okage is back. When it wa
It was an early afternoon on the final day of the Game Developer’s Conference this year. Everyone scuttled into one of the larger panel halls of the Moscone Center, most looking exhausted over one of their busiest weeks of the year (or maybe just hungover). As everyone swiftly got seated, the panel
“This could be anyone.” This is the premise for game designer Michael Levall’s upcoming game, Please Knock on My Door. It’s a choice-driven narrative, with three paths awaiting the player on exploring the realms of depression, social anxiety, and general phobia. The game begins almost as any workin
There’s a moment in the demo of Rez’s PlayStation VR inception (retitled as Rez Infinite) where I accidentally transgressed my professional demeanor and said “holy shit.” Not a lone “holy shit this is kinda cool,” as I glanced around the technicolored space of Area 02. Nor a woozy “holy shit I feel
“We always want more control,” said EA DICE’s Fabien Christin, Senior Lighting Artist (and a man who is very particular about reflections), who led a fruitful panel at the Game Developer’s Conference on Thursday morning. In his technical talk, “Lighting the City of Glass – Rendering Mirror’s Edge Ca
“What actions are ideal in a jump curve?” asked Playdead level designer Martin Fasterholdt to a sizeable crowd for his panel at the Game Developer’s Conference. In a discussion that stemmed from Fasterholdt’s own master thesis, the “You Say Jump, I Say How High?” panel explored the varying degrees o
There’s something perpetually charming about tangible crafts in videogames. Whether it’s the hand-made wool in the iOS space-travelling title Voyager (2012), or the ever-customizable papercraft charm of Tearaway (2013), crafts-turned-aesthetic in games always adds an extra layer of tangibility to an
You’re a kid in a dust-ridden bookstore. The bookshelves rise high, nearly touching the ceiling, with ladders that slide the perimeter. Buried in the back of the store is the oldest of bookshelves. The color’s faded from the bindings of the books that sit within it, the text made hard to read by the
Surrealism, by its least-detailed description, is the illogical illustration of one’s dreams. Be it through painting, writing, or anything else in the art realm. From the works of surrealist pioneer Max Ernst, to the ubiquitous Salvador Dalí, the textbook surreal aesthetic is known far and wide—and
“Shit, this game is hard.” It was the jesting gripe heard ‘round the panel room at the Game Developer’s Conference on Monday, March 14th. A grievance that, surprisingly, came from game developer Ojiro Fumoto himself while playing a live tech demo of an early prototype of his own game: Downwell. Fumo
I’ve never been a writing-within-hours-of-the-deadline type of person. In college, I was probably an anomaly of a student. I’d write my papers in advance, then pop into my professors’ office hours for feedback before turning in a final draft. Some peers called me an overachiever. Others had no idea
Overzealous dieting is a rite of passage for people of all ages and genders. You stare in the mirror and wish you didn’t have that extra flab of fat. Later turning to the realms of Internet-aided food over-management and hellish exercise routines to (hopefully) fix yourself up and return to the slen
One of my most played games of last year was the simple and charming Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, a game in which you designed houses according to the fancies of cutesy animal citizens. Happy Home Designer was released to a wash of lukewarm reviews, nearly all resounding with the common cri
San Francisco’s residents can’t escape the blossoming tech start-up culture, no matter how hard they try. It’s a strange place where it’s not out of the ordinary to hear of another “techie” (an affectionate term San Franciscans use for the influx of tech workers) pitching their app to an unassuming
Zooms have long been the crux of dramatic filmmaking. Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock popularized the dizzying camera effect in his classic thriller Vertigo (to, obviously, envelop the viewer in a sense of vertigo). Afterwards, zooms became a trend among filmmakers seeking to add that extra dept
