Don Draper, John Hamm’s suave protagonist in the dearly departed series Mad Men (2007-2015), didn’t so much as work in advertising as embody the field. At an instinctive level, he understood that aspirations wrapped up in objects need to be made tangible, and that advertising is a means to that end.
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Australia is notorious for its strict approach to media bans and classification, coming down hard on videogames in particular. While the Australian Classification Board (ACB) has softened since the introduction of an R18+ adult rating in 2013
In Aubrey “Drake” Graham’s home city of Toronto, there are only two seasons: Winter and Summer. “It’s a very unique place,” said the rapper in an interview with Zane Lowe on his Beats One radio show OVO Sound Radio. “You start to value your days a lot more, when seven months are spent in the icy col
I’m a clunky Fisher Price toy on an island made of rough patches. My body, hands, and clothes are probably toxic, blistered and greasy, as I have spent hours pushing and shoving big honkin’ sausages across pipin’ hot grills in taxing and inconvenient ways. I’m not wearing an apron. I am wielding a b
While we at Kill Screen love to bring you our own crop of game critique and perspective, there are many articles on games, technology, and art around the web that are worth reading and sharing. So that is why this weekly reading list exists, bringing light to some of the articles that have captured
Last weekend, Renaud Forestié released a game called Shapeshifter Biker, a free-wheeling road movie mixed with shapeshifting mechanics. Shapeshifter Biker has you drive around a desert map on the lookout for animal power-ups that give you the ability to temporarily shapeshift into a variety of diffe
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Players who traverse new games like Star Wars: Battlefront, retro games like Horizon Chase or virtual reality experiences are keen on having the best new processors and computing performance they can get. But for many gamers, having a compute
For a little while now, I’ve been contemplating whether or not I want to get a tattoo. It’s not that I have a particular idea for one in mind, so much as it is that I like the thought of using ink to assert my own bodily autonomy. I just have two issues stopping me from pulling the trigger. The firs
You can’t spell ‘discomfort’ without ‘disco.’ Or at least, that’s quite literally the scenario spelled out in game maker Fedor Balashav’s brief experimental title DISCO / DISCOMFORT . In DISCO / DISCOMFORT, the player enters a neon-flushed disco club in the midst of seemingly nowhere, an environment
In China, years ago, Bubble is riding a train late at night. “In the [past] the train was slow and dirty, it [would] take a long time to arrive at the destination,” they say. Bubble is far away from home and the train is almost entirely empty. “Just me alone,” Bubble tells me while recalling the mem
During the 17th century in Europe and her colonies, mankind was forcibly removed from the center of the universe and cast adrift in an indifferent cosmos devoid of greater purpose or meaning. This was accomplished not by any supernatural power but by advancements in technology, particularly optics:
To be an artist is to know failure. We know it intimately, in our smudges and our typos. We fear it, anxiously hesitating before we draw the second eye, afraid that we cannot replicate the perfection of the first. Failed It! by Erik Kessels challenges these feelings, arguing for the beauty of our mi
As a transgender girl growing up in the American Midwest, childhood was a lonely experience for me. I was still questioning so much of who I was, and at the time, there weren’t many resources out there to help me work through it. Transfeminist literature like Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl (2007) had
The goofy term “slugcat” has been tossed around to describe the creature you’ll control in Videocult’s upcoming game Rain World for a couple of years now. Due to its unique ecosystem set on an industrial planet that’s ravaged by bone-crushing downpours for most of the year (the game takes place duri
About 30 miles northeast of the Frank Gehry-designed campuses and complexes where competing cloud environments are designed, there’s an Oakland museum full of game cartridges. You can see the sign from the highway: The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE). That the sign is visible from the
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. windowframe (PC) BY DANIEL LINSSEN You’re reading this inside a window. Practically every interaction with a piece of software takes place inside one. This has been the norm for computer use s
Mable & the Wood is a 2D exploration game about a young red-haired girl with the ability to transform into other creatures. The idea is to get her through the titular colorful woods. However, the more you use the girl’s powers, the more you take from the forest, slowly destroying it—regardless, it’s
As I sit at my keyboard, trying to figure out what in the world I could possibly say about Star Fox Zero, I find myself forced to concede that there’s not that much wrong with the game as a game. As an engine built to allow players to fly around in a high resolution version of a spaceship apparently
Originally released for Windows, Mac, and Xbox One back in January, teen horror adventure game Oxenfree is now coming to the PlayStation 4 on May 31st as Oxenfree: Director’s Cut. It’ll come complete with a bevy of new features to find in its New Game+ mode, including new dialogue, new areas to expl
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
Neil Jones and Daniel Wilkins are frustrated with the lack of diversity in videogames. They say it’s what has driven them to make their own game, and one that hopes to provide “a better insight into African American culture.” However, everyone they’ve approached for additional funding for it has tol
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. The genre-bending competitive games releasing in the next year have the potential to bring the usually divided fan bases of esports together. Many see esports as the next $1 billion sport, but getting there depends on a savvy intertwining of
Lucas Pope, of Papers Please (2013) fame, has been working on his new project, Return of the Obra Dinn, for nearly two years now. Back in October 2014, he released the first build of the game, which ran for 10 minutes in length and showed off its stylistic 1-bit rendering. Updates on the game’s prog
Upon walking into St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican with a close friend in January, our jaws simultaneously dropped. He had never seen anything like it before. As he gazed up at the infinitely mathematical marble and gold ceiling, he said, “I think this could be the only structure like this to exi
The first paper note in Wood for the Trees asks: “don’t you just love reading notes on lamp posts?” Images and icons present in other first-person Unity games like Slender (2012) or Andrew Shouldice’s Hide are on display here too. The same note makes reference to “a missing beloved one” addressed by
