Essay
What Do You Call It?
Gaming’s biggest hurdle may be to reach outward—beyond the masses, to the upper echelons of culture. Lana Polansky attended the Montreal International Game Summit 2011 and came back inspired, if not brimming with answers.
Lana Polansky
Interview
Randy Smith
The Thief designer and Tiger Style founder Randy Smith tells us about the heroes, adventures, and games of his youth in Vermont.
Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey
The singer behind “Video Games” on her boyfriend’s World of Warcraft habit, and why the song is really about belonging.
Review
Review: Rock of Ages
Lana Polansky reviews Rock of Ages, a boulder-rolling downloadable title that also crashes through history and eons of accumulated wisdom about art and ourselves.
Review
Review: Catherine
Lana Polansky delves into the psychology of Atlus’s Catherine, and finds some disturbing—yet fascinating—tendencies not seen since Freud.
Article
The Best of Both Worlds
Can videogame characters be thought of in literary terms? How can our avatars become more than containers for our whims, biases and fantasies? How can videogame characters demonstrate moral ambiguity, subtlety and growth? Lana Polansky uncovers the layers of character in Bayonetta, a game whose prot
Review
Review: Jamestown
A steampunk take on Sir Walter Raleigh and Jamestown is more than speculative history—it’s a shared sensation. Read Lana Polansky’s take on how the indie shoot ’em up Jamestown takes its genre conventions a step ahead of the pack.
OMMRPG
How to Play: OMMRPG
Two teams, eight mirrors and a laser beam that may never touch the goal directly. A Korean design team’s field game, first played in an Amsterdam gasworks.
Humans vs. Zombies
How to Play: Humans Vs. Zombies
A multi-day campus tag game of bandanas, foam darts and rolled-up socks. Its creators explain how a failed Assassins variant became an infection.
Richard Lemarchand
How to Play: Ninja
A turn-based folk game of frozen poses and taps on the hand that spread through U.S. campuses from nowhere. Richard Lemarchand explains how it is played.
Review
Review: GIRP
Bennett Foddy’s GIRP reminds us of the human instincts to survive and to improve. Lana Polansky explores how GIRP captures what it’s like to feel over-exerted—and the sense of accomplishment that comes from outdoing one’s own expectations.
Review
Review: 2025 Ex Machina
The year is 2025. You’re a detective, apparently. You specialize in data alteration, or something. Inexplicably, this phishing site called dénicheur.net has drudged up the embarrassing personal information of four old acquaintances, threatening an important event in each of their lives. Fred, Anaïs,