Skyrim is an open-world Western Action RPG developed and published by Bethesda. It originally was released for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 on November 11, 2011. Later it was remastered for the PC, Xbox One, and PS4 in October 2016, and was ported to the Nintendo Switch in November 2017. VR versions for all … Continue reading Skyrim: 10 Years of Limitless Possibilities
Dark Souls is an Action RPG developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco. It was originally released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in October 2011, then on PC on August 2012. A remastered version was released for the PS4 and Xbox One in May 2018 and for the Nintendo Switch in October 2018. … Continue reading Dark Souls: 10 Years of Dying Over and Over
As we discussed in a previous post, Hideo Kojima is the first game designer to create a Postmodern video game. Postmodernism is an artistic movement that began in earnest in the late 20th Century, though its roots go all the way back to the 1910s with Dadaism and Surrealism, such as Rene Magritte's The Treachery … Continue reading Hideo Kojima, Part 3: Deconstructing Video Games
In 2012, Kojima said in an interview with The Guardian that he has a highly active imagination, and that even in adulthood he has to keep his mind from wandering off and making its own stories. He even paused during the interview to discreetly share what was going through his head at that very moment … Continue reading Hideo Kojima, Part 2: The Surreal Art of the Visual Metaphor
Hideo Kojima's Instagram bio states, "Game Creator: 70% of my body is made of movies." As we've recently learned, Kojima's love for movies runs deep into his childhood. It has stayed with him through difficult times like when his father passed away, or when he was striving to make it as a game designer. They … Continue reading Hideo Kojima, Part 1: How a Film Geek Makes Video Games
The 1963 film High and Low begins with a renowned Japanese shoemaker, Mr. Gondo, sitting in a luxurious living room. He is surrounded by his fellow company shareholders. Dozens of shoes pile up on the center table. Between puffs of cigarettes, the men discuss how to move their shoe company forward, and the conversation quickly … Continue reading The Life and Times of Hideo Kojima
Eric Barone is the Cinderella of indie game developers. He started out working in a basement with a cardboard box for a desk to selling 10 million copies of his game, Stardew Valley, worldwide. Oh, and he did it by himself. 10 million in sales is a number usually achieved by AAA studios with hundreds … Continue reading Eric Barone’s Baa-rilliant Stardew Valley
The featured image above is a screenshot from fan animation project Glitchtale: Season 1 Episode 1, animated by jakei and superyoumna and uploaded by Camila Cuevas. All artwork will be credited with links in the Further Reading / Sources section. Undertale is one of the most popular indie game of the 2010s -- after Minecraft, … Continue reading Toby Fox’s Undertale: The Birth of a Sensation
In 2004, years before the birth of the indie game scene, years before people began debating whether video games counted as art, Keita Takahashi gave the world Katamari Damacy. The video game industry hasn't been the same since. Keita Takahashi at PAX West in 2018 showing a demo of Wattam, his most recent game If … Continue reading Keita Takahashi: The Goofy and Loveable Black Sheep of Game Designers
In 2012, three AAA video game developers left their jobs and started an indie studio in Portland, Oregon. They called themselves Fullbright. Their goal was to create a new way to experience video game stories. Their games Gone Home and Tacoma would help lay the ground work for a new controversial genre, the bane of … Continue reading Gone Home: A Featureless Game, or an Avant-Garde Story?
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 