Feature

Us vs. Them

For the sake of the medium.

Photograph by Ryan Kuo

By Leigh Alexander

The past several years have given rise to a wonderful community online for games. In this ever-growing network of friends, rivals, bloggers, Twitter followers and forum buddies, there's a home for our Call of Duty 5 martial philosophy and our BioShock moral agony; there's a place where people really get why we have a problem with the divide between Shadow Complex's gameplay and its narrative.

And it's utterly heartening – not only are video games cresting noble heights on their path to a brave new frontier, but we as audiences are ready for this depth. We're prepared, cries the blogosphere, to embrace this new art form with grace and dignity.

A first-person view down a corridor where every wall, floor, and enemy is rendered from glowing text characters

When you switch languages, Torizon Telecom rebuilds itself

SkagoGames' shooter renders walls, guns, and bullets as words

A city street rendered entirely in colored text characters, from the TerminalDev project reel

TerminalDev's open-world city is drawn entirely in ASCII

A pseudonymous solo dev is building a multiplayer crime sandbox with no 3D models or shaders

A neon-green flooded city seen in first person, with platforming rails threading between rooftops

Critical Reflex picks up Grindset T.V.

INFINITE ANIMAL's courier platformer is set in a corporatized Heaven, and the Mouthwashing publisher's signature reads like a curatorial stamp.

Cezar Mocan, A Field Guide to Orbital Melancholy

Watch "A Field Guide of Orbital Melancholy" [Playlist 289]

Ask the satellite twice, get two different lies.

Read more

When you switch languages, Torizon Telecom rebuilds itself

TerminalDev's open-world city is drawn entirely in ASCII

Critical Reflex picks up Grindset T.V.

Watch "A Field Guide of Orbital Melancholy" [Playlist 289]