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Introducing DISTANT, a game about saving dreamscapes from destruction

Many words can be used to describe last year’s endless snowboarding game Alto’s Adventure, but the one that stands out for me is flow. This encompassed the curves and angles of its snowdrifts, its wordless storytelling, and how smoothly it reset you to the top of its mountain once you fell. It was a

5 Tips for Finding Success as an Indie Game Developer

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. While being an indie designer remains a gamble, experts prove the right tools and mindset can make a difference. The car-soccer game Rocket League’s beta version launched in April 2015 with low expectations. Rocket League was a seemingly ill-

Goodnight Traffic City seeks a truer reflection of living with health issues

The message of the “Everyday” exhibition currently on display at La Mama Galleria, New York until December 10th is that “AIDS is EVERYDAY.” The art and ephemera produced for the gallery is all a reminder of this—that until there is a cure, and the infrastructure exists to distribute it to those who

Dead Static Drive to be a road-trip horror in vintage Americana style

Watching the R-rated horror classic The Evil Dead (1981) when you’re about seven years old leaves a lasting impression. Mike Blackney can vouch for this. He can trace his fascination with a distinctly American strain of horror “set in rural areas or suburbs” back to that seminal viewing. It carried

MARE’s new teaser shows off its subtle environmental language

A cold wind blows around the stony ramparts of an old, crumbling fort. A young girl in a red dress lies on her belly, seemingly asleep in the grass, black hair fidgeting with the breeze. The electrical wires hanging between tall mechanical pylons also shake to the chorus of the grey gale. The new te

Kids use Club Penguin to protest against the president-elect

As an American college student, I’m no stranger to protests. In the past month, I’ve attended roughly two or three per week regarding issues like health care, systematic racism, discrimination against undocumented students, and most recently, our president-elect. After the election on November 8th,

Ambient Mixtape 16 is a superb collection of eerie games

Ah, it’s so good when this happens. What am I on about? Oh, you know, nine independent game makers decided to get together and make a game each, then package them all under the title Ambient Mixtape 16. The idea was for all of them to use the same tools and format—a First Person Camera controller ma

The nuclear power of Fallout’s wartime kitsch

This article is part of a collaboration between Kill Screen and Art of the Title, celebrating videogame title sequences and the artists who made them happen. “FALLOUT.” One word in block letters, set against a black background. The crackle of a needle dropping on a vinyl record starts up; a black-an

Being banned in Iran isn’t stopping 1979 Revolution reaching Iranians

1979 Revolution is a game about the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. It came out back in April this year and, two weeks later, the Iranian government announced its plans to ban it. Specifically, Iran’s National Foundation for Computer Games (NFCG) planned to ban any website or individuals selling the

How AI is shaping the future of interactive games

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. In the 2013 film Her, protagonist Theodore plays a videogame where he is surprised by a wild, swearing artificially intelligent cartoon character. The foul-mouthed little alien launches into a conversation with Theodore, remaining stubbornly

Artist turns Grand Theft Auto V into a ghost city

Three years on and people are still finding new ways to look at Grand Theft Auto V (2013). This time its French digital artist Hugo Arcier who has reinterpreted the game’s world without a population. He calls it GHOST CITY—a video installation that was first shown at his exhibition “Fantômes numériq

Close, an upcoming exploration game about finding out your purpose

Tobias Zarges wants to experiment with the videogame form and its capacity to be art. This comes natural to him as a student of fine art, design, and music at Kunsthochschule Kassel in Germany. To this end, he’s working with programmer Moritz Eberl on Close, an upcoming game about exploration and ex

Surprise yourself by learning an alien language in Sethian

Sethian is a game that positions you as an archaeologist of the future tasked with learning an alien language. You do this so you can investigate the disappearances of people on the planet Sethian—where the language originates. Learning a whole other language might sound pretty imposing, but the cre

I miss the summers in Japan: How videogames overcome language barriers

I sat cross legged in front of the TV and watched as Alex carefully removed the Super Nintendo from its dusty, neglected box. Our grandfather hardly used it, preferring to play Shogi on his computer instead of the console. Also stored away were a pile of games with labels we couldn’t read. The Japan

The influence of Blame! on videogame architecture is rising

Blame! (1998) is getting everywhere these days. The dark, vast architectural spaces of Tsutomu Nihei’s manga series seem to be steadily rising in popularity, like sentient tower blocks growing stories at a time, casting a deeper and deeper shadow over popular culture. Next year it’ll likely hit the

Mafia III is a postcard tour of the American South

Tell about the South. What’s it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all. —William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936) One of the currents running through Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, and indeed the Southern literary tradition at large, is the difficulty of

Civilization VI is more game than drama

Before Civilization VI’s official release date, those with access to the unreleased version of the game were treated not to the ‘official’ theme on the game’s title screen, but with what would prove to be the theme music for the American civilization. The piece is a combination of two very different

Ladykiller in a Bind dares to ask “what are you into?”

You lie on your bed, idly, unsure of what is keeping you up. It’s something that wants to stay hidden, just out of sight of your mind’s eye, a shadow ducking out of your periphery—the flash of a sly smirk as it flits around your room. While the thing on your mind dodges investigation, your hands ner

The technology behind Kubo and the Two Strings

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. A frightened woman crosses a storm-swept sea in a tiny canoe as black strands of windblown hair hit her face. Rain pours down her kimono as her fingers clutch a three-stringed Japanese shamisen. A massive wave looms over her canoe, impressing

The ghost of Churchill; or, how to make a wargame

“The cards I throw away are not worthy of observation or I should not discard them. It is the cards I play on which you should concentrate your attention.” – Winston Churchill, 1912, during a bridge game on the Admiralty yacht Enchantress /// Churchill: The Man Churchill has been on my mind a lot la

The greatest technical feats in No Man’s Sky

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. A veteran explorer, low on supplies, lands on an uncharted alien planet with a cyan ocean and ruby-red grass. Enormous, dinosaur-like creatures with horns graze nearby, but at least there doesn’t appear to be any acid rain, unlike the last pl

All hail the ultimate videogame devil

“Dull” reads the game’s judgement, punched across the top-right corner of the screen in a disappointed font. Dante throws his shoulder, thrusting his blade into the marionette a second time. “Cool!” Later, once Dante has become a proper daddy’s boy, he’ll impress the game he’s trapped inside to the

20 free horror games you should play on Halloween

There is no short supply of free horror games. Hell, the rise of reaction videos in recent years has actually brought a surge of them. People have raced to to make a videogame that’ll scare the pants off their favorite YouTubers so they can watch. But that’s also a problem: a lot of these small, fre

Horror comedy in videogames isn’t given enough credit

He recently passed away, but in his 90 years on earth Herschell Gordon Lewis claims that he had been approached on two occasions to direct a snuff film. The idea didn’t amuse him. During an interview with Alexandra West from Diabolique Magazine, he said such a thing wasn’t “worthy of a thought.” “I