Category: ReadWritePlay

Bastion is a game about rebuilding a broken world. It is also a game about who gets to decide what “fixed” means, and who…

From the start of the game, I was given a clear mission: get to the core and return it to the monument. I immediately…

When I first started playing Bastion, I focused on just trying to play well and gather the materials. I was only looking to rebuild…

Bastion presents a nationalist mythology that we must choose to break. To do so, we must renounce the comfortable story being told that paints…

Endings in games like to feel clean. You hit the final choice, you pick the “good” option, and the credits roll over a hopeful…

[Beware spoilers for Bastion.]   In the early 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram ran an experiment measuring participants’ willingness to commit violence when encouraged by an…

To me, Bastion felt like an escape room. As a competitive gamer, my instincts when I took over my keyboard were fully utilitarian: optimize…

This week, I played BOKURA: planet, a two-player puzzle game made by Tokoronyori. At first, the game seems like a typical co-op platformer where…

Ah, a deep co-op video game about being controlled by a parasite! Obviously, this video game would talk about trust, and the phenomenology of…

In my first playing of BOKURA: Planet, I knew I was in for a treat when Orange was killed and replaced by a parasitic…

You wake to learn you didn’t have a son. You never had parents. You were a blank slate—alone. An assassin for hire. Your memories…

[Beware spoilers for BOKURA: planet.] I’m terrible at deception games. I’m bad at lying, and I believe everyone should have access to all relevant…

It was frustrating to play this game, to say the least. Having to figure out on the fly how to play the game while…

What is it that makes you human? Approached philosophically, there are numerous possible interpretations: maybe it relates to the body, and the physical manifestations…

Bokura Planet is not just a game about surviving strange worlds. It is a game about what happens when two people have to depend…

Playing Slay the Princess this week was my first introduction to the genre of interactive fiction. It was my first time experiencing a game…