[Cross-posted to Doubt is an Art.] This past Wednesday, the Lunch Zone explored Parallax, a stark and yet somehow intimate puzzle game. The resolute black and white imagery, the abstract and icon-marked shapes, and sense of containment from being apparently… Continue Reading
Serious Play August 16, 2019 In the room: Nathan Humpal (playing), Kelly Brajevich This week, the Lunch Zoners played Playtonic Games’ 2017 platformer Yooka–Laylee, which borrows off nostalgia from the developer’s previous experiences creating the cult classic N64 title, Banjo-Kazooie… Continue Reading
Serious Play August 7, 2019 In the room: Nathan Humpal (playing), Kelly Brajevich, Josh Rivers, Thomas Malaby; online: Serious_Play, GameScholar, ludologue, and one other. It’s August and the academics are warming up for the start of seminar season three weeks… Continue Reading
For the final week of July, we decided to take a break from our summer-long play of Witcher III and play Baba is You. In this week’s playthrough, I was joined by anthropology professor, Thomas Malaby, as we observed English PhD student, Erik Kersting, play.… Continue Reading
Serious Play was born from minds with mixed sets of interest. Between us we are librarian, anthropologists, media scholars and creative writers. We are interested in games and play, analog and digital, indy and AAA, puzzles and adventures, E-sports and… Continue Reading
[Cross-posted to Doubt is an Art.] Continuing our summer of the The Witcher III, last Wednesday we kept moving through the game, taking on the “talking pigs” quest. In the course of doing so, we were presented with an array… Continue Reading
While watching Nathan’s latest foray into the world of The Witcher III, I’m struck by the game’s expansive space. This last session opens with Geralt standing at a crossroads: a seemingly apt metaphor for the genre of open-world games. “What… Continue Reading
[Cross-posted to Doubt is an Art.] Nathan, Kelly, and I were joined by Kelly’s sister Caitlin for July 3rd’s episode of the Lunchzone, where we continued our playing through of The Witcher III (find Stuart’s write-up of our Jun19th session… Continue Reading
By Nathan Humpal, Metadata Librarian A curious thing has been happening while playing The Witness on “The Cat’s Moustache.” As the game progresses I find my puzzle-solving becoming more and more tactile. The Witness’ early puzzles are deceptively simple, as it… Continue Reading
By Kelly Brajevich PhD Student, Doctors & Dungeon Masters DM One time, my mom and I were driving in a blizzard. I was behind the wheel when I noticed a car in the opposite direction had lost control and was skidding… Continue Reading