Like the procedural culture experiments currently going on in Ultima Ratio Regum, a recent mod for the grand strategy game Crusader Kings II (2012) is trying its hand at procedurally generating a whole world. The mod, created by user Yemmlie, manufactures history “from its first exodus from Africa”
Here’s something you probably know: Doom II (1994) and Seinfeld (1989-1998) are both pieces of popular culture released in the 1990s. They both had huge audiences and now two decades later, they are still as well known as they were when Bill Clinton was in office. In fact, this year’s Doom was relea
For as long as we’ve had games, we’ve had mods. They’re an integral and maybe necessary part of gaming, used either to personalize an experience or simply as a creative outlet. As a South Asian, I’ve banked on mods to make characters that actually look like me and not a version of myself that looks
In city builder games, the player is god. No capitalization is called for here: She is looking on from on high, but she is not omnipotent; she must watch human forces desecrate her creations from the heavens above. Most games grant their players agency they would otherwise lack, but the risk of POV-
For those who play games at a steady—some would say glacial—pace, achievements become unmoored from the gameworld itself. They become associated with life events—I completed that level on my birthday and that other level the day before I got dumped. You age with a game, if not at its exact pace. Spe
Skyrim, the fifth installation of the long-running Elder Scrolls series, is known among other things for its intensive, high quality graphics and level of visual detail. Even then, it’s common for players on PC to install several graphical enhancement mods for even more realistic lighting, water, an
We’ve written before about how the modder Ether Dynamics is outclassing Skyrim devs by giving foes with one-track-mind AI a broader variety of ways to bring the pain. As he rightly explains, “No one reminisces about the 10 skeletons they killed, because they’ll be just like every other skeleton they
We all know that adrenaline-soaked dread of being attacked by a snarling bear in Skyrim. But that’s nothing compared to the fear of being pecked to death by this giant clucking rooster, derp, modded into the game by a Reddit user. But relax! It seems all this male domestic fowl can do is crow and ch
After nearly a year, Electronic Arts is now allowing SimCity to be modded, so players can tweak, twist, rejigger, and reinvent the metropolis-building game free of legal concerns. Yes, there are some stipulations, such as that modders can’t sell their mods, although asking for a donation is OK. Also
Day Z was officially released today, kinda. So in honor of the brutal zombie game that had otherwise decent men writing borderline fanfic about breaking their leg and groping in the darkness until a bandit finished them off with the butt of a rifle to the head, we put together these photos. You may
