Aaaaand I’m back! Unfortunately, my time and energy have been lacking at times over these last few months. Which means I’ve been sitting on these mini pieces for a while. Instead of letting them disappear into the void, I decided to touch them up and put them all together. So here it is: a couple of cool things that I was up to at various times from July to October.
Continue reading “What I’ve Been Up To – July to October 2022”
THIS ANALYSIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH UNDERTALE AND DELTARUNE. GO PLAY THOSE GAMES IF YOU HAVEN’T. OR DON’T. BUT PLEASE DO THEY’RE REALLY GOOD.
Undertale is probably my favourite game ever. Look, I don’t claim to be a Hardcore Gamer™ who’s played every good game in existence. Still, Undertale struck at what I think is the most meaningful quality of games: the ability to be curious. It’s fun to be curious about all the STUFF in Undertale. But at some point you ask yourself the same thing that Asriel asks: “Don’t you have anything better to do”? We want to find all the content in video games, we want to solve all the mysteries, we want to milk them until we have nothing left to obsess over. Undertale puts a lampshade on this instinct of gaming, and for that I think it’s brilliant.
Three years after the ridiculous success of Undertale Toby Fox is back at it with Deltarune Chapter 1. Deltarune also has plenty of little things to be curious about, but let’s be honest. Deltarune isn’t about having the most things, and it doesn’t have to be.
Continue reading “Deltarune And The Role Of Curiosity In Games”
Broadly speaking we tend to see society become a little more open towards different groups over time, and with that comes slowly but surely increasing media representation of them. A cynical way to look at this is that it’s simply because their existence has become profitable, and that’s certainly a very valid way to look at it given the slew of middlebrow oscar bait exploiting historical prejudice and hamfisted tokenism. A more positive way to see it is that media representation gives us a platform to humanise different groups, to become aware of their existence and their validity as individuals. I believe both perspectives can be true at once, and in that sense there needs to be conscious thought about how representation is implemented.
Too Many Words 