by Grace Benfell | Mar 30, 2020 | Essays, Video Games
Equus Oils is a gas station like any other. There’s a superintendent, a general store, a few tanks, that strange sloped roof and a giant metallic horse. A sculpture of craftsmanship, of individuality, not given a name. When we move Conway into the basement of the station, the writhing mess of wires and pipes unveils a secret world. It is still haunted by its prior inhabitants, still echoing with their voices. The horse’s head has a body, a soul, but it is still shaped by the business it embodies. (more…)
Grace is a queer woman, critic, and aspiring fan fiction author. Revenge of the Sith, Fire Walk With Me, and Final Fantasy VII are on a constant loop in her brain. She writes on her blog Grace in the Machine and can be found @grace_machine on Twitter.
by Naseem Jamnia | Mar 26, 2020 | Essays, Video Games
Amina Hawke: dark-skinned, short hair, queer as all hell, snarky to a fault, an apostate who believes in mage freedom. Not flawless, but instead flaunts her flaws with pride, and maybe sometimes works on growing. (more…)
By day, Sidequest’s Managing Editor Naseem Jamnia used to do sciencey things, but they now slam their keyboard and call it art. By night, they play a lot of video games. And regardless of the time, they spend way too much of it on Twitter, @jamsternazzy.
by Emily Durham | Mar 17, 2020 | Essays, Video Games
Content warning for mental health, medication side effects, eating disorders, and anxiety/depression. This article contains a few spoilers for Celeste. (more…)
Emily Durham is an aspiring veterinarian by day and a Sidequest copyeditor by night. When they’re not editing or playing with cats, you can find them playing Celeste or Hollow Knight, sewing korok cosplays, or… playing with cats. You can find their tweets at @sedimentalvalue.
by Naseem Jamnia | Mar 16, 2020 | Essays, Lists, Video Games
This past winter, I finally finished playing the Dragon Age series for the first time. Something rumbled inside me to write about the experience—the incoherent, stress-inducing, incredible experience—and so I’ve put together a list of how to become addicted to the famous BioWare series, from the first game, through the DLC, to the current hanging-on-to-every-BioWare-announcement-ever moments. Here, I’ve charted seven steps as to how to become addicted to Dragon Age, no matter who you are.
Spoilers for the Dragon Age series for anyone who, like me, waited ten years before starting this franchise. Major, major Inquisition and Trespasser spoilers. (more…)
By day, Sidequest’s Managing Editor Naseem Jamnia used to do sciencey things, but they now slam their keyboard and call it art. By night, they play a lot of video games. And regardless of the time, they spend way too much of it on Twitter, @jamsternazzy.
by Madison Butler | Jan 28, 2020 | Essays, Video Games
Kentucky Route Zero is not a violent game: it has no swords, no guns, no combat. It’s not a traditional horror game, either, with no jump scares or gore or monsters. And yet… it is a game about violence, and a game that uses horror elements to drive its themes home. (more…)
Madison Butler writes about advertising by day and about video games the rest of the time. She can usually be found crying about Final Fantasy and Nier: Automata on Twitter @madisonrbutler.
by Marlena Abraham | Jan 13, 2020 | Essays, Tabletop Games
Like a lot of folks my age, I’ve got a complicated relationship with the Harry Potter universe. There’s a lot wrong with the initial source material, and that’s before you even touch on the miasma of bad choices that surrounds the author and her recent expansions to the universe. All that said, though, nostalgia’s one hell of a drug by itself. When you add in the Harry Potter universe’s rich worldbuilding and its tantalizing promise that, if only you had a wand of your own, you too could easily fold yourself into the mythos, it had (and in some way still has) an incredibly powerful draw. (more…)
Marlena Abraham (they/them/theirs) is an advanced game designer at Schell Games, where they work on client and internal projects in VR/AR, educational games, and location based entertainment. They are also the President of Bit Bridge LLC, a community organization for indie game creators in Pittsburgh, PA. In their free time, Marlena is working on an indie title, Tavernlight, with their partner, Patrick Jalbert.
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