High Scores 2014: 15-6
High Scores 2: High Scoreser.
Crossing Souls wants to make you feel like a kid again
A sweet, scary ode to childhood.
A look at Hyper Light Drifter, one of 2015’s most beautiful games
Why does it look so great? Short answer: Miyazaki.
The Old City: Leviathan Forgets its Audience
First-person eavesdropping
I’m Positive aims to reduce the stigma around getting tested for HIV
Pardon me, but let’s start this out with a personal question: Have you been tested for HIV? If you’re aged between 13 and 64 years old then it’s recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that you get tested for it at least once. Time’s a-tickin’. If you’re a little frighten
High Scores: The Best of 2014
Deliver a baby, save the world, kick your friend’s asses. Our year-end list starts here.
Public radio’s videogame music guru Emily Reese wants you to listen up
A conversation with public radio’s most outspoken advocate for the art of videogame composition.
Go on a game-making roadtrip with Major Bueno
Finally, the Major Bueno duo are at it again with their most ambitious game-making challenge yet.
One of the most elaborate alternate reality games ever is launching early next year
Augmented reality just got a lot more intense.
Experience the Ferguson shooting from the witnesses’ perspectives
A new experimental project by Fusion, in conjunction with Empathetic Media and the Reynolds Journalism Institute, showcases the potential of using virtual reality and game development tools as an apparatus for reporting real-world events. It’s called Ferguson VR, and it allows you to explore the eig
Five things I consumed in 2014
2014 was a year in which one could partake.
The Year in Blank Space
Games are discovering just how full an empty area can be.
Enjoy the hot man-on-man action of Coming Out On Top
Or: Why liking gay porn is totally normal for a straight married woman.
The Year in Anti-Games
Mountain, Goat Simulator, potato salad, and the new nobrow.
How do you make a better political videogame? Here’s one idea
If there were an ongoing debate about how best to weave political discourse into a videogame, I’d have to put a vote in for the way Jonas and Verena Kyratzes have always done it. Sure, I’ll give credit to those making short, systems-based games such as the prolific and controversial Molleindustria,
The autobiographical dress-em-up about pleasing your conservative parents
Did your parents ever say “you’re not leaving the house wearing that?”
Punch a $10 million painting and get away with it
Ever wanted to punch a painting? I don’t mean a pre-schoolers’ red-blobbed masterpiece of their family. We’re talking a painting hung with a lavish golden frame in an art gallery, the type that people swan around with fingers curled to their chins, thoughts swirling with admiration. That type of pai
A brief introduction to dreidel hacking
Religious games sometimes call for intervention from the central bank.
The Year in Architecture
Learning to play the architecture of Abstract Ritual, NaissanceE and Frank Gehry.
Boardgames are a pain. This app may help
Boardgames are great, but they are an enormous pain in the ass. This is both part of the appeal and the reason more people don’t get into them. They’re heavy, generally expensive, they require hours to set up and take apart, as well as gobs of free time penciled into a handful of people’s schedules.
The Year in Ass
Ass is both a source and subject of power, in the real world and in videogames.
We played Lindsay Lohan’s videogame so you wouldn’t have to
The price of fame? Carpal tunnel, apparently. Lindsay Lohan wants some of your freemium cash. In the name of irony, of course. Not, like, for money—obviously.
Never-before-seen Smithsonian art collection goes online next year
Jordanian statues can see you offline (and in your sleep).
Find a disturbing truth when rummaging through the wreckage of a home
Forsaken is a game that posits a creeping question: what do your dwelling and possessions reveal about your character? It employs you as someone who is sent to declutter and clean up abandoned houses. The one you get to mouse over is an omnishambles; a putrid disarray of residential flotsam. As you
We are slaves to Destiny
Parsing the insidious darkness beneath The Dark Below.