Unwinnable

Now I’ll begin the long climb toward salvation, or the aerial of death.

There’s a chaotic level of intentional ambiguity built into the script of Dear Esther, an indie game by thechineseroom, which plays wonderfully against the serene environments and direct, simple controls. The narrative in Dear Esther doesn’t contain direct allegories, but rather sets up loose, extended metaphors that communicate tone and relative meaning without committing to either. However, I’m assuming that the correlations between the stories of Saul on the road to Damascus, the wife murdered in the car crash, the lonely shepherd and the journaling explorer (among others) were not accidentally placed into the narration, and as such have some significance in how they relate to each other and the stoic island. As the narrator says, “All these things cannot, will not, be a coincidence.” (more…)

For me, paintings and other images are a visual cue to a longer narrative. They’re a kick to the imagination, not an end unto themselves. When I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the other week, I couldn’t help but see other stories in the paintings. In fact, I saw videogames everywhere I looked.

Some of these paintings directly influenced game developers. Others are just uncanny coincidence. (more…)

In late 1978, without realizing it, the creators of the long-running television series M*AS*H created one of the first ever first-person videogames. (more…)

I shone a torch into the wordless chasm of the lighthouse. A figure on the upper staircase smarted, shrank from my glare. I knew a sudden fear and needed reassurance. I backed away.

“Play the game and tell me if your lighthouse has a ghost too,” I said to my boyfriend. (more…)