by Kathryn Hemmann | Feb 10, 2025 | Lists, Video Games
One of the pleasures of playing games is the immersion into a fantastic world. Some games attempt to recreate real-life locations through careful historical study and architectural modeling, but many games sidestep reality by injecting fantasy elements into real-world cultures. While this mix of history and imagination is easy to take for granted in games set in the distant past or the near future, it can be interesting to look at contemporary culture through the lens of fantasy. What might the United States look like when envisioned as the setting of a story filled with magic? Let’s explore five iconic Japanese games set in a fantastic version of America.
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Kathryn is a writer and comic artist who lurks at the center of a digital labyrinth in Philadelphia. They post about books, plants, and video game villains as @kathrynthehuman on Bluesky.
by Natalia Lopes | Apr 5, 2022 | Essays, Features, Video Games
While having terrible nerve pain in my neck and back in October, I was stuck for a whole week sitting up on bedrest. This was when I picked up watching playthroughs of the Silent Hill series. It was Halloween season after all, so what better time to visit a series I had been meaning to consume since I was a teenager? The only exposure I’d had to the series was the occasional Pyramid Head and Bubble Nurse cosplayers wandering the hallways of various anime conventions, obligatory fanart, and casual mentions of the movies, most of which were received by fans with mixed reactions. I knew I had my hands full when deciding to visit the story and lore of Silent Hill, a series with eight main titles and several spinoffs, but I started with the one that was and still is the most highly praised of them all: Silent Hill 2. (more…)
Natalia is a queer Latinx illustrator making queer horror art, comics, and zines. She runs MystoPress, a micropress that is home to her eerie and nightmarish works, and has been funding her comics on Kickstarter as of 2019. When she is not freelancing or working on new projects, she teaches classes to teens and adults in non-profit art centers around North Carolina.
by Ashley Miranda | Nov 7, 2017 | Poetry, Video Games
Game Enjambment is a reoccurring poetry series on games and gaming.
There is an oddness to being a woman and playing video games with male protagonists who propagate violence against women. This is especially unsettling when we traverse to Silent Hill 2, a game that uses trauma and violence against women to explore male mental health.
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Ashley Miranda is a Guatemalan/Mexican poet & teacher from Chicago. Her debut poetry collection Thirteen Jars: How Xt’actani Learned to Speak was published by Another New Calligraphy. Her chapbook dolores in spanish is pain, dolores in lolita is a girl is forthcoming with Glass Poetry Press. She tweets impulsive poetry and other musings @dustwhispers and you can learn more about her work at agirlaloof.com.
![A screenshot from the Cozy Grove press kit overlaid with "GET YOUR GAME ON" and "[COZY GAMES]".](https://sidequest.zone/wp-content/uploads/wordpress-popular-posts/107896-featured-200x0.jpg)
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