Gaming Round-Up: March 30, 2015

"Game Over" by Campeche, Mexico-based Isaac Fragoso Abdelrrague

About six months ago, Richard Cobbett launched a new series on writing in games that came to an end this past weekend with an excellent piece on the representations of depression in games.  The article uses Life Is Strange’s display of contact information for a suicide hotline as its starting point.  Cobbett's series was both engaging and thought-provoking.  It will be sorely missed.

Brendan Vance offers an historical essay entitled The Ghosts of BioShock that traces the popular game's roots back to the Wounded Knee massacre of the Sioux.

Eskil Steenberg, the developer of EXO, writes about the mental arithmetic that working on a strategy game entails.and writes about what that means.  If you've ever considered striking out on your own to develop micro games, this one is a must-read.  In a related piece on Gamasutra, Bryant Francis writes about getting real about the financial expectations of "going indie."

Faith in gaming: Ben Davis reflects upon The influence of Christianity in videogames.

G. Christopher Williams describes how White Knight uses mental illness as an allegory for American economic inequality in an article on PopMatters.

GameHouse counts down Ten Fierce Female Game Characters

Have you ever wondered what it takes to earn thousands for playing a video game?  I would guess excellent bladder control, for starters.

Have you heard of Twine?  Twine is a tool for creating interactive fiction, where players read content and then interact by clicking links in the text.  Gamasutra points the way to some examples.  Download it yourself and give it a try or learn more with Dan Cox's Learning Twine scripting tutorial (Part 2, Part 3)

Here's a disturbing bit of news that has me bothered.  News outlets in the U.K. are reporting that, in Nantwich, schools have threatened to report parents to the police if their children are caught playing violent video games such as Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.  The charge?  Neglect.  Am I the only one who finds this sort of threat extreme?  I'm certain next week's round-up will be running over with editorial responses to this story.

Luke Pullen declares that "The Age of the Orc Has Begun" in a piece enthusiastically praising Offworld’s recent Alt Games manifesto by Zoe Quinn.  Soha Kareem keeps the excellent work coming at Offworld in "Games That Heal," in which she discusses how making games in Twine has helped one woman cope with pain other methods haven't reached.

Keith Stuart at the Guardian asks: why don’t we feel guilty in videogames?

Keza MacDonald of Kotaku UK explains why everyone should want politics in their videogames:

"Upcoming PS4 exclusive The Tomorrow Children plays with Communist imagery and concepts of communal betterment, and this is precisely what makes it interesting. Developers are very often keen to deflect questions about their games’ political context, or to downplay its significance – witness the developers of The Saboteur turning the rich and troubling setting of WWII occupied Paris into a wilfully stupid Nazi kill-a-thon – but it’s when games embrace their political context that the most interesting work gets done. Metal Gear is inseparable from the Japanese anti-nuclear sentiment post-WWII and from its creator’s view on American military dominance. Fable III alludes closely to the distressing politics of real-world revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, making you think about them in a new light. Why wouldn’t you want this?"

Jane McGonigal's TED Talk on How Video Games Can  Improve Our Real Lives.

Rowan Kaiser re-hashes his list of the most important games of all time from the now defunct 1UP over at Medium.com with The 80 Most Influential Videogames of All Time.

Simon Parkin writes about the National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham, which has been established by the organizers of GameCity as a permanent representation of videogames’ contribution to culture.  The U.S. needs one of these, preferably in driving distance of my home.

TED Radio Hour: Press Play: This week’s TED Radio Hour episode is all about play and its effects on us as humans. The entire episode is worth a listen. But if you are pressed for time the two portions that might be relevant to you as a gamer is the segment on playing games and empathy and the segment with game designer Jane McGonigal, where she talks about how games — video games in particular — can improve our lives. Download or listen to the full podcast here.

At Tor.com,  Peter Tieryas explains How Navigating the Louvre with a Nintendo 3DS Made Me Rethink the Future of Gaming, Art, and Virtual Reality.  

"Rather than clash or even supplant the artwork, the 3DS increased my appreciation, visually pointing out specific approaches employed by the artist I would never have known about otherwise. The option to analyze or maximize any painting is invaluable, particularly on the large-scale images. You can search out favorite pieces and mark them on your map, which will then show you the quickest way there. It’s convenient being able to track your position on the 3D map and plan out your entire journey, especially because of how huge the grounds are."