Month: April 2016

Eric Swain External Sources

Critical Distance Confab – Camp’s Signal

With this interview we are entering the more modern conception of video based criticism. The video essayist. First on the docket is Chris Franklin aka Campster. It’s a good interview and not surprisingly, in many ways, sets up future discussions of video as evolving form of criticism. Thanks to Chris … (This post is lost beyond this point.) Episode 35 – Camp’s Signal – Critical Distance | more

Eric Swain External Sources

The Moving Pixels Podcast Takes a Trip to ‘Pony Island’

This time on the Moving Pixels Podcast we discuss Daniel Mullins’s game Pony Island. This is a weird little game that I think I kind of love almost solely for its weirdness. It’s always throwing something new at the player and never allows itself to become complacent or stale. And it ends in the most pitch perfect way possible of an uber triumph of bombastic proportion within its own stylistic confines. I also like that there may be more underneath the surface that we just weren’t able to tease out. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Storytelling Engines: The Story Arc Has Ended and Yet the Game Keeps Going

I wrote this piece trying to examine my own response to “storytelling engine games” and why they don’t grab me for long. Every time we do one of these games for the podcast I end up on the “ehh” side of lukewarm. Darkest Dungeon being the most recent, but you … (This post is lost beyond this point.) Storytelling Engines: The Story Arc Has Ended and Yet the Game Keeps Going » PopMatters | more

Eric Swain External Sources

The Moving Pixels Podcast Plumbs The Depths of the ‘Darkest Dungeon’

On this episode we delve into the Darkest Dungeon, the horror RPG that hates you. I find whenever we do one of these roguelike games that’s light on authored content, you have to hope the description of how it plays leads to some sort of metaphor. Thankfully, Darkest Dungeon is one of those that does. The game hammers hard on the “grind up those cogs in the corporate machine” message. But beyond that base message and a few shades of specifics in the behavior that is rewarded by the system, there doesn’t seem much. | more