The Echidna Awards! (GOTYs 2013)

After much careless deliberation with myself, I have chosen the top 8 games of 2013. These are clearly indisputable. Check out my list at Beta Fish mag and be enlightened.

The Narrative Constraints of a Violent Medium

     And now, ladies and gents, here's an article I wrote for Beta Fish about the narrative limitations of game violence, mostly in response to Bioshock: Infinite. Thoughts?

Review of Thomas Was Alone

Cheers! I just (somewhat scathingly yet always quirkily) reviewed the indie puzzle platformer Thomas Was Alone for Beta Fish magazine. You can read it here!

Review of Fez

I just reviewed the delightful Fez for Beta Fish magazine, and you can read my thoughts on the game and on exploration in games in general here.

On the Ideal of the "Notgame"

This week for Beta Fish I offer my thoughts on so-called "notgames," game difficulty, ludo-literacy, non-gamers, storytelling, the future of games, and more. Lots of theory and shit! Read it all here.

On Mad Father and Protagonists in Games

Here's a review I wrote for Beta Fish on the quite good freeware indie horror adventure game Mad Father that also talks about the problem that having a player avatar as the main character poses for storytelling in games. Enjoy!

On how most modern level design sucks and reviews of Anodyne and OFF

     I wrote a couple of more pieces of Beta Fish. The first is a review of the RPG OFF, and the second is a lengthy rambling that's part continuation of my Skyrim rambling, part personal reflection, part level design analysis, and part of review of the recently released dungeon-crawler Anodyne. I put quite a bit of effort into the second one, give it a read! I mean, I put effort into the first one too, but the second one's juicy.

Proteus review, Waker update of sorts

And here's a review of Proteus that I just wrote for Beta Fish. I swear that I'll get back to critical game analysis and the Waker devlog sometime soon.

The main reason that I've been quiet about Waker  lately is that it's getting progressively harder to share screenshots and info on the game's progress without spoiling it. Development hasn't slowed down as much as I thought it would since the semester started - I'm stilling managing to find a couple of hours every other day or so to dedicate to the game.

Here's what I can share about the more recent changes I've made to the game: Giants! Explosions! Eye lasers! Commentary on eye lasers! Character back story! Revised dialogue! Improved scene of ruined ghost town in snow that now longer looks like ass! In-game camera that isn't centered on the main character square on! It's damn fine.

Kentucky Route Zero Review

I just wrote a review of the first act of the highly excellent Kentucky Route Zero for Beta Fish. Y'all can read it here.

Shadow of the Colossus and Story Telling

So, I've been writing some short pieces for Ohio University's self-described online "nerd culture" magazine, Beta Fish, and just recently wrote one about Shadow of the Colossus and how it uses the unique strengths of its medium to tell a compelling story. Give it a read!

(I also wrote a fairly general piece of indie games a while back and forgot to link to it, so here it is.)