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Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts

Indie Game Spotlight: The Stanley Parable

Indie Game Spotlight is a weekly feature where I highlight an independent game that deserves attention. Given the difficulty these developers have in being heard, every little bit helps. Some will be free, some will cost money, but all are deserving of some attention. The Stanley Parable is a Source Code mod made by Davey Wreden. It took two years of work to make and is a superb think piece. That’s what it is, a think piece in interactive form. It’s not a game in the traditional sense. | more

Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts

A Companion to Comic Culture

I’ve gotten some pretty good buzz surrounding my last post, despite it going up around 2 am when normal people are asleep. I asked if there would be any interest in hearing my opinions on the some of the works I read. That’s read in the past tense, and there was. First realize a single comic issue is about 20-24 pages long. It can be a little more and a little less. That seems to be a consistent with the American, English and Japanese comic publication. No comment, but I do wonder if there is some reason behind the number. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

Comic Culture and Video Game Culture

I haven’t been around in the video game space for  (checks last post) over a month and half. I have to explain something. I go through cycles when it comes to which medium I marathon at any given time. For a variable amount of time I will have an intense desire to immerse myself in one medium of my interest. These are generally books, movies, TV shows, video games and the latest one comic books. I also tend to marathon works within that particular medium. | more

Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts

Dragon Age II’s Lineage

(This was originally written several months ago in the run up to Dragon Age II’s release for another site. The editor at the time was swamped with work and it got lost in the shuffle. As time went by I forgotten I had wrote it until a conversation on twitter reminded me about it. I asked the present feature’s editor if it would be ok to take it back for my site. He said it’s a bit late to use it, so it would be fine. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

Game Frame – A Book Review

Game Frame by Aaron Dignan is a book about gamification. It’s about how you as a person can insert gamification into your ordinary activities to help you get through them. The author is a co-founder in a digital strategy firm for big companies and this is his foray into the next big bandwagon. Gamification in it’s most basic form is a stupid idea where in most cases people will add points or badges to something and think that is all that is needed to up the engagement with people. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Horror Games – Top 25

So, I wrote a piece for Gameranx called Top 25 Horror Games of All Time. Not the most enthralling piece I’ve written, but then that isn’t the purpose of top x lists. I was given the assignment from my editor there and I managed to get it out in about 12 hours. It got lost in the shuffle, so it was published about a month after I wrote it. But that is not why I mention it. I mention it because I wrote it, but I’m going to keep going on about it because when I was writing it, it brought to mind things I’d like to talk about. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

In Which I Respond to A Blunt Critique of Game Criticism

(Quick history: About a year and half ago I took issue with another of Danc’s posts, the Three False Constraints. It was the longest post I ever wrote. Then his latest post came out and I wrote a 13-page response in one night a week later after it had been edited. A combination of poor sleep schedule, life and laziness kept me from editing it. It was also 13 pages long. In that intervening time it has been edited again, apparently. I couldn’t care less about what was added and this is long enough. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Podcasts ho!

A few weeks back, Kris Ligman came to New Jersey to give a presentation at a conference about her research. Before she was to fly back to California she dropped by my home town to say hi and chat. During her brief stop before I took her to the airport, she mentioned that the Moving Pixel crew would like to have me on for a podcast at some point. I said I’d love to join. A while later I was contacted and was asked if I’d still like to come on. Well of course I would but I would need to know what I’d be speaking about. | more

Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts

Bioware You Suck

I first like to preface this with: I love BioWare. I love their games, I love their worlds and I love their characters and I love the experiences they have imparted onto me. Baldur’s Gate is my favorite game of all time. I think that series is the pinnacle of the CRPG. Right now that that’s out of the way. YOU SUCK! Let me explain. For those who follow me, or care to pay attention to anything I have to say at all, know I called Dragon Age: Origins my game of the year back in 2009 even though I was only able to play about 12-14 hours of it. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

Reality is Broken – A Book Review

I knew I was going to review this book so in preparation I kept away from all of McGonigal’s talks, interviews, and presentations as much as possible before reading it. I caught her appearance on the Colbert Report, but it was hard to make any prejudgments from that short interview. So I am coming into this review as clean as I possibly could and allowing McGonigal’s book to speak for itself. Having read it, I asked on twitter, rhetorically, how do you review this book. | more