Moving Pixels Podcast: 2011 Flash Game Round Up

We haven't talked about "little games" for awhile on the podcast, so I offered a few flash titles up that I have written about in the last few months to get Tom and Nick's perspective on them. They are all titles that I like for various reasons.

I think that it ended up being a pretty good discussion.

Moving Pixels Podcast: 2011 Flash Game Round Up

Defining Our Relationship to the Software: Jonas Kyratzes's Alphaland

Alphaland is an intriguing little Flash title from Jonas Kyratzes. Unlike the many titles that suggest an antagonistic relationship between ourselves and the systems that we play in, Alphaland looks at a more positive relationship between the two. It doesn't take long to play and really should be played before you read about it.

Defining Our Relationship to the Software: Jonas Kyratzes's Alphaland

Review: DodoGo! Robo

Funny name for a game. A decent puzzler. Not great, not terrible. But it's only two bucks on the DSi.

I'll have a blog post on a Flash game called Alphaland a little later on today. It's kind of interesting.

DodoGo! Robo

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Conversation from a Critical Distance

I really like what Ben Abraham and company do over at Critical Distance. It is my weekly newsletter of what is going on in smart video game writing, and I appreciate that these folks are willing sort out the links so that I don't have to, which is why we wanted to sit down with Ben (along with Critical Distance contributor, Eric Swain) to talk a little bit about how they do what they do and how they conceive of the current state of game criticism. Interestingly, all of this took place right before the "Dan Cook" incident last week, in which Cook called Critical Distance and the critical community out. So while we don't address Cook (since the discussion pre-dates his posting), it may speak in some way to that debate.

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Conversation from a Critical Distance

Moving Pixels Podcast: Stepping Forward into Portal 2

Heading into finals, I am absolutely swamped with work this week, so I'm taking another brief break from my Wednesday posting. However, since I forgot to mention it on Monday, I should mention that we discussed Portal 2 on this week's podcast.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Stepping Forward into Portal 2

Review: The Next Big Thing

On Monday, I posted a review of a rather solid point-and-click adventure by Pendulo Games. It has charm. Fans of the genre should probably check it out.

One of the game's writers e-mailed me this morning and was really pleased that I mentioned magical realism in the review, as he said that he had been reading Borges's "The Aleph" and some of his other stories while the game was in the pre-production stages and that he had avoided overtly referring to some of his literary influences in order to avoid appearing "snobbish." I was really gratified that he liked the review and that I managed to pick up on its influences.

The game has a really quirky plot, and I mean that in a good way.

More here:

Review: The Next Big Thing

“Her Name Is Caroline”: Identifying the Misbehaving Woman in Portal 2

Another day and still no dollars.

My latest post over at the Moving Pixels blog is available though. I still have Portal 2 on the brain (still need a partner for co-op though--my one possible partner got shut out by the PSN hack unfortunately).

Last week I discussedsome of the treatment of power dynamics in Portal 2's "politics of stupidity," while this week I really felt like talking a bit about GLaDOS's origins and the implications of the Caroline persona on who and what GLaDOS is and has become.

You can find those thoughts here:

“Her Name Is Caroline”: Identifying the Misbehaving Woman in Portal 2

Moving Pixels Podcast: Everyone Is the Champion of Kirkwall

This podcast was inevitable.

Given the amount of interest that Dragon Age II generated among Moving Pixels bloggers in March, we had to get together and talk about it.

That discussion can be found here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Everyone Is the Champion of Kirkwall