by Elvie Mae Parian | Dec 21, 2022 | News, Video Games
We are about to close out 2022 and the video games industry seems to insist on holding onto loose ends with no signs of stopping, dropping surprises both good and, quite frankly, questionable. (more…)
Elvie somehow finds bliss in purposefully complicating the art of storytelling and undertaking the painful practice of animation. If you see her on Twitter at @lvmaeparian, she is doing neither of those things. She currently helps with managing the socials to ensure that the secret recipe will never be revealed.
by Melissa Brinks | Oct 31, 2022 | Roundtables, Tabletop Games, Video Games
October is the month for all ghouls, ghosts, and haunts of all kinds, so naturally we here at Sidequest wanted to talk about our favorite spiritual apparitions in-depth. Or perhaps, given the season, we want to talk about them in-death (cue echoing maniacal laughter from an unseen source). Join us in this paranormal conversation—share your favorite spirits and poltergeists in the comments! (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.
by Melissa Brinks | Apr 4, 2022 | Postgame, Tabletop Games, Video Games
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome back to Postgame, Sidequest’s monthly podcast, where the editors lay down hot takes on cold games. This month marks the Postgame debuts of Maddi Butler and Zainabb Hull, as they, Zora, and Melissa talk about what they were playing in… September of 2021. We’re working though the backlog, we promise!
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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.
by Madison Butler | Jan 24, 2022 | Features, Video Games
Welcome to Chip Chat, a column where I eat as many novelty chip* flavors as humanly possible, then justify it by reviewing the chips and pairing them with a game I think they’re particularly suited for, like a garbage sommelier who specializes in junk food instead of wine. This is, I insist, not a thinly veiled excuse to buy novelty chip flavors—but if it was, that sure would be convenient, now wouldn’t it.
*That’s crisps, for the British readers among us.
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Madison Butler is Sidequest’s self-proclaimed jock editor. She co-founded the blog Critsumption and once got really into powerlifting via Fitness Boxing for the Nintendo Switch. She tweets at @_maddilo.
by Emma Kostopolus | Nov 22, 2021 | Essays, Video Games
There are few sensations more familiar to seasoned gamers than death. Since death is a common consequence for failure in play, we consider death and its attendant rebirth a necessary part of the play process. Some of us even revel in our constant flirtation with death: at its peak in 2014, an average of forty-two Dark Souls II player characters died every second. It is through death that we learn how to play games successfully, but many games treat death as a simple rewind: when you fail, your character dies and reappears at a predetermined point in the narrative prior to the death, with no indication that the death ever occurred. Thus, while games are in many ways primed to open a discussion of mortality, most prefer to pretend mortality is a non-issue.
Roguelikes, as a genre, deal very explicitly with death as a central mechanic. There are no save points in most roguelikes, so death puts you back at the very beginning of the game, with your progress and some or all of your upgrades erased. But as with gaming writ large, many roguelikes treat death as a simple mechanic to indicate failure, and neglect its narrative opportunity. But two recent roguelikes have taken the conceit of cyclical, death-based play and baked it into their stories. And from these, a bigger conversation about our attitudes about mortality was born. (more…)
Emma is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition who studies how play impacts learning. Her words have also appeared in Critical Distance and Unwinnable. When not writing, she enjoys passing the controller between friends for runs of Silent Hill. She can be found @kostopolus on Twitter.
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