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Greg Bem | The Expandable Gamer

https://existencegaming.wordpress.com/author/gbem1

Thoughts on Games, Society, Culture and Existence. Author Archives: Greg Bem. Baldur’s Gate 2, Explored. April 21, 2015. Here I write about the experience of Baldur’s Gate 2, playing as a woman, and what it means to be multiple people at once. Read Article →. New article: DEADNESS CHRONICLES (& DWARF POETS). February 24, 2015. Read Article →. Games You Can Enjoy in Moments, Brief and Otherwise. January 21, 2015. Read Article →. January 9, 2015. Read Article →. In which I talk about Twine somewhere else.

bitspositive.com

Bits Positive: Checklisting

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014/04/checklisting.html

There are 72 career races in FUEL. I've finished 71 of them. There are 19 different regions, each with 10 different challenges. Of the whopping 190 available, I've completed 120 of them. There are these barrels that randomly spawn around the world, and you can run into them for points. I've hit 2677 of them. A while ago, I wrote about how FUEL. Was the among the best casual open-world games. Has 1255 collectible clusters strewn about its world. I dutifully collected all of them. Seemingly taxing objectiv...

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Bits Positive: January 2014

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014_01_01_archive.html

For Act 1 of Broken Age. Attention, a tension (a comment post-mortem). This past Saturday morning, I sat down and, as I usually do, checked reddit over breakfast. In the /r/GirlGamers feed. There was a discussion about female streamers. And attention seeking behavior, spawned largely off of this image of a streamer. That was posted and highly upvoted. In the /r/gaming subreddit. Broken Age, Act 1. Back in 2012, Double Fines Kickstarter campaign. Id heard that the game was about alcoholism. And without th...

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Bits Positive: Zineth

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014/02/zineth.html

Arcane Kids' tagline on their website. Is "Make the games you wish to see on the Dreamcast", so it's fitting that their stellar Zineth. Is practically a love letter to the iconic Jet Set Radio. And its sadly-not-on-Dreamcast follow-up Jet Set Radio Future. It features similar movement mechanics, a similar art style, and even a similar hip sense of cultural awareness (via a fully-functional smartphone mapped to the right stick), but calling it an homage to Jet Set Radio. Is limiting, as Zineth. Another is...

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Bits Positive: The elephant in the game room

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014/02/the-elephant-in-game-room.html

The elephant in the game room. Whenever we talk about gender and gaming there's this big elephant in the room: the idea that "women don't play games". It's a phenomenon that's easy to see in the responses that so many girl gamers get, often just for existing. Frequently they're met with legitimate disbelief. In their statuses as gamers. And it makes sense! And these kinds of "truths" - a whole herd of elephants - are something that run deep in our culture, especially in narratives around gender. They're ...

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Bits Positive: December 2013

http://www.bitspositive.com/2013_12_01_archive.html

Back in the 1990s, people were all hyped up about multimedia. It was this seemingly inescapable buzzword, brought about by rapid advances in technology, that promised us a revolution in the way we consumed and interacted with information. No longer were we limited to just text or just video. No longer were we limited to linearity. Multimedia was our ticket to a sublime world of cutting-edge synergistic informational engagement. The Day the Laughter Stopped. Significant spoiler and trigger warning. This l...

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Bits Positive: Playing god

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014/03/playing-god.html

I originally posted this as a comment on reddit. To the /r/truegaming community. It was a response to this post. About gamers not appreciating and trying to influence developers' opinions. I remember when Sanctum 2. Launched, and I checked the forums a single hour after release. It was already filled with anger and bile - all of which had arisen in less than 60 minutes! I'm not the kind of gamer to demand the devs change anything, but I definitely have found myself in the past playing games and seeing on...

bitspositive.com

Bits Positive: March 2014

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014_03_01_archive.html

The importance of audience. Closed a book that had been opened for me several months ago with Depression Quest. Both are experiences that deal with the difficult and entirely not-fun topic of depression, and after completing Depression Quest. I originally posted this as a comment on reddit. To the /r/truegaming community. It was a response to this post. About gamers not appreciating and trying to influence developers opinions. I remember when Sanctum 2. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). This was originally fro...

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Bits Positive: Two things missing from gaming's conversations about sexism

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014/02/two-things-missing-from-gamings.html

Two things missing from gaming's conversations about sexism. As such, I wrote this not as a criticism, aspersion, or dismissal. There's already enough of that in gaming discourse, especially when it comes to gender issues. This is an attempt to bridge some of the gaps that separate the people that have these discussions. 1 Sexism is a pattern. For example: is Lara Croft sexist? Well, she was created to be a counter to stereotypical depictions of women. She was a woman in charge of her own situation, whic...

bitspositive.com

Bits Positive: The importance of audience

http://www.bitspositive.com/2014/03/the-importance-of-audience.html

The importance of audience. Closed a book that had been opened for me several months ago with Depression Quest. Both are experiences that deal with the difficult and entirely not-fun topic of depression, and after completing Depression Quest. Brought to the table. Nothing did. At least, not until I came across Actual Sunlight. In terms of content it's very similar to Depression Quest. One of the hidden truths embedded in the game's bountiful commentary. But he does play games. There's a PS3 in his ap...