#clockwork worlds

Thanks to everyone who read my stuff and especially to people who gave me good, critical feedback, who pushed me, and who encouraged me to keep at it. That's... a lot of you. Seriously. I tried writing a version of this list that thanks you all by name and it just went and went and went. You know who you are.

There are a few specific folks who I need to thank by name, though. 

Janine Hawkins and Art Tebbel have had my back for a LONG minute now, and have both helped me struggle through writing, thinking, and a million other (much more personal) things. Art, whenever I get an IM from you with a question mark at the end, I know we're about to have a good convo. Janine, you are my absolute best friend, and every piece I've written this year has been made better by your keen eye and devotion to clarity in writing (It's killing me that I can't send this to you so that you can hep me tighten it up.) Thank you both so much for your love and support, I can only hope to be as great to you as you are to me. 

Jack de Quidt, it's weird to think we only internet-met just last year because it's already so hard to imagine a life-without-Jack. I'm so excited for all of the projects we have up in the air. In 2015 let's finish at least two of them.

Maddy Myers, thank you so much for reaching out to me back in April (May?) to write about Twitch for Paste, and then Cameron Kunzelman for opening the door a little bit more for me by writing with me there, and finally to Garrett Martin for saying yes to pitches that were shot down elsewhere. (Yes, including that big one.) I'm so proud of Paste Games this year.

Keith Carberry, you (and Jack's outstanding music) built the aesthetic sound for Friends at the Table, and Nick Sondgeroth, you picked up the baton when life got in the way. You're both great. And Ali and Andrew and Art and Jack for letting me record them being big nerds every week. Playing an RPG well is about being productively vulnerable--broadcasting that to strangers is no easy feat. 

Phil, we'll figure out how to do this StreamFriends thing one of these days. Maybe. Probably? Yeah probably. 

Delilah, Lucas, Gita. Y'all think I'm joking when I say that y'all keep me honest. I'm not joking even a little.

Carly & Bret: I wish I could see you more. Every conversation I have with you both turns into a thing I think about and obsess over for... months. Until finally it turns into a thing I write about. Thanks. Can I crash on your couch again soon?

DanJo, you fin to make a real academic outta me. And Ian's gonna keep me radicalized.

Warren, teaching for you (and just hanging out with you) this year has deeply affected the way I think and write in a major way. Seriously.

And hey, if you're one of my students and are reading this: you too.

And of course: all my parents, for letting me do me. I'll tell the same stories til I die: Mom, you taught me that words could be fun; Dad, you and I spent so many weekends when I was a kid watching movies and writing out reviews on those yellow legal pads.

Everyone comes from somewhere. So even if you aren't on this list, you're on this list.

So, first and foremost, I've been incredibly lucky to be able to write for Garrett Martin and Maddy Myers over at Paste! I've been able to put out some reviews, some essays, and even some industry reporting. If you read one of my pieces on Paste this year, it should probably be "Real Human Beings: Shadow of Mordor, Watch Dogs, and the New NPC," in which I think through violence, race, and dynamic narratives.

There are some clear connective tissues between that piece and two of my recent reviews: "Far Cry 4: Content Is King," which also touches on the politics of virtual tourism, and "The Crew: Postcard America," in which I develop the idea of the “new” power fantasy, which I argue is about attaining power more than having it.

I also was able to write a few pieces for Paste on the games industry itself this year. In "Working for the Love of the Game," my pal Ian Williams and I critiqued the ideological deployment of "passion" in games industry hiring and culture, specifically taking Blizzard to task for a recent recruitment video.

Building off of a great piece by Maddy Myers, I also wrote up an interview I had with a few Twitch execs in "The Rise of Twitch.tv" I love livestreaming, but I'm a bit critical of some of Twitch's practices, and I hope that criticism like mine pushes them to develop their service in the best way possible. (For a look at some of my more academic thoughts about live streaming, check out "Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming, which ran in an opinon piece of Surveillance and Society.)

My thoughts on games were not limited to Paste, though. I did a bit of traditional blogging too! I thought through permanance and EVE Online in "The Flickering of a Starship Graveyard" (which needs an update after a recent patch!)

In “Min-Maxing Criticism,” I contributed to a discussion started by Stephen Beirne about the relationship between late capitalism and “leveling up” in games. My takeaway? It’s complicated and requires more attention.

And I finally got to write about Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms game series in "For the Weekend," which appeared in a special issue of Zoya Street's excellent Memory Insufficent zine focused on labour and history in games.

EDIT: Well, two big things have happened since posting this. First: A top ten list of my favorite games of 2014 went up over at Giant Bomb. Second, I was named Blogger of the Year by Critical Distance! Thank You. Seriously.

My blogging was not limited to games, either. Over the past few months, I shared some writing I did in the face of the injustices in Ferguson, MO and Staten Island, NY. First, “A short lecture on trauma, the stories we tell, and Ferguson” was the final lecture I gave my students this year--they responded well to it, I think, and I hope it can be helpful for those of us still processing the events of this year. Second, “Did We Put Enough Work In? On Black Masculinity, Disability, and Modes of Resistance” was written as a response to a talk about the rapper and actor Drake, and tries to address the killing of Eric Garner by Daniel Panteleo, keeping the questions of race and disability at the forefront.

Though games weren’t the only thing on my mind this year, I did release my first game ever this year! A(s)century is a cyberpunk game about... well… Go play it, then buy the incredible soundtrack by Scott Hallam, give artist Steve Kim a shoutout, and read what Andrew Vestal, Mark Filipowich, and Porpentine thought about it!

I also launched a podcast called Friends at the Table. It’s an “actual play” podcast, which is tabletop jargon for Let’s Play (sort of kind of.) I’m running a Dungeon World campaign, with a world designed specifically to challenge the archetypes and tropes of traditional Tolkien-esque fantasy settings. We’re just over a dozen episodes in now, so check us out!

EDIT: Oh! I was also a guest on a a bunch of podcasts this year! I joined the folks at IndieMegacast to talk about The Yawhg, Corrypt, Black Ice, and 80 Days. Joe convinced me to do a fantasy-football style draft of Sega Genesis games with some other great guests for On The Stick. And I was so warmly welcomed by Justice Points!

Finally, I’ve spent a lot of time this year live streaming games over at Twitch.tv/StreamFriends. Along with 14 other really rad folks, I’ve been streaming a whole mess of games. It’s hard to even know where to start but…

If you want to watch Polygon’s Phil Kollar, me, and a bunch of other great folks grumble our way through Beyond: Two Souls, well, you can do that.

If you want to watch a five hour long journey into absurdity and bad car physics, watch Janine Hawkins and I roadtrip through The Crew: Part 1 and Part 2.

If weird, prompted sci-fi story writing is more your speed, you should watch my friend Jack de Quidt and I play through Elegy for a Dead World.

Finally, if you want to hear me give a dramatic reading of super bourgie sock and hat ad copy, well, I… Well. Just… Just click here already.

So. 2015. What’s the plan?

Well, first: I love what Garrett and Maddy have been putting together over at Paste, and I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to be part of that. So look forward to (much) more of me on Paste in the coming year.

Second, more Friends at the Table. Maybe even a special episode where Jack and I show off the story game we’ve been working on this year? Maybe even a special livestream on StreamFriends?

Third, more StreamFriends. Stuff is popping off behind the scenes right now, and I’m hopeful that we can continue to produce good stuff and offer a safe space for folks to come, hang out, and have a good time. I’m committed to sharing joy.

Fourth, super important dissertation work. I’m really hitting do or die time now, so if I vanish from social media for long periods of time, this is why. I won’t lie: I’m putting this here to keep me honest.

Fifth: I don’t know! Right now I’m juggling job applications, more freelance writing opportunities, revamping bits of A(s)century for a stand-alone re-release, and a bunch of other stuff. Think I’d be a good fit for something you’re working on? Lemme know!

Lying About Summer: I started up with a post about a specific play session of Tales of Tales' Bientôt l’été. It's a meandering, personal piece, but given the game's thematic focus I think that might be appropriate

"It's Complicated," or Why I Like Roguelikes: I got it into my head last year that a thing I could do was use the "review" format as an excuse to talk about topics broader than just the game in question. Here, mobile game Dungeon Plunder gave me an excuse to analyze my own love of the Procedural Death Labyrinth (née roguelike), and anything that gives me an excuse to talk about the Shiren The Wanderer is a good thing in my eyes.

"Slaughter By Spreadsheet": In the weeks after Adam Lanza's horrific actions at Sandy Hook, the question of video game violence arose again, as it often does after incidents like this. Here, I struggle against the gut reaction to say "No, killers are just mad men," and look for a way to leverage critique of the culture at large instead of just at games. Put simply: maybe the reason Adam Lanza kept a "score sheet" is that, as in gamification, there are underlying logics that demand quantification, encourage rationalization, and always-already make us reduce the other.

A Click and a Promise: Even Cowgirls Bleed and the Problem of Precision: The problem I reference in the title is that certain technologies force precision, restricting the use of "fuzzy" interactivity that counts on player input not totally matching player intention.

She’s a waitress, a teacher, a banker, and a saleswoman: SimCity’s Hidden Curriculum: Drawing on Paul Starr's critique of "black box" simulations, and on a Belle & Sebastian lyric about a waitress with style, I consider the underlying assumptions that SimCity (2013) holds to be true. Among them: that wealth and education level are the only characteristics of a SimCity inhabitant that aren't constantly in flux.

Papers Please and the Borders of Game Literacy: Writing on the Papers, Please beta, I consider the ways in which game criticism--and games--would be improved by asking questions other than "is this fun?" or "how do I win?" Underlying this is a basic, optimistic premise: I think game players (people, really, I guess) are capable of performing specific, elucidating critique of the media in our lives, so long as we're pushed to do so. Of course, we're nearly never given that push...

Bioshock Infinite Essay Series: There's a chance that if you read my work, it's because of one of these three pieces. I collected them at that link for ease of access, but here's the elevator pitch on each of them:

In On and Off the Rails: The Problem of Player Agency in Post-Bioshock Games, I build on work done by Brendon Keogh and Cameron Kunzelman, discussing "roller coaster" game design, Kentucky Route Zero, and "choosing the wallpaper" (also, skyrails~).

I Can See My House From Here: Bioshock Infinite, Nostalgia, and The Uncanny interweaves analysis of Elizabeth's problematic belief in the "Good Old Days" with post-Hurricane Sandy remembrances of my youth on the boardwalk.

Finally, This Is Not An Agent: Bioshock Infinite’s Elizabeth Problem, outlines one of my biggest beefs with the game: its reduction of Elizabeth, the character, into a mess of passive mechanics with no power besides supporting the player.

State of Decay: Filling in the Gaps: My (not so) secret favorite game of the year, State of Decay, won me over because it let me tell stories like the one I in this piece. By giving me a collection of "regular" people, creating systems to support and leverage "character traits" ranging from shaky confidence, to old knee injuries, to a love of movies, SoD let me patch together little narratives of people just getting by. I really, really need to check out that DLC...

Me, On The Screen: Race in Animal Crossing: New Leaf: Again, if you read my stuff, this might be why. Here, I look at the absurd, opaque "tanning" system in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, mastery of which is the only way I was able to make the my avatar look like me--a real problem in a game that's ostensibly about player expression. This analysis comes with context, as I spend time describing my experience as black boy in America, coming to terms with what my race meant I could and couldn't be, if my media products had anything to say about it. I don't mean to boast, but damn if I don't brag, this is probably the thing I am most proud of in my life. So many people reached out to thank me for this piece, and they weren't all PoC. Many women and LGBTQ folks told me how much their experience mapped (in important, though not total ways) to mine. I even got a number of straight, cis, white dudes telling me that finally they got privilege. If you haven't read this piece, please do.

Getting A Little Wonder Back: I realize that the games I like best are the ones that really make me feel like I'm collaborating with the designers (and, when applicable, other players too.) Obviously all games do this to some degree, but in this piece I call out a few that specifically hone in on this: tabletop games Apocalypse World and Dog Eat Dog, State of Decay (as noted above), and Cube World.

A Disputed History: Attack of the Friday Monsters and the Kaiju Genre: It is very hard to walk the line between the mundane and the magical, but Attack of the Friday Monsters does it incredibly well. More, it does it in a way that (I argue) confronts the history of the kaiju genre, reenacting the moment where it transitions from concerns about community and ecology and towards the goal of establishing optimism and individualism. This game should not be ignored. It puts in work.

The Transgression - You Can Do Better: In probably the most read thing on my blog, I uncover the unspoken, grim, yet ultimately hopeful history of abuse in Gone Home's Greenbriar family. I didn't want to write this piece, but I'm glad I did, because I think I did a good job of doing more than just laying out the facts of the case. And straight up, writing this was hard: it meant considering disgusting things actively, instead of receiving knowledge of them passively with a sober acceptance. It transformed how I view that house, and even though I think the ending to this story is about flourishing in your survival, I still never want to return to that fucking basement. This is a strange piece for me for another, neurotic reason too: Narrative explication just isn't the sort of thing I want to do. I want to get good at writing about game systems, industry institutions and their relation to features of late capitalism, and the way play makes meaning. Analyzing game stories has a definitely place in those goals, but the basic laying out of plot details seems somehow a step too far away. And yet... The Fullbright Company made a game in Gone Home that deserved that attention, that demanded I type up the damn thing I'd figured out. And in a real sense, this too is about a sort of play, because very no other game--no other work in any medium--has given me an experience so dreadful, so draining.

Book Review: Quests, for First Person Scholar: Soon after my Gone Home piece, Michael Hancock from FPS reached out to me to see if I'd be willing to do a book review for them--suggesting I take a look at Quests by Jeff Howard. I did and, well, I had some issues. Walking the line between theoretical examination and practical guide for game-making, Howard vacillates between two points. In the first, he is determined to teach readers to analyze how games make meanings through goal-making, asset design, and narrative. In the second position, he suggests that "the quest"--of Arthur, of Joseph Campbell--is the best (sometimes only) way of doing these things, dismissing whole genres as "meaningless" in the process.

You Are A Receiver: I spent a year and a half reading about how Receiver was a game that simulated all of the mechanical intricacies of firing a gun. When I finally got around to playing it, though, I found a lot of other qualities worth writing about. Chief among these, the way Receiver was able to scare the hell out of me.

The Flickering of a Starship Graveyard: In the wake of the Battle of B-R5RB, EVE Online's most massive battle (by some calculations), developer's CCP Games decided to erect a permanent monument in the sector--a collection of Titan wrecks, the dead husks of the games most massive ships. My problem with this is that it moves some of the authorship of EVE out of player hands and into CCP's. Let the wrecks made in the battle stay until they are scavenged, I argue. Making anything permanent seems contrary to the whole enterprise.

So, that's year one of Clockwork Worlds. 16 pieces, which, if I'm being honest, is both more than I thought I'd do and also not enough. Hopefully this year I can produce a few things I'm just as proud of--and maybe a few more things overall, too.

Finally, I can't end this without saying thank you to everyone who supported me this year. And yes, I mean this thanks to go to the many of you who contributed to the Indiegogo my friends set up to build me a new PC, but also to those who just read my junk, who watch those live streams I mentioned, and who engage with me here and on Twitter. You all know who you are.