A year ago, when Rich Vreeland (aka Disasterpeace) said that the work on his score for Mini Metro (2015) would be around 90 percent coding, not many knew what he meant. At the time, the only insight he shared was that the results of his work would create procedural audio for the subway system manage
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
There’s a blinking emoticon of a robot waving its arms around. It has the kind of joy that should be reserved for kids at a birthday party, not a loading screen. Once the bar is filled the robot appears again—now in full 3D, a red shell like a Lego brick—but this time it’s animated like a drunk who’
I was eight years old when I watched my first ballet performance, the Nutcracker, at an old, musty local theater. When the show ended, my mom asked if I wanted to be a ballerina, and to her surprise, I cringed. There was no way I could be a ballerina, I insisted. My body, short and stubby, could nev
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Fumihiko Yasuda, the director of upcoming samurai game Nioh, has been learning a little bushido lately. To bring the way of the warrior to life, he and his fellow developers at Team Ninja focused on how to translate a historic samurai legend
Human culture exists because of sexual intercourse. From the reign of Cleopatra, to the formation of the Church of England, to the Stonewall riots, human experiences of love and sex make up the fabric of our history. Even if we try to narrow our gaze to media, the bright red handprint of sex is ever
There’s an apartment in Golem City littered with dead bodies. Normally, I’d be the one to put them there, but not this time. One of them was probably named Ana, at least according to the emails in a computer nearby. The messages are from her doctor informing her that she’s pregnant. This would norma
To read more from Kentucky Route Zero’s Cardboard Computer, be sure to pick a copy of Kill Screen’s relaunched magazine, Issue 9. /// Junebug, of Kentucky Route Zero’s duo of robotic musicians, is releasing an album. Self-titled and comprised of 11 tracks, the release is an elaboration upon one of t
This article is part of Vision Week, our exploration of eyeballs and videogames celebrating our collaboration with Warby Parker. Grab a pair of limited edition Kill Screen glasses here: warbyparker.com/kill-screen /// The eyes are among the most sophisticated organs in your body, comprising an autom
Without giving anything away, there are definitely some freaky experiments going on in Inside, the latest game from Danish studio Playdead. At times, these experiments are depicted through the game’s eye-popping stagecraft, but in other instances, players take the helm as experimenters, tinkering wi
The only things moldier than a zombie’s jeans are complaints about the ubiquity of zombie-themed media. And yet, like a skeleton draped with liquified cold cuts wandering through the chapped streets of Any City, USA, here I shamble. The zombie—a thinly-veiled metaphor for the monstrosity of humanity
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
This is a preview of an article you can read on our new website dedicated to virtual reality, Versions. /// It’s the Sunday morning following a busy week, and my wife and I are attempting a calm moment. She’s flying out in the afternoon for a week-long company retreat, so these last few hours togeth
When I was a young girl, I read an anecdote about Lara Croft—it said that her iconic look was created when her designer wanted to enlarge her breasts by 50 percent but accidentally entered 150 percent in the window. When he saw the effect he decided that it was great and that’s how the heroine shoul
Your plane has crashed in the wilderness of the Canadian North West. The houses are empty, the cars won’t start, the radios are silent. If you seek shelter or answers in the nearby Hydro dam you are greeted by neither. Instead, a rabid wolf is likely to tear you in half. This is The Long Dark, a Can
Near Death begins when a woman crashes at the abandoned Sutro Station in the Marie Byrd Land region of Antarctica. There is no ceremonious setup, only the bare-bones facts of her situation: the temperature, the location, the condition of polar night, and the wind chill. She fumbles through the dark
Final Fantasy VI (1994) is deeply concerned with the relationship between human beings and technology. The game liberally borrows elements from Western heroic fantasy and science fiction, yet the story and action are centered around two young female protagonists, Terra and Celes, who are variations
I remember making a mental note when I read that Sean Murray’s “favorite thing” in No Man’s Sky were the space station windows. On two separate occasions, he even went so far as to take people directly to the same window, as if it was one of the prime features of the game. “I’m going to show you the
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
How do you tackle a game as big and aqueous as Overwatch? Every so many weeks its meta game changes; characters fall in and out of favor, you win, you lose, you get fed up of firing pellets into Reinhardt’s shield for entire rounds. These changes are, for the most part, minuscule—noticeable only to
We love Overwatch. So we assembled 22 of our best writers and set them to work—a writer to jump into the skin (or robotic shell) of each character. The result is 22 odes. You can use the “Overwatch odes” tag to leaf through them all, or use the handy list at the bottom of this post. /// “Look at thi
We love Overwatch. So we assembled 22 of our best writers and set them to work—a writer to jump into the skin (or robotic shell) of each character. The result is 22 odes. You can use the “Overwatch odes” tag to leaf through them all, or use the handy list at the bottom of this post. /// “You may cal
We love Overwatch. So we assembled 22 of our best writers and set them to work—a writer to jump into the skin (or robotic shell) of each character. The result is 22 odes. You can use the “Overwatch odes” tag to leaf through them all, or use the handy list at the bottom of this post. /// I’ve been wa
It was obvious The Witcher 3 (2015) wasn’t going to be a sexy game the moment I met Keira Metz. Curvy and blonde, Keira first appeared submerged in a tub of artfully positioned bathwater, then in a dress hung open so wide it would need heroic amounts of magic or starch to keep its contents confined.
I grew up with JRPGs, but not in the sense that most people grow up with them. My mom always played them, and I always sat perched, cross-legged in our quaint apartment, happily petting our cat and watching her exciting journeys unfold. Mostly, it was the Final Fantasy games, but sometimes we’d fit
