I’ve written a fair amount on the ever-evolving conversation taking place regarding women in the game/tech industry. It’s fair to say that the topic basically blew up in the past year – from Women vs. Tropes to the controversies of E3 to the more recent #objectify – a Twitter campaign meant to subje
Since you’re reading Kill Screen, your conference-going mind is surely tuned in to Twofivesix. However, if you’re in NYC and interested in the art and science of theorizing the web, the aptly named Theorizing The Web conference is going on Friday and Saturday (March 1st and 2nd, 2013), at the CUNY G
What could be more fun than disease puzzles? Solve the Outbreak is a new (and free) iPad app/game that allows players to live out their Contagion or even Outbreak fantasies and play the part of a CDC disease detective, solving clues to get a sense of what nasty illness each scenario presents. I’m go
It’s one of the most tired clichés in modern life – that thanks in large part to the always-on, always-connected paradigm enabled by modern technology, American lives are busy, crazy, and unhealthy. That may well be true. But it has less to do with technology than we might think – and more interesti
Recent news from the American military has been all about modernization lately. The US will soon allow women in combat roles (roles they’re already playing in the current conflicts, thanks to the reality that the front lines are everywhere), LGBT soldiers can serve openly, and their families can rec
If you ever wanted to know what the fever dreams of drug policy activists look like after too many long nights working through reams of legislative proposals, try Drugbound. It’s a wildly colorful, 2D side-scrolling endless runner with a hook straight out of High Times. The game is centered around y
The Machine of Death sounds like quite a hilarious device, despite its morbid name. The core idea behind the card/tabletop “game of creative assassination” offers players the chance to deal death via an insane variety of methods, including bananas, sharks, brain melt, and other fun and exciting elem
Nintendo has just announced that the truly excellent (and almost ridiculously hardcore) Donkey Kong Country Returns will have a new lease on life, in the form of a 3DS version, due out this summer. It will be in 3D, on a tiny screen, but unless Retro seriously messes with the title, this will also b
The prevailing mood around tech is that there is no limit to the power and size of the Internet. Humanity’s most impactful creation since, well, probably the automobile has spread so far and so wide, that according to a recent piece in Salon, network-enabled gadgets (smartphones, tablets, computers)
While #Objectify – a Twitter movement held to raise awareness of stereotypes women in the game industry need to deal with, by objectifying attractive men in the industry – has basically come and gone, and the conversation about women’s experiences in the industry continues across sectors, one event
There’s been a proliferation lately of games that address mental illness – particularly anxiety and depression. From the brilliant, difficult Actual Sunlight to today’s release of Depression Quest, the taboo of talking about mental illness in game is starting to peel back. Anecdotally, it also seems
Not long ago, I wrote about the science behind one of the world’s first truly bionic limbs – and imagined the use of the miraculous tech for gameplay purposes. The allure of being able to control a game – or have one’s emotional state be an actual variable in gameplay – is fascinating and intoxicati
It’s one of the most common sci-fi – and video game – tropes: the fear of a hostile robot takeover. The terror that humanity’s breakneck technological race to create better machines will result in the creation of a master race that’s bigger, better, stronger, and much, much smarter than we are. It w
Logically speaking, guns don’t kill people – it’s what comes out of them that you need to watch out for. Wired just published an infographic-rich feature that examines the proliferation of ammunition in the United States, and it’s positively crazy. – – – As the nation debates, again, the best way to
It’s been said many times, many ways – but it’s true that the most interesting uses on the Kinect platform are almost never commercial games. Woodland Wiggle is not only one of the coolest – a combination art installation and play space – it’s also one of the most heartwarming. You see; it’s a perma
Thoughtful and methodical, 400 Years is a humble Flash game with bold ideas. You play as a sort of living stone face (think pixel art Easter Island statue). You move through the 2D world, as one does in a platformer, only, instead of giving you a jump command, pressing the space bar advances time, s
Anna Anthropy, acclaimed designer of games such as Dys4ia and author of Rise of the Video Game Zinesters, thinks that game development should be blown wide open. According to Zinesters, Anthropy wants everyone in society – particularly the outcasts – to be making games, so that the actual opinions o
We don’t always comment on marketing, but this occasion warrants a very special mention. In order to advertise for upcoming MMO The Elder Scrolls Online, publisher Bethesda and publishing giant Future US are planning a food truck tour of America. They’re stopping at all of the major gaming media eve
While some neuroscience news requires a little imagination to get excited about, this tidbit about a device that allowed a paralyzed person to control a figure onscreen and exert control over a physical robot arm is immediately awesome. Really, a more in-depth explanation of the tech behind the worl
There’s something special about the aesthetic of pixel art as applied to sports. Maybe it’s a sort of purity and simplicity – each little chunk of color needs to be arranged just
Actual Sunlight is a bleak, tough experience. It’s not difficult to play – but it can be hard to motivate yourself to keep playing. That’s the point. Designer Will O’Neil crafted an “essentially autobiographical” game about a depressed and alienated young man named Ethan. For many, this will hit ver
Immigration reform is an issue sitting very high in the minds of US policymakers these days, especially in the so-called border states. The tension is high, the drama is real, and the core issues involved – power, access, and the interminable, maze-like structures that dictate the flow of those thin
I don’t know about you, but my proverbial pile of incomplete shame – the list of games I’ve started, but never finished – is huge, growing, and seems to gnaw at me a little more every day. I harbor fond memories of the original Metroid Prime, and fantasize about finally picking it up again and finis
The human capacity to be playful never ceases to amaze. Even while hurtling through space at around 17,500 MPH (a statistic memorized during a childhood of astronautic ambitions) in a metal tube, with almost no leisure time, astronauts still make the time to make up – and play – games. Mostly, they
The team behind Worlds of Wander wants to make game design (well, 2D platformer level design) easy, intuitive, and open to all. They also want to give you the spiritual successor to the beloved Commander Keen series in Secret Spaceship Club – that is, they do if you back their Kickstarter campaign.
