Critical Hits: An Indie Gaming Anthology by Zoë Jellicoe

Critical Hits: An Indie Gaming Anthology Reviews

• 
  Kalin

  Impressions:
  
  ~ Holly Gramazio's "Two Cities" highlights an important aspect of games:
  
  

  I started thinking about games in cities because they helped make me feel at home, in a place that was big and distant and strange, and did not care about me.
  Brains are so easy to trick: because we usually only play when we feel safe and at home, engaging fully in a game can make us feel like we must be safe – or else why would we be playing?

  
  
  ~ Thanks to Zoë Jellicoe's "Being-In-The-World and Playful Digital Environments" for pointing me to
  Kentucky Route Zero.
  
  ~ Dámhín McKeown's "Moms in Games: Immaterial Loving Labour" raises an excellent point:
  
  

  Although there has been a vocal push for gender diversity in games, mothers remain an afterthought. While fathers (and surrogate father figures) can lead a story, from Joel in The Last of Us to Booker DeWitt in BioShock: Infinite, mothers remain in the background; understood not as roles to play, but as mechanics that make play more comfortable. In a culture that sees nurturing as an innate female characteristic, domestic and caregiving work is rendered invisible, and thus uncompensated. Where fathers can be defined by their loss and determination, mothers remain steadfast as the face of transcendental domestic automation.

  
  
  I wonder if part of the reason is that fathers (being men) are generally more supportive of gaming (since we boys don't outgrow it so fast--if at all ;) than mothers. When I was a kid, my dad was a secret (or not-so-secret) ally for another round of
  F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 or Heroes of Might and Magic II, while my mom was the one to nag and send us to bed. Which one would be easier to incorporate as your trusty sidekick?
  
  I've also started questioning my own "design choices," in the stories I write. (To be fair, I have a story in the
  Heroes and villains cycle where my mom plays an important part. Then again, have I been really fair to her representation in that story? Ouch, there we go ....)
  
  ~ Hear, hear:
  
  

  ‘I don’t want to be called bossy but I am the boss and I want to be in charge. How can women negotiate being the boss without being hated?’ asks Stone. When I read this I thought of an antithetical experience to Stone’s, where I took a journey with my father shortly after he first got a navigational system for his car. The computerised woman’s voice repeatedly told him to turn around, remapping his route as he drove defiantly in the wrong direction. When I asked him why he wasn’t listening to the directions, he replied: ‘What does she know? She’s a woman.’ This knee-jerk reaction to women who exert authority is so deep that it can be elicited even by navigational systems.
• 
  Paul J

  Like all anthologies, some essays will hit and others miss depending on your preferences. Overall an enjoyable read, the last two essays in particular (on the benefits and risks of procedural generation, and an examination of narrative perspectives and the need for diversity).
• 
  Andrey Kurenkov

  This is a short collection of 10 essays about indie games circa 2016, and one I mostly enjoyed. Though there are misses - I thought 2 of the essays were plainly bad, in argumentation as well as writing - most of the essays work and are informative, entertaining, or just interesting. A crowdfunded effort (one I backed), it skews far more towards simple to understand rather than academic-style essays, making it easily readable and quick to get through. Still, it does cover unexpected ground - even as a person who keeps up with indie games and games criticism, I discovered many new types of games and thoughts about games. For that, for its readability, for its good and varid selection of authors, and for its clearly-passion-project nature, this is worth a read.
• 
  Elise

  Fantastic collection of essays. I would recommend it in a heartbeat particularly for game lovers, video game scholars or the digital culture curious.