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Editorial

Samuel Poirier-Poulin — 2023-03-31

Editorial for the April 2023 issue.

Becoming Halfling

Mark Hines — 2023-03-20

Livestreamed play of tabletop games affords a new medium for analysis of racialization for game studies. For Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (Multiple authors, 2014) actual plays, audiences can engage with racialized narratives in underappreciated ways. The actual play Critical Role (Critical Role, 2012-present) employs players’ knowledge of the genre of high fantasy to create collaborative, improvisational narratives which delve into themes of racism and bigotry. This dynamic often leads players to draw on real world political narratives and discourses in order to engage audiences’ prior knowledge and examine pertinent themes. This paper analyses one such example in the case of Nott the Brave, a character in Critical Role’s popular second campaign. Nott’s narrative arc, taking place over several hundred hours of gameplay, is a site of racialized play, problematizing simple narratives of representation and identity. This article employs textual analysis and semiotics in examining Nott’s racialization as a Goblin character. I draw heavily on Jenkins’s (2004) notion of gameplay as narrative architecture in considering the limits that racialized play allows the cast of Critical Role. In doing so, I offer insights into how tabletop roleplaying games actual plays might add nuance to debates surrounding narrative and gameplay in roleplaying games, especially as it relates to narratives of White supremacy and domination.

Lost in a Dream

Elliot Bear Yu — 2023-02-26

This article investigates the opportunities for queer play in Yume Nikki (KIKIYAMA, 2004) by examining the spatial and temporal dimensions of the game’s “Dream World” alongside its narrative. Using surreal visuals and counterintuitive layouts, Yume Nikki’s game maps evoke queer experiences of space, movement, and wandering. In addition, the game encourages wandering through the absence of temporally ordered events and the game’s general lack of interest in timekeeping. The game’s construction promotes a play style that highlights aspects of queer experiences including disorientation and failure. The player’s aimless roaming through time and space are not a failure to master the game, but another way Yume Nikki celebrates queerness and rejects the values of mainstream success, fun, and play.

Doki Doki Subversion Club!

Matthew Scott Allan — 2023-03-24

This article investigates the visual novel and dating simulator Doki Doki Literature Club! (Team Salvato, 2017) and examines the unique potential of video games as a media form to produce uncanny, gothic, and abject horror texts. In DDLC!, these modes of horror are manifested through “game breaking” mechanics, such as purposeful glitches and moments where the boundaries of the operating system are transgressed. Through this transgression, the game haunts the player’s computer, and by extension, their home. This haunting is achieved through unique aspects of the video game medium as well as the ubiquitous nature of digital technology present in our daily lives and domestic spaces.

Review: Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons

Michael Iantorno — 2023-02-14

Review: Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, by Jon Peterson. 2021. The MIT Press. xii + 386 pp.

Review: Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics

Florence Smith Nicholls — 2023-04-01

Review: Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics, by Jacob Gaboury. 2021. The MIT Press. 295 pp.

Review: Perspectives on the European Videogame

Andre Cowen — 2023-02-14

Review: Perspectives on the European Videogame, edited by Victor Navarro-Remesal and Óliver Pérez-Latorre. 2021. Amsterdam University Press. 236 pp.

Review: Play Like A Feminist

Beatrix Livesey-Stephens — 2023-04-01

Review: Play Like A Feminist, by Shira Chess. 2020. MIT Press. 165 pp.

Review: Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification

Courtney Blamey — 2023-04-01

Review: Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification, by Patrick Jagoda. 2020. The University of Chicago Press. xi + 386 pp.

Review: Ethics of Computer Gaming

Rebecca Grose — 2023-04-01

Review: Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork, by Samuel Ulbricht. 2022. Palgrave Macmillan. xvii + 111 pp.

Review: Digital Playground: The Hidden Politics of Children’s Online Play Spaces, Virtual Worlds and Connected Games

Doruk Balcı — 2023-04-01

Review: Digital Playgrounds: The Hidden Politics of Children’s Online Play Spaces, Virtual Worlds and Connected Games, by Sara Grimes. 2021. University of Toronto Press. vii + 358 pp

Review: Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Game-Based Learning

Alexander Hurezeanu — 2023-04-01

Review: Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Game-Based Learning, by Emily K. Johnson and Anastasia Salter. 2022. Routledge. xiii + 164 pp.

Review: Game: Animals, Video Games, and Humanity

Elizabeth Neumann — 2023-04-01

Review: Game: Animals, Video Games, and Humanity, by Tom Tyler. 2022. University of Minnesota Press. 224 pp.

Review: Digital Games After Climate Change

David ten Cate — 2023-04-01

Review: Digital Games After Climate Change, by Benjamin J. Abraham. 2022. Palgrave Macmillan. xv + 254 pp.