Category Archives: Symposium

Symposium, 4 October 2018: Narrative as game–an experiment

Posted on September 30, 2018 by

As I mentioned at the last symposium, I’m hoping to push forward our conversation around talking about games, stories, and performance with an experimental ruleset. So I’m hoping that before Thursday night (and we’ll take ten minutes to do this … Continue reading →

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Symposium: Inside, September 6, 2016

Posted on September 2, 2018 by

This month’s Symposium will be on the game Inside.  Pat will be leading the discussion; here’s some thoughts from him to kick us off: Playdead’s INSIDE is a platformer/horror game that tells a story without a single word of dialogue.  … Continue reading →

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Symposium, August 2nd: Earthbound and Faith in Video Games

Posted on July 30, 2018 by

One of the earliest pieces of “serious” games criticism that I can remember reading on the internet was a sprawl of text from Tim Rogers about Earthbound, a role-playing game released for the Super Nintendo in 1995. Pinballing wildly from … Continue reading →

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Symposium: Night in the Woods, June 7, 2018

Posted on June 3, 2018 by

Night in the Woods (2017) asks us to consider the mundane life of a college drop-out. The banal day-to-day of a small town. Until, that is, it doesn’t. It is the story of returning to a small midwestern town and … Continue reading →

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Symposium: The Last Guardian, May 3, 2018

Posted on April 29, 2018 by

For our May Symposium, we’ll be talking about The Last Guardian.  I imagine we’ll spend a fair amount of time comparing the game with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, but I’m particularly interested in talking about Trico, comparing them … Continue reading →

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Symposium, February 1st: Universal Paperclips (and Incremental Games)

Posted on January 29, 2018 by

Everything. Everything in its right place. The system has a task. A task and a purpose. For incremental games like Universal Paperclips, that task and that purpose becomes our own as we become both the rules of the system and … Continue reading →

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Symposium: Undertale, January 4, 2018

Posted on December 30, 2017 by

For our January symposium, we will be discussing Undertale (2015). Available on Steam, GoG, and PSN, Undertale (2015) turns many conventions and assumptions about the RPG genre upside-down and inside-out. Offering the ability to end conflicts through “Mercy” options and … Continue reading →

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