Article
The story of the man behind the Doonesbury Election Game
Randy Chase spent years building sophisticated political simulations. Then he took on a truly partisan project.
Richard Clark
Review
The Whatever Gaze
The CGI softcore and coquetry of Lollipop Chainsaw is not supposed to be taken seriously. But are the game’s aggressive sexual politics culpable of its rather serious presumptions of gender? Sorry, it’s not sorry.
Essay
Blessed Are the Geek
While much of modern gaming revolves around success or achievement in its various forms, Rich Clark argues that a clearer vision of what games could be comes from the well-known Beatitudes, preached in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. After a week of grasping hell, Clark offers a differing view of heave
Review
Putting Our Best Brain Forward
The way to get us to jog, apparently, is to say that zombies are coming. In Zombies, Run!, an alternate-reality game about health and fitness, Richard Clark sees a more universal experience of being convinced and feeling something real.
Review
Fight! Ow, Stop!
Where do we draw the line between reality and fantasy? Richard Clark argues it’s where the first punch connects with his face.
Review
Can Martian Plants Teach Us How to Wait in Line?
Waking Mars, an iPhone game about researching and growing life on Mars, has lessons in patience and persistence for the earthbound.
Interview
Andreas Illiger
The creator of the acclaimed Tiny Wings speaks to Richard Clark about his philsophy, life after Tiny Wings, and what it was like to finally fly.
Review
Review: To the Moon
An interactive story about a dying man’s wish can barely be interacted with. For Richard Clark it’s an intimate reckoning with the past and present of his father’s life.
Review
Review: Epoch
A game where robots shoot robots is an unlkely site of humanity. Richard Clark explains why Epoch‘s contradiction is a successful, and soulful, one.
Review
Review: Leedmees
This game about leadership uses Kinect to project your body as a giant stick figure onto the screen. According to Richard Clark, in doing so it creates a rift between your power as a player and the value of a tiny blip’s life.
Essay
Killing the Turtle
We talk to Jennifer Estaris, a designer of alternate reality games and children’s games, about trying to retrieve a sense of childhood and what she learned from Nickoledeon.
Review
Review: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
For Richard Clark, Uncharted 3‘s player-character Drake is so close, yet so far.