the game design of taskmaster: fun to watch vs. fun to play
Let’s start with this statement: Taskmaster is not a game. It is a comedy panel television show, with a format that lends itself to incorporating game elements in the form of tasks. This means that the audience for Taskmaster is…
shrine colours in zelda: tears of the kingdom and breath of the wild
Shrines are core pieces of gameplay in both The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and its precursor, Breath of the Wild. They are self-contained puzzle rooms that allow players to gather materials to upgrade their health and stamina…
real video games for readers of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin
Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow follows three young game designers as they start a video game company. The book refers to several real-world games, in particular retro favourites like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong, which a…
diablo 4 does not need full character customisation
One of the most highly anticipated features of Diablo 4, due in June 2023, is the character customisation that the newest Diablo game promises. While creating and identifying with characters is important in video games, I don’t think an in-depth…
arcane season 1 easter eggs from league of legends
Nobody could have predicted that an animated Netflix series based on League of Legends characters would have worked. But in 2021, Arcane, the nine-part action adventure series, defied expectations and became a runaway success. As of writing, the series holds…
what root and other board games gain and lose in digital format
Modern board games suffer from the difficulty of onboarding new players. More often than not, players rely on one patient friend who has either played the game before or read all the rules prior to the gaming session. As the…
the gender and roles of overwatch heroes
In this post, I’m tackling the gender and role distribution amongst the heroes of Blizzard’s first-person shooter game Overwatch. In a Reddit post from 2017, a then-Comparative Cultural Studies student addressed the question “Why are there so many female Mercy…
the power of wildermyth’s modular storytelling in game design
Every once in a while, a game comes along that changes the way we think about interactive storytelling. Undoubtedly, Wildermyth has this star quality. The tactical RPG uses procedural generation to author stories in a unique way, chaining up series…
justice for player two: balancing couch co-op in video games
The LEGO video games are some of my favourite couch co-op experiences. As a franchise, they have a strong awareness of what they are: pure, wholesome, family fun, and they don’t try to be anything else. In particular, I enjoy…
