It’s September—though many of us have left our academic lives behind us, there is still something wonderful about back-to-school season, so let’s talk about learning in games! (more…)
Melissa Brinks is Sidequest’s editor in chief, co-creator of the Fake Geek Girls podcast, author of The Compendium of Magical Beasts, and an aspiring beekeeper. She once won an argument on the internet, and tweets at @MelissaBrinks.
It’s been over a year since I first started experiencing symptoms of a new chronic illness, as yet undiagnosed and mostly dismissed by doctors. I’ve lived with chronic mental illness my whole life, but this is the first major chronic physical illness I’ve developed. I am fatigued all of the time, with deep muscle pain that, over the past year, has spread from my legs into my arms and wrists. When my illness is particularly bad, I cannot eat. I feel nauseous, I get cramps, I can’t stand or walk for too long. In the last twelve months, I’ve also started a master’s degree on top of work, and I’ve continued to cope with mental illness and ongoing trauma. It’s been a rough year. (more…)
Too queer for this plane of existence. Find me in The Fade or its real-life equivalent: Twitter.
Happy Pride Month! June is a time of celebration and contemplation, our two favorite activities here at Sidequest. This month, inspired by a tweet by Freyja Erlingsdótter, we sat down to talk about what queerness means in a gaming context. Can games be queer? What kinds of games can be queer? Find out within. (more…)
Melissa Brinks is Sidequest’s editor in chief, co-creator of the Fake Geek Girls podcast, author of The Compendium of Magical Beasts, and an aspiring beekeeper. She once won an argument on the internet, and tweets at @MelissaBrinks.
There’s probably not a single player of games out there who hasn’t, at some point, cursed at a die or the amorphous concept of randomness. Leaving our successes and failures up to fate can feel as if it robs us of the ability to play—if we don’t control our actions, then are we really interacting?
The question of randomness is the one we’re exploring in this month’s roundtable! Join us as we pick apart our feelings on random number generators and dice rolls. (more…)
Melissa Brinks is Sidequest’s editor in chief, co-creator of the Fake Geek Girls podcast, author of The Compendium of Magical Beasts, and an aspiring beekeeper. She once won an argument on the internet, and tweets at @MelissaBrinks.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re beginning to wind down from the holiday seasons by curling up beneath warm blankets with a mug of hot chocolate, while the Southern Hemisphere is no doubt basking in the sun on a beach. Naturally, this got us thinking about coziness and the recent conversations the gaming industry has been having about how to capture it and what it can add to a game. Our own Maddi Butler wrote a piece on coziness in the Nancy Drew series, which served as a perfect jumping-off point for this discussion.
What does it mean to be cozy? Should games strive to make us feel that way? Let’s find out! (more…)