Tag: Moving Pixels

Eric Swain External Sources

The Change Economics Wrought on Design: ‘Magic: The Gathering’ and ‘Hearthstone’

And I’m back to writing my PopMatters column, though a few days late thanks to a mixup in the backend, but what can you expect when I don’t write anything for over two months. Hearthstone has been taking up a lot of my gaming time in recent months, so I figured I should speak to my feeling about it. I was really into it starting out. Every day I would play for quite a long time. But then I hit the free-to-play wall. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Exploring the Rituals and Riddles of ‘Year Walk’

We pick up after last time with Simogo’s other notable work from last year, Year Walk. This discussion this time around is more about the amorphous nature of the game itself rather than a detailing of the meticulous construction like in our Device 6 podcast. Year Walk is more about atmosphere and experiencing the folklore of a culture we are not as familiar with. We also get into the differences between the iOS mobile version and the PC version and how Simogo utilizes each format’s particulars to the game’s advantage. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

A Game of Words, Exploring ‘Device 6′

This week on the Moving Pixels podcast we look to last year’s iOS standout, Device 6. It’s always nice to come out of a conversation with a greater appreciation of the game in question than you went in with. That exactly what happened here with our discussion of Device 6 and it’s thematic underbelly. So, give the podcast a listen here and enjoy. *sings* “That’s Anna. Oh, sweet Anna. Dreams are coming true. One in a million that is you.” *sings* | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Little Human, Big Apocalypse

It may be a little past the time when everyone else was talking about it, but the Moving Pixels Podcast episode on The Walking Dead Season 2 episode 2 is now up on PopMatters. We look at the continuing struggles of the second season to truly provide the same type of morally dubious choices that so endeared us to the first season. At the same time, I think we understand that isn’t as big a problem even if it doesn’t lead to as easily set up discussions. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Another Hand of ‘Hearthstone’

My what a difference a couple of weeks makes. We recorded this episode of the Moving Pixels podcast several weeks ago and Hearthstone, as well as my understanding of it, has changed quite a bit. It’s quite funny really, how much my understanding of the game has changed in the time since we recorded the podcast. So many assertions and details are just wrong and my own predictions are so off base. For instance, I figured Blizzard would announce a new play mode – Tournament – to the menu. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

The Seamier Side of Fairy Tales

Another Moving Pixels podcast is up. This time we discuss the second episode of The Wolf Among Us. This was recorded back on Sunday of IndieCade East. I had gotten back from the city only about half an hour before. Luckily my tiredness doesn’t weigh down the discussion. It’s another good, long critical discussion. We start off with a long section about the form of the Telltale style adventure game and how it affects our reaction regarding The Wolf Among Us in comparison to the first season of The Walking Dead, before moving on to the specific events and character beats of the episode itself. | more

Eric Swain Thoughts

A Podcast Data Entry Project

I missed this week’s and last week’s post on PopMatters because I got a little too caught up in trying to finish another self-inflicted project. For a while now the Moving Pixels podcast RSS feed has been borked thanks to what I suspect was an internal update to the backend. Part of that means that the podcast episodes no longer appear on iTunes. iTunes reads it off of the feed and if the feed says there are no episodes on it then it displays no episodes. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

‘Brothers’, A Tale of Rubbing Your Belly, While Patting Your Head

This week’s episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast is on Brother: A Tale of Two Sons. Brothers is a game that made it into my personal top 5 last year on the back of it utilizing the medium to do something different and far more focused than most video games can claim. I’ve written a base explanation of how it uses the camera to great effect by doing something different where other video games wouldn’t even think about it and go with the standard. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

The Games of IndieCade

What was originally one single post, my editor decided would be a good idea to split into three. It turned out to be a very good idea and not just because it gave me two extra weeks of breathing room. Talking about 13 games no one has ever heard of before and probably won’t again for quite a while may have been a bit much. Part 1 remained the same from the original text up until the cut off, but the real treat was having to come up with new material for the introductions of part 2 and part 3. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Paths and Parables

This podcast on The Stanley Parable was recorded back in January, that’s how far ahead we are. I really love this game and was really excited to finally get to talk in depth about it. There’s something about its brand of wackiness and intellectual masturbation that fits my personal brand of criticism and thinking. It’s also a title that doesn’t get much exploration beyond surface level discussion even when it comes to the game’s meaning. | more