Shopping isn’t just a hobby, it’s a philosophy. One might take such a statement to think that a person just likes spending lots of money in their spare time or when a fancy strikes them. But over the past few months, I’ve learned how shopping is a hard skill not dissimilar to strategy in any […]
Author Archives: Mattie Brice
Gesturing Towards Utopias
I gave a talk for a class titled “Design for This Century” at Parsons New School for Design working off a prompt that was loosely about applying design to topics such as gender, sexuality, race, and related oppressive systems. This is a topic uncommon in public discourse and most certainly for students on an accessible […]
Lightning Returns as Digital Fashion Line
I’ve always been a fan of outfits, and was a fan of the Final Fantasy series, so when I first played Final Fantasy X-2 with a battle system centered around changing outfits, I knew I would like future games a lot less without similar flourishes. It was one of the few games that began to […]
Amnesia: Memories & Metafictional Otome Games
There are few works in commercial video games that set out to knowingly critique the genre they are a part of. Given a combined value of technological advancement and consumerism, games are often aiming to be better, more refined, or newly synthesized versions of what came before them. So it’s really cool to come across […]
Methods for Feeling
One of the benefits of moving to New York City is the constant outpour of art events going, and the magical realization that you’re not too far away from seeing a very big name you’re used to reading about but never really thought you could see first hand. I had a bit of that experience […]
Alternate Ending in 2015
The best way I could describe 2015 for me is ‘decompression.’ 2014 was a definite low point in my life and I found a lot around me crumbling away. I can’t say I’ve necessarily recovered, or healed, or feel certain about my path moving forward, but maybe, finally, the dust has settled enough so I […]
Fav games of 2015
It’s the time of year again, to reflect and chart our motions through the past 365 days, if only to try and find some path for the next. Here are games I played in 2015, not necessarily was released in, that come strongest to my mind when I think of the year. Some might might […]
Conversations with John Sharp – Categories and Criticism
Catching up on the lengthy conversation John and I have had! Note this happened before he wrote this post on conferences and marginalized artists, and therefore before my addition onto that. So you will see some of the connective tissue behind these posts and how we contextualize them outside of missives to the community. Feel […]
Hate and Ignorance
Hate is a strong word used unusually often. It creates a sense of urgency, finality, that we’re at an end-point so far removed from the place we want to be and intervention is necessary. It’s one of those words, like privilege, that is widely adopted in talking about systemic oppression that can instantaneously put a […]
Thoughts on gentrification, globalization, and tech
Gentrification is a topic constantly in the back of my mind. I think it’s because it’s an expression of systemic forces that you can actually witness and track when you look for it. You see battle-lines in neighborhoods, where only a block separates new cafes that specialize in fair trade cold brews furnished with expertly […]
Conversations with Pippin Barr: Time and Performance
Some of you might be noticing that I have an ever-growing interest in performance art and how that intersects with play, a topic that I hope to be pursuing full-time come 2016. So I was excited when Pippin Barr wanted to trade words with me since his The Artist is Present and collaborations with Marina […]
Diversity of Existence
A necessary evolution in the ‘diversity in games’ conversation is starting to show itself, a product of enough time having passed from when many companies have made pledges but little seems to be changing. Between making news as the home of the largest organized harassment campaign the world has known and being tied to a […]
Conversations with John Sharp: Habit and Life
We’re back with another set of letters for you all to read! If you need to catch up on all the conversations I’ve had, look through this list. And onward! — John: I’m in the middle of reading Ian Bogost’s review of Michael Clune’s Gamelife (a memoir of playing videogames in the 1980s), and I […]
KILL THE PLAYER
I spent last weekend at PRACTICE, a quintessential New York kind of games conference if I ever saw one. Speakers, with an exception here or there, spoke on the development processes of their games, with many deep-dives into very specific topics, like the timing and animation in a beat-em-up to the choreography of difficulty in […]
Conversations with Lana Polansky: Bodies and Living Art
(Please excuse any weird formatting, I’m posting this from an app while I move) I’m finding out that I really enjoy exchanges with my friends and many of the people reading them have come up to me to say they are valuable contributions to conversations around games. So I couldn’t resist roping in Lana Polansky, […]