Watching and Waiting to Die: Our Fascination with Five Nights at Freddy's

Another post put together rather hurriedly, but I have had a copy of Five Nights at Freddy's sitting on my hard drive for a long time and I knew it was something I could get through quickly enough to write something about.

While I'm not quite as pleased with this as I was with yesterday's post, I do think the ideas about horror and the senses along with the notion of only being able to exercise one's senses in this game being its dominant source of horror is interesting enough (to me at least).

One way or the other, at least I have a better sense of what this game that I've heard various things about for the last year or so is doing to and for its pretty wide ranging audience.

Watching and Waiting to Die: Our Fascination with Five Nights at Freddy's

“Footsteps in Movies” and Other Strange Notions about the Authenticity of Media

So, I'm totally scrambling for something to write about the other night. So, I say to my wife, "I just need a good quote to riff on."

I grab a copy of Chuck Palahniuk's Doomed and find a great quote, but it would work better for an article on The Talos Principle, and I haven't finished that yet.

I go back to the bookshelf and pull down Point Omega by Don Delillo, and I find a brief conversation about "footsteps in movies."

What results is the following essay, an essay that I'm pretty pleased with that considers how authenticity is established and challenged by our expectations about media.

“Footsteps in Movies” and Other Strange Notions about the Authenticity of Media

Moving Pixels Podcast: White Night, White Noir

I love high contrast aesthetics. Beauty is contrast.

But as I wrote about in March, there is more to like about White Night than just that, though.

Moving Pixels Podcast: White Night, White Noir

Love Is Attention: The Spectacle of Kitty Powers' Matchmaker

Dating sims and drag queens.

Kind of fascinated with Kitty Powers' Matchmaker. My article doesn't do justice to the interesting way that systems are layered on one another in the game to represent courtship activities.

This is one of those games that gets at one of my pet interests, the way relationships might or might not be successfully represented through game systems. Again, though, I didn't get into enough of the specifics here to fully flesh out what is so interesting about the mechanisms in the game.

All that being said, the game is bit like playing Farmville in its casual approach to gameplay, that is, if Farmville had a a lot more drag queens in it, so it isn't like it's the deepest thing in the world on its surface at least.

Love Is Attention: The Spectacle of Kitty Powers' Matchmaker

Until now you've largely conceived of your earthly body as a human-shaped utensil you use for having sex. Or for gobbling up Halloween candy. Yes, your fleshy self is the application which allows you to interface with automobile steering wheels, teams of oxen, embroidery hoops, trained dolphins, hair spray, cricket bats, rectal thermometers, hot-stone massage therapists, saltine crackers, Chanel No. 5, poison ivy, contact lenses, prostitutes, wristwatches, riptides, tapeworms, electric chairs, chili peppers, oncologists, roller coasters, tanning beds, meth, and cute hats. In addition your body is the canvas needed to express yourself to the world. At the very least, it's the only avenue that allows for acquiring a truly rad tattoo.

One of the Most Toxic Communities in Online Gaming is Having a Pool Party

How a pool party might lead to better sportsmanship in online gaming:

One of the Most Toxic Communities in Online Gaming is Having a Pool Party

Life Is Strange: The Selfie As a Game

I started playing the first episode of Life is Strange when it came out. I played the first few minutes and turned it off. The opening scene, a typical weirdly artificial classroom scene chalk full of silly dialogue, completely put me off.

So I fired it up again Tuesday night and actually went the distance. I liked it, especially once I realized how similar the protagonist's obsession with selfies as her artistic genre of choice paralleled the rewinding mechanic of the game.

Both the selfie and the ability to rewind time in social interactions are related. They have something to do with attempting to perfect one's representation of the self for the world.

Here's more thoughts on this idea:

Life Is Strange: The Selfie As a Game

Review: Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville

My favorite city management sim... with zombies:

Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville

Moving Pixels Podcast: Questioning the Context of Video Games

Would like to say something more about this podcast, but I had a hard time writing even a brief intro/summary for it on PopMatters. I just don't recall the conversation that well, so you'll just have to listen to it yourself.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Questioning the Context of Video Games

A Pre-Raphaelite that I don't know

How odd.

Frederick Sandys, Love's Shadow, 1867.

So much depends upon a bite.

Sunset Is a Tale of Objects

Interesting, but hard to recommend.

Sunset Is a Tale of Objects