Playing at Leadership: Games, Gaming, & Leadership Studies
"Reality, unlike games, is broken." – Jane McGonigal
Here is the final post in the As-I-Play Bastion series on TLF. This post explains why I went from mostly being annoyed by Bastion to being a pretty serious fan. This is not a fun final post. It’s full of … Read More »
This week’s TLF post is my second-to-last in the As-I-Play Bastion series, and it marks the point when I began to realize just how political (and serious) a game Bastion actually is. If you follow me on NPC Gamer, you … Read More »
So a new As-I-Play Bastion post went up today on TLF, and I’m actually going to say a little bit about it. I know my Bastion posts over there have mostly been a lot of me whining about how I … Read More »
There are two things I frequently see in arguments against diversity in games (and other media, but especially in games) which are worth noting because of the spectacular way in which they completely miss the ideological boat about which the … Read More »
This year (2016) has essentially started out like a sucker punch for those of us who are fans of pop culture. This week has seen the deaths of two of the men whose work in pop culture was formative for … Read More »
So a few months ago, regular readers undoubtedly noticed a post in which I talked about starting a new blog focused primarily on voices from the margins talking about games. I did get some interest from some pretty cool people … Read More »
In 2016, The Learned Fangirl is introducing an exciting new series called the Seminar Series, and I have the honor of being the author of the first one, on epic storytelling in the Dragon Age series. (Should you be interested … Read More »
As I continued playing through Rise of the Tomb Raider, elements of the game’s narrative and mise en scene just started jumping out at me as being particularly apropos for the current state of the world. Even though I was … Read More »
Many years ago, thatgamecompany released a game called Flower, in which the player plays… a flower. Their first game, FlOw, was available free on the web (and still is, here), although when they were picked up by PlayStation, they added … Read More »
In the wake of E32015, it has become apparent to me–even moreso than it already was–that one of the fundamental shortcomings of the game industry lies in diversity and diversification. Yes, this means the inclusion of women and POC in … Read More »
So a recent (completely civil, polite, and even productive) exchange got me thinking about one of the problems with videogame culture, and, indeed, fan culture more broadly. This is the problem of fan “ownership”–of a game, a franchise, an entire … Read More »
A recent conversation has reiterated one of the components of recent internet discussions of games – particularly those containing overt misogyny – that bothers me more than most of the others. It’s the conflation amongst many online of “criticism” with … Read More »
One of the big news stories in gaming at the moment is about Australia’s refusal to issue classification to Devolver’s Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number due to sexual violence (link to Kotaku Australia). In Australia, media that “depict, express or … Read More »
So today a friend drew my attention to this little game of Polygons. It’s cute. There are happy squares and triangles. And apathetic squares and triangles. And sad squares and triangles. And the point is to teach us about how … Read More »
In the midst of all the craziness this year so far, I did manage to play Monument Valley (on a plane coming back from San Diego), and I loved it, so I wrote up a review for TLF.