SpaceWolves is a board game developed by myself, Samantha Vick, and Mike Sennott, as part of our "Up the River" variation assignment for Tracy Fullerton's class. For anyone who might be curious or want to play it, we've decided to post up the rules and the panels so you can download it and make it yourself!
Here's what you need to do:
Continue reading "SpaceWolves (even space isn't safe... from wolves)" »
Supposedly, old surveys (as nearly impossible as it is to get data on this sort of thing - but I'm going by what Henry Jenkins told me) have said that around 90% of fanfiction is written by women. I'm rather curious as to why this is, since fanfiction has been a large part of my experience with fandoms and my practice as a writer. I know that men also discuss fandom, and participate in it, so why not this avenue as well?
I tried to discuss this topic with my boyfriend, and found that before we could have a reasonable debate on the subject, I had to dig down and consider why women write fanfiction to begin with. So let's look at our terms here. Why DO women write fanfiction? What do we get out of it? I think there are basically three categories.
Backchannel archive for 10/07/09: guest Julia Heyward
Continue reading "Interactive Media Seminar - Backchannel Transcript 10/07/09" »
It's a legitimate question, and one that seems to be coming up a lot in one of my classes: how much agency do we really want in a media experience? Certainly we want some if we're expecting a game; without any at all, then we might as well just be watching a movie. But is more agency necessarily better? How much is too much? Is there even such a thing?
Some thoughts on the eXistenZ movie, for reference in class. (Warning: contains spoilers.)
Well, since everyone else is doing it... here's my analysis of legos as a system.
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR "SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS," "PORTAL," AND "CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE."
So I've been thinking recently about emotional experiences I've had playing games, and what causes them. Games, especially good games, have given me quite a few to consider. In "Portal," for instance, I've had moments of genuine laughter, and of genuine panic and fear. Games have given me and others moments of real sadness, and a very real feeling of achieving victory. So what is it about these games that can make me feel so much? Emotional experiences in gaming, I've found, tend to break down into two categories, according to cause: those caused by narrative elements, and those caused by game elements.
From now on, I'm going to be posting both to this blog, and to my blogspot account, GamEstrogen. If you're interested in what I've written previously, however, including the research I did for my game narrative paper, you can find my older posts here: http://gamestrogen.blogspot.com.