Activism

Interview: Tanya Kan on Solace State

Patrick Dolan

As a way to confront the police state we seem to be barreling toward, Tanya Kan and her development studio Vivid Foundry have created Solace State. A different kind of visual novel, Solace State, focuses on the interaction and social relationships of a group of young hackers to imagine a hopeful ground-up approach to bettering a dystopian world. Instead of a singular, white hope, the game demonstrates the diversity of faces and voices involved in mounting a revolution. Continue Reading →

de Blob and the Fun in the Fight

Lindsay Eanet

I’ve played through the first level of de Blob more than any other game, on any console, at any time during my gaming life. More than Mario, more than Zelda, more than Master Chief, this little impish orb with eyes has been my constant since I was first introduced to the game by my girlfriend (now wife) in 2012. I was instantly enamored with the 2008 cult hit’s simple, accessible mechanics (optimal for a casual gamer like me), bright colors, catchy music and ostensibly social justice-y plot. Continue Reading →

Self-organisation in Video Games:

Political Message v Political Possibilities

Marijam Didzgalvyte

In the above comment on hackaday.com, commenter “matt” is referring to [Masterjun]’s (going by “true” on this message thread) hack, Total Control. In it, the games Pong and Snake were recreated within Super Mario World (1990), using what appeared to be random controller commands. In fact, they were frame-specific inputs exploiting various bugs to alter the source code on an original SNES running an unaltered game cartridge, all done live at the Awesome Games Done Quick 2013 event. Taking into account the very limited resources available, [Masterjun]’s effort in highlighting the flexibility of this medium is remarkable; simply by manipulating known input glitches, [Masterjun] changed the game as we know it. Continue Reading →