Lumino City is an award-winning game made by State of Play Games that explores the ins and outs of a beautifully hand-built world. To succeed in the game, the player must use investigative skills to work their way through the different machines and processes that structure the city. Through its handcrafted design, the game stimulates the player’s creative side and strives to promote the creation of sustainable energy through the use of reusable objects.
Played as a serious game, Ndemic Creations’ Plague Inc. effectively incorporates these elements to underscore its purpose as a game designed to inform players about disease transmission and pandemic culture. Plague Inc. is a single-player video game in which the player takes on the role of a disease and attempts to infect and eliminate the entire global population.
Designed by Lucas Pope, Papers, Please (2013) is a border-security simulator in which the player is “assigned to the Ministry of Admission in the war-torn dystopian nation of Arstotzka” (Pope 2012). While the player carries out their daily duties of verifying passports and identities, they put their meager earnings towards providing for their family and paying down their debt. As the days pass, players are presented with more and more responsibilities—bribe offers, pleas, and threats—as the State of Arstotzka demands disciplined performance from its employees and pays only by person processed. No time can be wasted in the 12-hour work day, lest the player fail to earn enough to support their family.
The world of Little Nightmares is——frankly——disturbing. With every open door, players are forced to uncover the secrets of this uncanny world for themselves——all while facing grotesque enemies and environments. As we work our way through this analysis of Little Nightmares, we will take a closer look at its disturbing fictional world, distorted sounds and graphics, grotesque characters and settings, and darkness——allowing a fresh focus on stealth——to give players a truly horrifying experience.
Andrew Mayers, who also goes by Andrew Malique as an artist, has been drawing and playing video games for a long time. Designing illustrations has given him the chance to express his love for video games and the impact gaming has had on his life. He is currently a freshman at USM. More examples of his art can be found on Instagram at @andrewmalique.
Undoubtedly, the last decade was known for its big-budget games. Games like Grand Theft Auto V, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt made headlines for their massive worlds, epic stories, fun gameplay, and huge sales. But the highest selling game of the decade (and of all time) was an independent game made by a small company called Mojang. A game with blocky graphics, basic gameplay, and a simple story.
Minecraft was the first smash hit from the independent side of gaming. Before its release, games with small budgets and little known developers rarely made headway in the gaming market, with notable exceptions including Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Limbo. It was Minecraft that finally showed how indie games can be just as popular as games made by developers with far more resources and manpower.
For most of us, quarantining began in March 2019, when the effects of the pandemic reached a point where it was simply safer to remain at home and distance ourselves for everyone’s health. For many gamers, staying at home meant more time to play games——in theory. In reality, the nature of the pandemic shaped the ways we experience, play, and think about games differently than the days before our pandemic experiences.
We asked members of our Game Studies Group to reflect on what it meant to play during a pandemic. How has the pandemic changed our encounters with games? Do we find that games help us cope with world changes? Or has the pandemic negatively impacted the way we view games and gaming? Ultimately, was the pandemic helpful or harmful to gaming culture?
Fifteen of us responded, and the thoughts are telling. We invite you to scroll through our reflections and thoughts and draw your own conclusions.
