Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 59

Weekend Reading: Hot Food, Expensive Taste, Cheap Ghosts

While we at Kill Screen love to bring you our own crop of game critique and perspective, there are many articles on games, technology, and art around the web that are worth reading and sharing. So that is why this weekly reading list exists, bringing light to some of the articles that have captured our attention, and should also capture yours.



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Pushing the ‘Ye Button, Rollie Pemberton, Hazlitt

In his current metamorphosis, Kanye West, in his own words, aspires to be like Henry Ford, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs; creators with transcendent brands upon the globe. Of course, like Jobs’ creations, it comes with an ever increasing price tag. Rollie Pemberton, aka Cadence Weapon, looks over Kanye’s busy summer, observing that the artist is pricing out his fan base.

The Burning Desire for Hot Chicken, Danny Chau, The Ringer

Huh, is this the first we’ve shared from The Ringer? I guess it is. Hot chicken is an old favorite in Nashville, but its popularity is burning as hot as the tongues of its victims. Danny Chau explores the wild history of a spicy piece of meat while attempting to deduce why it’s become a new craze, hopefully without making bursts of steam jet out of his ears.

Hong Kong apartment complex. Photo: Carl Nenzén Lovén/Flickr

This Hong Kong Tech Startup Is Hustling Haunted Apartments to Millennial Expats, Justin Heifetz, Motherboard

Traditions and priorities typically shimmy between generations, but in Hong Kong the discrepancy between the superstitious and younger skeptics is creating a “your loss” opportunity. Justin Heifetz meets the entrepreneurs who are tracking homes where deaths have occurred, traditionally toxic to real estate but more salable to recent buyers who just don’t care.

The Sandy Hook Hoax, Reeves Wiedeman, New York Magazine

Lenny Pozner used to be one of the thousands of Americans who saw conspiracies where it was suggested, until he became the subject of one when his son died in the Sandy Hook shooting, an incident conspiracy theorists believe never happened. While many other victims and families have decided to try their best at ignoring the onslaught of doubters, Pozner has decided to take them head on, fighting the conspiracy stars who have shadier practices than the ones they accuse.

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Header image: Photo by Sal Patel

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You guys, Porpentine wrote a game in Google Forms

Porpentine, the matriarch of experimental Twine games, is at it again. Known as the creator of games such as With Those We Love Alive (2014), Cry$tal Warrior Ke$ha (2013), and the XYZZY award-winning Howling Dogs (2012), her trademark is evocative prose and bold subject matter: she often discusses femininity and queerness, and has no qualms about exploring the explicit, the gory or the overwhelming. Her work is generally heavily text-based, though many of her games include strong visual and audio elements.

But now she’s breaking the mold—or not, depending on how you look at it. Her latest project, All Your Time-Tossed Selves, is just as evocative and captivating in its writing as her earlier games have been. It’s just that it was made in Google Forms.

Naturally, this limits its scope somewhat. The text is broken up into headings, subheadings, questions and answers, often in mid-sentence. The direct influence of choices on the text is limited—many are purely aesthetic. The plot lies between debatable and non-existent. It feels less like playing a game and more like writing a book: which clause of this sentence makes your heart twinge? If you weren’t asked a question, what would be your answer? At the end of the game, once a sentence has been completed with the poignant use of a button, every answer to every section is plotted out in pie charts, the fractured sentences in their appropriate literary order, accompanied by percentages.

the limits of this experience make the data into something else

In any other game this is valuable data, an insight into player’s minds that would tell a writer or narrative designer what was weak and what was strong, which paths were being neglected for their more attractive siblings. But the limits of this experience make the data something else, with more aspiration and less weight—the psyche of the players is neatly categorized into their preference of death by drowning, falling, or bow-and-arrow, their desire to escape a dying city with reams of notepaper or an amber bird. The line that stuck with me the most provoked the response of “Liar” by the game, a rare direct address. It was chosen by 25.4 percent of players.

Play All Your Time-Tossed Selves here .

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The Girl and the Robot ruins its own fairy tale

I feel like I’ve been playing this game all my life. I check the time—I’ve been trapped in this particular hell for probably two hours longer than necessary. And it’s all been on the same boss fight, running in seemingly endless circles as a small girl and her robot guardian. For a moment, I ponder the sweet quiet of death. Either mine, or the evil witch lady and her equally villainous robot friend that are pummeling me into the ground. Whatever comes first, really. For a game with its sights set on the solemn adventures of Ico (2001) and the heartwarming animated classics of Japanese studio Studio Ghibli, it sure feels devilish—which I’m positive is not its intent.

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When I first laid eyes on the adorable concept art for The Girl and the Robot, I felt it had a zest to it. And at its start, the game does have its charms. You play as a golden robot (reminiscent of the ones in animator Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 film Castle in the Sky), who often carries the playable heroine on its shoulders—a small raven-haired girl. It’s the robot’s job to protect and lead the girl to eventual safety from her former prison, gently holding her hand all the while. The game’s kingdom towers high like Rapunzel’s, sprawling far and wide. The nearby town is quaint and cute with whimsical decor, from storefronts to grassy graveyards, akin to Disney’s rendition of the small Italian village in Pinocchio (1940). For the first hour or so of the game, this folksy style is serene. It feels like you’re in an old-fashioned fairytale, aiding this young girl in her mysterious escape from unknown evils in this barren kingdom.

The lack of dialogue weathers its emotions in other sounds

The best fairytales are the ones where the heroine takes control of her own destiny. Or, at the very least, takes action to cement her own freedom, rather than all the glory being attributed to her male counterpart. Like in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991), where Belle selflessly throws herself headfirst into danger to save her father. Or in any of Miyazaki’s works, which I personally see as modern fairytales of sorts, where the female protagonist at the helm overcomes any challenges thrown her way. Girls like San in Princess Mononoke (1997), who fights tooth and nail alongside her surrogate wolf family to protect the forested nature she calls home. Or like princess Nausicaä in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1985), whose heroic efforts save an entire species. While the young protagonist of The Girl and the Robot doesn’t fight her enemies—she’s just a child—she’s not entirely useless, at least in the beginning. She helps her robot pal in puzzles, and the robot protects her in ways she can’t protect herself in return. But unfortunately, this duality is short-lived.

Ico, the beloved Fumito Ueda-directed adventure game, observes the gentle relationship shared between the titular hero and Yorda—the girl he escorts over the course of the game. It shares a lot of similarities to The Girl and the Robot. Both relationships in the games build without any dialogue, evolving only through quiet action. Ico is Yorda’s protector, just as the robot is the guardian of the girl. Vocal sounds in The Girl and the Robot are resigned to shocked gasps and the occasional scream upon a Game Over, just as Ico’s lack of dialogue weathers its emotions in other sounds. The relationships at their centers aren’t empty or unexplored without the crutch of words. They blossom from a natural place—from working together to endure and survive.

If only the gameplay matched this proven relationship dynamic. When the game’s once-bright architecture desaturates into grayish, beige stone walls around the third-of-the-way point, The Girl and the Robot takes a turn for the worse. Suddenly, it’s a question of what enemies are spawning in and how many times will I have to die to surpass them, rather than what puzzle I am going to work to solve next. In a stark contrast to its once muted beginnings, The Girl and the Robot becomes about the action: loud and chaotic, rather than a somber fairytale.

The game’s graceless combat was once tolerable. But as the game progressed, that fact faded into a distant memory. It became a common occurrence to find myself frantically flinging arrows at the speedier robots sprinting my way, while praying that the slower, stronger ones didn’t reach me in time for more tedious hack-and-slashing. Given the game’s inherent tank-like controls, high-intensity combat with more than two enemies at once doesn’t hold up. It falls apart under pressure, as I’m stalled with every hit and am jousted by spears again and again until I malfunction. Before I knew it, I had quickly abandoned any of the zeal that I felt from the game’s opening portions. I found myself abhorring my time with it, just wishing it would end.

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The boss fight I’m trapped in is one of only two in the game. As the girl, I’m high above the arena below. I sprint in circles around thin platforms, trying desperately to lead the evil witch chasing me in front of a cannon. After firing it, I switch to the robot below, where it has a brief opportunity to make three perfectly-timed slashes at the nega-version of itself, after which it fires an arrow to rotate the cannon to a new direction. I have to repeat this four times, and the witch quickens her pace with each go around. Ugh.

A beast unlike its intended making; a truly broken nightmare

In one of my many attempts, the witch herself, shuffling crazily fast towards me, fell off the platform. The game stuttered, and I realized something awful: she had respawned right next to me. And there she was, cackling with her giant staff in hand as the small girl screamed in terror. Time to restart. Again. For a game whose controls are cumbersome (and sometimes unresponsive), coupled with a camera that doesn’t quite want to spin round to keep an eye on the witch that’s on my tail, this boss finds itself transformed into something worse than it already is. It’s a beast unlike its intended making; a truly broken nightmare. I ponder how a game that began so delightfully, from such an innocent, reticent place, somehow devolved into this seemingly inescapable hell.

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Fairytales have drama. They have problems, too. There are epic battles and evil forces. But there’s also an inherent quality of childlike wonder, and a feeling that everything is going to turn out okay. There is necessary magic and glee among all the gloom. In the end, there’s a happy ending, or at least a conclusive one. The Girl and the Robot doesn’t have this. It abandons its wish to weave a charming fairytale all of its own, and tosses in poor combat alongside too many enemies for the player to enjoyably manage. What could be a fun or worthwhile challenge deteriorates into an annoying mess, cluttering the narrative and making the game seem to be about something else entirely: just fighting robots.

As I stood before the game’s final castle, with the girl calmly resting on the robot’s shoulders, I reflected on my experience. What happened to the adorable concept of a girl and her robot companion, bonding over their journey? What happened to the simple puzzles and minor, manageable enemy encounters that started within this fairytale world? Why was that one particular boss encounter so terribly designed? I won’t remember my time with The Girl and the Robot feeling like a magical fairytale. I’ll recall it being a poorly designed, stressful videogame. And that’s a shame, because that initial art sure was cute.

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Aww, a game about lonely robots evokes the best children’s animation

A young boy, seen through a viewfinder, discusses the ocean with his mom. The screen buzzes; the boy disappears; two eyes blink open. They belong to a little metal carapace that scrambles around an empty room, tugging at switches and saying, “Hello?” The boy is nowhere to be found, but the bot keeps looking, earnest and determined.

This is Abi, a new story-focused puzzle game from Grant&Bert Studios. It resembles WALL-E (2008) in its story, which similarly follows a pair of robots wandering around the remnants of Earth after human beings’ mass exodus. You play as two droids that used to serve humans as helpers before their disappearance. ABI, the titular bot, was a parenting and caretaking unit: the creators released a Fallout-esque commercial for the robot, which stepped in for lazy or overworked parents. The other robot is DD, a hulking, sentient industrial robot that was used for production before the humans left.

Abi is a puzzle game, and you’ll have to maneuver these two cute bots around their fledgling robot society to in order to continue their adventure. But the real charm is the animation style, which evokes Pixar’s short films, and other stylish animated movies like Song of the Sea (2014).

it would rather look like a cartoon than a game

Abi breaks through the retro-pixel-platformer art trend that has dominated in recent months and instead opts for a distinctive yellow-and-blue color scheme and lovingly handcrafted character models. Like the upcoming languid adventure Old Man’s Journey or the much-anticipated Night In The Woods, it would rather look like a cartoon than a game. And a beautiful cartoon it is.

True to the tradition of cartoons, Abi’s story is about friendship and joy. You’ll encounter obstacles as always, and explore a multitude of beautiful environments while deciphering puzzles, but the core of the game is still your two little robot buddies: ABI and DD will travel the world, unearth their story, and reinforce the eternal power of true, Disney-esque love.

Abi will start a Kickstarter in the next few months; for now, check out its  website .

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The rise of women working in Indian videogames

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel.

Many see gaming as a “boys’ club,” but Indian women are proving them wrong. Aside from the growing demographic of female players, Indian female game designers are also telling their own stories in innovative ways, showing just how creative the medium can be.

While The Economic Times reported that women only made up 20 percent of the Indian gaming population in 2010, data gathered by Mauj Mobile this past April told a different story. Men still dominate the total percentage of players, but on average women proved to be more dedicated users, more likely to play daily and for longer periods of time. “Women are definitely ‘power players’ of mobile games—that’s what we’ve experienced,” Anila Andrade, assistant vice president at 99Games, confirmed. In fact, the key demographic of 99Games’ flagship title Star Chef is women aged 20–55, playing an average of 42 minutes a day.

Star Chef (2014), screenshot, courtesy of 99 Games

In response to the growing importance of the female demographic, Nazara Games announced a partnership with Truly Social that focuses on the untapped “women-centric market in India,” reported The Economic Times.

But aside from the rise of female players, women in the industry are part of an even larger shift. Poornima Seetharman, Lead Game Designer at GSN Games in India, pointed to the many well-attended Women in Games meetups and conferences held by mobile mogul NASSCOM last year. “I believe (the number of women showing interest in games) is growing at a faster rate as the years go by,” she said.

interactive storytelling that centers around building relationships

Both Andrade and Seetharman explained how, in their experience, women designers often bring essential perspectives to game development teams. While women are still facing barriers in technical fields like programming, female designers often excel in other areas. “Gaming extends beyond just core tech. There is art, narrative, design, production, marketing—just to name a few,” Seetharman said. “All fields are equally important to creating a successful game.”

Yet the male-dominated industry still tends toward genres that minimize narrative, like racing and action games. A glance at the top 10 games made in India shows a major focus on competitive titles, either gambling or sports, which leaves little room for other forms of game design to shine.

Luckily, the recent rise of female players and designers appears to be changing this, and even bringing the medium to new heights. As noted by The Economic Times, Nazara Games’ new female-oriented title will focus on innovative AI for interactive storytelling that centers around building relationships. According to Seetharman, for many of the best videogames throughout history, “interactive storytelling was key. You become a part of the game. You can tell a story and let others experience it.”

Independent female designers are even using the medium’s unique storytelling capabilities to put people in their own shoes. Mohini Dutta, co-founder of NYC-based Antidote Games, actually left the Indian film industry after sensing she had reached a plateau in her career simply because she was a woman. To circumvent this barrier, she sought an education in experimental filmmaking at Parsons, a renowned university in the United States.

But after seeing what games could do, Dutta shifted her focus. She designed Souvenir (2012), a game that combines interactivity with the storytelling techniques of film. In the game, the player immerses into Dutta’s story, following her as she packs up her things to leave India to pursue a new career in a foreign country. “I really wanted to explore that feeling of having to choose between something you need to take versus something you want to take. And how each of these objects hold such a strong, personal, subjective space in your mind,” she said.

(Try to) Dress Up (2014), screenshot, courtesy of Nivetha Kannan

Indian-American sister duo Nivetha and Swetha Kannan also took to videogames as a means of expressing their cultural frustrations, inviting players to experience the unique challenges women face. “Because I am a woman, there are a lot of things in Indian culture that are expected of me,” Nivetha explained.

Her autobiographical game (Try to) Dress Up shows the difficulty of growing up in America with traditional Indian parents. A satirical take on the classic dress-up game, the player must pick out an outfit for school that her parents will allow her to wear outside the house.

Together, the sisters also collaborated on Stasis, a game that showcases the issue of street and sexual harassment women face all around the world. Designing purposefully exhausting and repetitive gameplay, they hoped the game would put players in women’s shoes. “People have a hard time seeing a problem when they’ve never experienced it themselves,” Nivetha said. “Through games, we have this unique ability to make our viewers go through and really experience things they wouldn’t normally get to otherwise.”

It would appear that, aside from being some of India’s most dedicated players, women are also using games in some of the most creative ways to tell uniquely important stories. “From what I’ve seen, women do have to go that extra mile to prove their capabilities compared to men,” Seetharman lamented. “But we are willing to do it.”

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Drive! Drive! Drive! is all killer, no filler

I don’t drive in real life. I can’t face it, the idea of having to pay that much attention to anything makes me anxious. The same is true of racing games: Forza, Gran Turismo, Burnout all get me a little nervous as they approach top speed.

Drive! Drive! Drive! takes my anxiety and multiplies it tenfold. You see, you’re not just racing around one track—keeping the best line and drifting around corners to recharge your boost bar—you’re racing around several tracks at once. Each separate track has a car for you to control, so you have to jump between them to try and find the best racing lines on each different track. When you’re not controlling a car, it’s driven by an AI, meaning you have to check in with each track regularly to keep pole position.

Each neon-traced track comes apart as you cross its finishing line, giving you one less race to worry about. The game coyly admits its AI isn’t so great in its opening tutorial, but this counts not just for your opponents, but for when it’s controlling your car too.

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This poor AI actually works in the game’s favor—the fact your own vehicle traces its way around the track like a safety car when you’re not in control means you have to jump between tracks often, fighting your way back to the front of the pack. It’s a game of spinning plates, except the plates in this case have four wheels and an engine.

Driving aggressively is key here

The skirmish for first place is the most exciting part about racing games and this is why so many of them adopted rubber-banding; the process where AI opponents would get faster the further they are behind you. Drive! Drive! Drive!‘s solution is much more complicated, but it proves compelling: you’re perpetually fighting for first place, your only reward for finding the best route being to find another.

Driving aggressively is key here, the barriers of the tracks cut into the sky are nearly non-existent, and a good shunt can send enemies careening off of the road and into the the void. You’ll merrily drift around corners to refill your boost bar, and crash your way through anyone in your way.

If I have one concern from my initial playthrough it’s that the premise could get a little flimsy. I’m unsure as to how long something so frantic can hold up. But, if you love racing games—a genre that, if i’m honest, I can’t usually stomach—you might have found an arcade game that scratches that need (for speed). It’s a racing game played from the perspective of a television editor, switching between the various monitors to let you focus on the most exciting bits.

Drive! Drive! Drive! will be available on Steam and the PS4 later this year. It’s got a website. 

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Upcoming FMV game is set in a real decommissioned nuclear bunker

The Bunker is coming out this month, bringing with it what looks to be a fresh take on the full-motion video (FMV) game genre.



It’s a psychological horror game that will have you assume the role of John, a boy born in a government bunker “the day the bombs fell,” July 3, 1986. Three decades later, all of John’s loved ones are dead, yet he continues his circadian rhythms and routines, following the rules of the titular bunker. When an alarm goes off, disrupting John’s daily routines and causing his mind to “self-destruct,” he begins to travel deeper into his home, ultimately revealing repressed memories and secrets. 

filmed in a real decommissioned nuclear bunker

Navigating through the bunker, you’ll solve puzzles, find audio cues, and unlock John’s suppressed memories. All of it, of course, made with live-action video, with real actors from Game of Thrones (2011) and Assassin’s Creed 3 (2012). The Bunker also boasts a host of off-screen talent, featuring writers from games like The Witcher (2007) and SOMA (2015).

Notably, The Bunker was filmed in a real decommissioned nuclear bunker in Essex, England, with a lot of the set dressing being actual computers and supplies left when it was decommissioned in 1992. It brings an interesting level of authenticity to the point-and-click game, taking a stab at what is kind of an infamous genre, remembered for such bad games as Night Trap (1992) and Make My Video (1992).



The Bunker is coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sometime this month. To keep up with the game, follow developer Wales Interactive on Twitter.

 

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Punktendo: The 8-bit punk games you didn’t play

The original Nintendo Entertainment System arrived on US shores during a divided era in American politics. The Iran hostage crisis concluded with eight American casualties in April 1980, marring the end of President Carter’s first term and contributing to a landslide victory for Ronald Reagan. The discovery of AIDS in 1981 preceded an epidemic that was especially devastating within the gay community throughout the decade. When the console launched in North America in 1985, Reaganomics were in full swing, and disaffected youth responded with the rise of hip hop and punk rock. However, early NES titles were yet too primitive in scope to tackle political themes. Games were childish diversions rather than interactive art.

Brooklyn-based animation storyboard artist Jeff Hong is on an 8-bit mission to challenge this status quo. As the creative mind behind Punktendo, a web-based project featuring playable punk parodies of classic NES titles, Hong grew up playing Nintendo games and listening to punk music. The latter shaped his progressive political values, citing activist artists like Propagandhi as an influence. A desire to bring these passions together led to learning how to edit NES games using a process called “ROM hacking,” placing punk personalities and social issues into pixel-perfect recreations of the original games. It’s a passion project fully in line with the DIY (“do it yourself”) ethos, bringing punk, play, and politics together.

placing punk personalities and social issues into pixel-perfect recreations

Punk isn’t always serious despite its inclinations to take itself seriously; a duality making it ripe for light-hearted observation, and an effective medium for delivering a powerful social message. Just as not all punk music is overtly political, nor are all Punktendo games. The process for aligning specific bands, titles, and issues differs based on what makes sense for each game. For example, Hong selected fellow Brooklynites Chumped for Super Chumped Bros. 2 by virtue of having three men and one woman in the band (one member to stand in for each of Super Mario Bros. 2’s original protagonists). PUP Tour features Toronto noisemakers PUP traveling across North America, re-envisioning Rad Racer as a touring band simulator. Other titles simply poke fun at popular punk personalities, such as Fat Mike’s Golf (tying the 49-year-old NOFX frontman to a sport stereotypically associated with retirees), and Ben Weasel’s Punchout! (mocking the outspoken and short-tempered pop-punk frontman’s penchant for punching fans).

On a surface level, it’s easy to consider Hong’s work to be a novel distraction. To some critics, remade Nintendo classics infused with youth culture references may not pass as high art. Nostalgia and novelty value do play a significant part in their appeal, and it’s certainly possible to mindlessly pass an afternoon playing through each title—they are functionally the same as their original NES counterparts after all. However, beneath the pixelated retro veneer of Hong’s games lies a sincere desire to create thought-provoking art, and Hong’s work is arguably most compelling when it taps into punk’s rebellious political spirit. While many of the Punktendo games require some degree of familiarity with the punk personalities parodied to fully appreciate, the more topical titles require only a modest touch on the pulse of public life in modern America to understand.

Similar to Hong’s Disney Unhappily Ever After project—an image series depicting Disney characters in brutally realistic scenarios—connecting childhood nostalgia with real-world problems is where his work is perhaps most impactful. These titles are not mere Daily Show-esque pressure valves for frustrated liberals to laugh at while letting off steam (though a few rounds of Donald Trump’s Punch Out! may very well prove therapeutic). Rather, in Hong’s view, they are intended to further serious discussion about important issues in addition to creating enjoyable diversions.

“At some point, I hit on the idea of making these games more punk-focused, but also at the same time, I was trying to make them socially conscious games as well,” said Hong. “It sort of fit into the ideals of punk, so that’s why I added it into Punktendo. They weren’t supposed to be taken as jokes. These were definitely more serious topics, and I was hoping people would see them as that.”

The element of interactivity introduced by games also forces players to actively confront issues rather than passively read or watch news stories about them. Racist Alley, for instance, puts players in the uncomfortable position of deciding when to pull the trigger on violent criminals while avoiding killing police officers and innocent bystanders. Selecting between three different environments—Ferguson, Missouri, Trayvon Martin’s home town of Sanford, Florida, or a trick shot mode—adds a grim layer of emotional weight to making the wrong decision. It’s similar to simulations used in research studies that have corroborated evidence showing a majority of individuals are more likely to instinctively shoot black people at a higher rate than individuals of other ethnicities.

connecting childhood nostalgia with real-world problems

The Original Gay Popeye takes a less violent but no less thought-provoking approach in challenging heteronormative stereotypes. Climbing ladder rungs while avoiding obstacles to unite the muscle-bound sailor with his suitor Brutus (rather than Olive Oil) turns the classic cartoon character’s narrative on its head. Rather than retreading the well-worn “save the princess” storytelling trope that even modern titles like BioShock Infinite (2013) sometimes fall into, it presents players with a romantic objective not often seen in games. If a player is straight, it asks that the individual not only accept the gay community as equal, but to actively bring two men together in love as a requirement for success.

Hong’s latest Punktendo title, Metroid: Starring Laura Jane Grace, may also be his most poignant title to date. Many Metroid players in the 80s and 90s were shocked to learn that Samus Aran wasn’t a man. The game’s closing scene, where the protagonist removes her helmet to reveal flowing blonde locks, is now among the most iconic in videogame history. This alone may have made Metroid a clear candidate for a game challenging gender stereotypes. However, as The Mary Sue astutely reported, documentation from Nintendo suggests Samus Aran was written as a transgender character in the first place.

Punktendo companion site Trumptendo doubles down wholeheartedly on political commentary, casting the hotel magnate-turned-politician as the ultimate gaming villain across an additional seven titles. Super Bernie Bros., referencing disparaging terminology used to describe aggressive male supporters of the outside left-wing presidential hopeful, turns the Vermont senator into a hero while Trump takes up the role of Bowser. The Original Donkey Trump Jr., The Original Donkey Trump, and The Original Donkey Trump 3 all portray the primitive loud-mouth as a bullying ape.

Punktendo’s interactivity is precisely what makes it most impactful when it is at its least comfortable. Urban Champion (1984), a game that was once only painful to play due to its poor controls, becomes much more unsettling when it pits two black men in a street fight. Inadvertently blowing yourself up in ISIS Bomberman while playing as an Islamic State terrorist is almost as uncomfortable as actually succeeding in your goal of bombing white NPCs. These types of games are not exactly intended to be mindless fun. In moments where the player finds themselves killing and beating innocent virtual citizens, Hong’s work moves beyond mining nostalgia for the sake of fun and instead delivers an emotional and philosophical gut punch. It challenges the purpose of play to be about more than harmless entertainment and instead encourages thoughtful introspection in a manner that is deceptively subtle and confrontational.

“I feel like a lot of these topics weren’t on people’s minds or weren’t part of the social conversation like they are now,” said Hong. “That’s also why I feel like Nintendo is such good source material for me. I can go back and change these games to make them more relevant to today’s issues.”

In this way, Hong’s Punktendo games bridge the gap between nostalgic fantasy and modern-day reality in a way that is rare for videogames at large. Many modern games reward players for committing unseemly acts—for example, who ever felt actual remorse for running over a pedestrian in Grand Theft Auto (1997). While some are able to incorporate topical or political leanings into their narrative—for example, the Metal Gear Solid series has long commented on the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Few, however, force players to confront the unsettling ironies inherent to enjoying playing games that glorify evil and inhumane behavior. At its most poignant, Hong’s work forces players to consider the consequences of their actions in the real world through the power of play.

art need not be comfortable to consume

These instances may be where Hong’s work most fully aligns with the punk ethic that art need not be comfortable to consume. This spirit and attitude is present throughout punk art, from its buzzsaw sound to its surrounding culture—afflicting the comfortable with discomforting counterculture messaging has been part of punk’s M.O. since its earliest incarnations. The Sex Pistols publicly criticized British royalty. The Clash spent the 80s infusing radio-friendly singles with subversive social commentary. Anarchist punk pioneers Crass resisted the comforts of capitalist consumerism through music, printed propaganda, and multimedia displays at live shows. Early punk documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization (1981) implied through its title alone that punk posed an existential threat to complacent manufactured culture. Pick up a copy of any contemporary punk zine, such as Maximum Rock And Roll or Razorcake, and you can expect to find economic and socio-political concerns covered alongside the music itself. Hong’s work similarly demands its audience actively consider what they’re consuming beyond its entertainment value, challenging status quo while bringing games into the wider sphere of punk media.

In true do-it-yourself spirit, Hong intends to continue the Punktendo project while teaching himself how to create his own games. His timing could hardly be better. Growing social and political unrest in Western media, combined with increasing interest in games among the broader culture, may create an audience finally ready to embrace games that confront current events. This is perhaps what most makes Hong an interesting industry figure to watch in the future as he accelerates his unifying passions for punk, interactive art, and social activism. Updating existing titles with countercultural cues is one thing. Original concepts offering fresh gameplay, however, could well be a gateway to something much bigger than mere nostalgic novelty.

“That’s my next bigger project I’m taking on down the line,” Hong said.

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Welcome to the age of videogame beards

Let’s face it: the renaissance of the full beard has been a thing for a while now. It came from fashion and now it has arrived in our videogames. It’s nothing to scoff at, either. The power of the beard has worked to change a 20-year history of smooth-faced Street Fighter characters: Ryu now has as much facial hair as Zangief. The same thing happened to Geralt in The Witcher 3 last year, and now the bald protagonist of God of War too: Kratos’s minimalist goatee has grown to a full beard for his next game, putting him in a list that I, as a former The Sims (2001) addict, usually call “The Bob Newbie Hall of Siblings.”

Joking aside, the bald-head-and-beard combo is something that has become increasingly popular in games. Beyond the default The Sims character, who lasted until The Sims 2 (2004), the look was given a gruff makeover when Max Payne adopted it for his third videogame sequel. In Max Payne 3 (2012), the protagonist is older and tougher, balder and beardier. Back in 2001, when Max touted a smirking, shaved face ripped straight from his writer Sam Lake, his story was already dark enough. But, two games later, the aging Mr. Payne’s heavy addiction to painkillers and alcohol seemed to make a slouchy beard inevitable. The truth is that, during a mission in Brazil, he changes his appearance by shaving his hair and keeping a full beard as disguise. Sure, a disguise, but we all know that this is code for “I’m hard, don’t fuck with me.”

molding his stubble into a menacing claw shape

This seems to be part of a tradition at Rockstar Games—to make bad-ass looking men give ’em a beard and they’ll look older and tougher. Beyond Payne’s makeover, Red Dead Redemption’s (2010) John Marston has a beard interrupted by scar tissue, molding his stubble into a menacing claw shape. Throughout the Grand Theft Auto series, beards became increasingly customizable, just as many other options such as hair and clothes did, but in GTA V (2013) the purpose of the beard is made abundantly clear. The game’s three protagonists, Michael de Santa, Franklin Clinton, and Trevor Phillips, all have customizable facial hair. However, only the latter two have full beard options . The fact that Michael doesn’t is significant, being that he’s the one trying to uphold a clean identity and present himself as a respectable, wealthy man. The other two give less of a shit, and Trevor especially is much wilder,  so it makes sense that you can revive the look of Max Payne 3 by making him bald and bearded.

On the other hand, the beard is also a fundamental part of the look of the “average” male videogame protagonists. Hannah Shaw-Williams points to 36 examples of these types of average-looking characters, including some I’ve mentioned, to prove it. She argues that “occasionally some brave soul will attempt to jazz things up by giving Brown-Haired White Guy dark auburn hair, or possibly something as outlandish as a pair of spectacles and a goatee, or even slick shades built directly into his face,” but these possibilities are still just “slight deviations as simply the Brown-Haired White Guy trying to wear a pair of Groucho Marx glasses to disguise himself for the carbon copy he really is.”

In order to make characters closer to what players want to look like or how they actually fashion themselves, games may adapt things that are currently in vogue. An article on The Telegraph lays out a couple reasons why beards might be trending again: it could be both a nostalgic wave and a cultural statement of the 21st century. According to the cultural commentator Ekow Eshun, the modern sprouting of beards date back to the “pre-beard Nineties dotcom boom, the speed and slickness of it at odds with slacker-style, grungey, facial bushiness,” but also as a  development of New Labor, “from whom ‘beards were everything they abhorred. Beards were Clause IV and Militant. Donkey jackets and picket lines. Marx and Engels.”

Beards like this seem to reinforce each patriarch’s authoritative position

Eshun also writes that, after 9/11 and the war on terror, men started to become more interested in “a kind of pastoral idyll look,” no matter if they were from cosmopolitan places like Brooklyn. Together with artisanal food, crafts, and folk music, beards were once again a big interest, but also part of “a reaction to women’s growing economic power, and a way of reasserting one’s masculinity.” According to the story The End of Men (2010), published in The Atlantic magazine, “a post-industrial economy based on innovation, emotional intelligence and strong networking skills means women have a decisive advantage over men in the coming century.” The return of the beard could be a symbolic if subconscious reaction to that.

And so it is that when any media delves into the realm of the future dystopia, we see an interesting array of bizarre beards. Emphasis on the word “bizarre” there—you’ve no doubt already laughed at Seneca Crane’s swirly beard in the Hunger Games films. There’s a whole Facebook fan page for that thing with nearly 25k people hungry for weird beard updates. Beards like this seem to reinforce each patriarch’s authoritative position in their respective dystopian society while also outlining the eccentricity (or sometimes complete madness) that got them there. Also see: Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon, Gendo Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Mentor in Space: 1999.

Of course, videogames follow suit. First it came for Jak in Jak II (2003), the sequel that saw him grow from an innocent boy to an angry man, and with it an almost adorable bit of green chin fluff. Then it came for Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series, as well as Adam Jensen in Deus Ex, his beard thicker with each game in the series, distinctive for the slices on the right side of his face. Of course, facial hair was always a big part of the masculine throwdowns of Shadowrun, Gears of War, Sonic The Hedgehog (yes, Dr. Robotnik), and Half-Life too. Videogame beards haven’t yet reached the peak oddball contours of Seneca Crane but they serve the same function. But given how more and more male characters are favoring life without the razor, constantly trying to up their manliness with fancier beard strokes, it may only be a matter of time before facial hair fashion in games goes that way. A little bit of beard diversity wouldn’t hurt—anything to even momentarily push aside the standard-looking Brown-Haired White Guy, please.

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The Legend of Zelda has been turned into a rap-battle RPG

I’ll cut to the chase: someone gave Link a voice. As everyone’s favorite silent protagonist for 30 years and counting(!), you’d think that Link might have some sophisticated musings on his experiences. As it turns out, he’s got something even better: the power of rhymes.

The Legend of Zelda: The Hero of Rhyme is a surprisingly accurate browser-based game that replaces all of the combat of the RPG classic with rap battles. Good rap battles. Like any other Zelda game, there’s winding forests, temples, and an inevitable face-off with Ganon. Na’vi is your more eloquent, still annoying fairy god-rapper. However, unlike the original series, you now need 500 “rap points” to top Ganon’s god-tier bars. You’ll regret challenging him too early—the game lacks a save function. One shot, one opportunity.

flow that would make Drake quiver in his Timbs

Despite the absence of Zelda’s trademark sword-spinning and pot smashing, the game is still just as satisfying to navigate, as totally unique rhyming showdowns wait around every corner.

Newgrounds user Deklaration posted the game in late August to warm reviews, and the game has since developed a small cult following, some users already requesting a sequel. Somehow, The Hero of Rhyme doesn’t completely undermine Link’s heroism—it almost makes sense that Hyrule’s most powerful warrior would also have flow that would make Drake quiver in his Timbs. After 30 years of kicking Ganon’s ass, it’s about time there was a new way to save the world.

Drop sick Hylian bars for yourself in your browser.

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