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<H1><b>I Had <a href="https://youtu.be/draD85-n0YA?t=30">My Good Eye to the Dark. And My Blind Eye to the Sun</a></b></H1>
The <a href="https://www.twitter.com" target="_blank">DARKNESS</a> ain't all that. Sure, it's always there but is that a reason never to look for the sun? Sometimes you just need to [[DIVE IN?|Casual Gaming]].
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Uhhhh, it's just....</i></span></center>
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Too much? It's never too late to [[START OVER|Start Over]]...
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>What's the worst that could happen?</i></span></center>
<H1><b>First Steps. You Gotta Walk Before You Run. Or Even Just Walk a Little Faster...</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Child's play, no? A game is just what it is, surely? Did I really leave just to talk about childish things...</i></span></center>
<H2><b>So What is a Game?</b></H2>
Defining a game shouldn’t be so hard; at least, if most of us “play” a “game” for fun, the application of a strict definition seems almost anathema.
Listening to <a href="https://ludology.libsyn.com/episode-1-what-is-a-game-" target="_blank">"Lodology"</a>, I thought it interesting that separating the various “games” into different categories appeared to get more difficult the closer one seemed to examine what is, or rather <i>why something is not</i>, a game but rather “play” or just an activity with rules. A very good example of something that is almost impossible to pin down, possibly because people don’t seem to have a common starting point in making the definition.
That said, I’d tend to agree with a definition of game that has as <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=tic+tac+toe" target="_blank">few elements as possible</a>. I imagine most would agree that a game would have to involve rules and that there would have to be an outcome. After that I wonder how many components to the definition have to be there – many seem to me to be a way of excluding activities from the definition rather than clarifying the definition.
The notion of games, and particularly sporting games, acting as surrogate or substituting for hostile or military actions has always fascinated me from a sociological perspective; catharsis and a player being attached to the outcome of the game is probably seen as a natural human reaction but is it always? While some games lend themselves to cold or unemotional thinking, others may be seen to be affected by the “passion” of a player, for instance.
I have a very boring games resumé: the usual board games brought out infrequently, with a soft spot for the likes of <a href="https://youtu.be/8DJUvRe1rNM" target="_blank">Risk</a> over some of the more complicated set pieces like Axis and Allies, although I have dabbled.
I still hold a nostalgic place in my heart for 1980s and early 1990s video games, probably because the video art and play seemed to pushed technical and narrative boundaries relentlessly.
It also didn’t hurt that you couldn’t argue with a CPU about the rules.
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>You're making more of it than you need to. Games are simple, right? Hardly a matter of life and death?</i></span></center>
Yeah, [[SIMPLE|Casual Gaming]]...
You're kidding, right? You wanna know about [[LIFE AND DEATH|Crunch]]? <H1><b>Maybe Something Clicks. Maybe By Accident. Maybe When You're Having Fun</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>I don't know. The science fiction shows have us learning the alphabet on little tablets but what's wrong with a book...</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Games and Learning? Really?</b></H2>
Yes really. Except we probably don't call them games. We call them virtual learning environments or some other user-friendly but instantly forgettable conglomeration of buzzwords.
It's no accident that the Shaffer et al. reading refers to military uses of games; I imagine cost is a major factor to be considered in using digital tools in education and with military training, the logic is reversed. A book might be cheaper to produce and use than a tablet for a primary school student but it's cheaper to teach soldiers to use a virtual tank for a bit before putting them into the real thing and risking them pranging it.
One of my go-to redundant phrases is "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got". It's attributed to everybody from God to my dog at this stage but there is an inherent truth in it if we consider how education is done ... as it's always done. A change may need a catalyst - perhaps the current pandemic - but it also needs a desire for change from those who learn AND those who teach.
Video games genres are expanding and there's no reason to think the educational games element can't mature with the rest of the sector. My son is autistic and non-verbal so traditional teaching is almost impossible with him because it relies on verbal cues. Using apps was the only way to bypass the verbal cues and for him to make the connections we take for granted. At ten years old, he doesn't know how to receive an education without some form of digital tool to facilitate it.
In using games in learning, the first step of accepting it as a medium for education may be the hardest one.
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>How to ruin fun. Put school and education in there.</i></span></center>
Funny guy. You want to hear something [[FUNNY|Bunnies]]? It's a little NSFW but...
You know what's [[NOT FUNNY|Women and Diversity in Games (Part 2)]]?
[[BUT SERIOUSLY|History]]...<H1><b>Just a Bit of Fun. Until It's Not.</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>I don't get it. The seriousness of it all. Isn't it meant to be ... fun?</i></span></center>
<H2><b>It's Not Life Or Death. It's More Important.</b></H2>
The Burroughs exploration of the concept of ritual and ritual involvement, and a connection to “third places”, is fascinating as it could surely apply to both “hardcore” and "casual games", with only differences in type or intensity, for example. Juul notes PacMan as an example of a game appealing to “everyone”, but even PacMan or Ms PacMan could be seen as a hardcore game depending on the player; those chasing ever-higher scores, whether men or women, surely practise the “hardcore ethic” described by Juul.
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There is more than a few mentions of words like “easy” or “positive” with respect to casual games but again this surely depends on player perspective. I spent many hours playing Centipede and Asteroids on an Atari 2600; playing the game was easy as the machine took care of the rules and difficulty, the gameplay did not take much mastering but bettering my last score or beating one of my friends was difficult. The blocky game art of these games wasn’t in the slightest bit threatening either but did you see the cover art?
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Juul’s exploration of the concept of “juiciness” is interesting, particularly the separation of diagetic and non-diagetic juiciness and how this may align to the hardcore or casual game. The “immediate and pleasurable” feedback experience is not something that I always experienced playing games, either physical or video games, and part of the attraction was the delayed pleasure from “breaking” a game – finishing a stage in OutRun or Shinobi, beating each player in Street Fighter II. I guess it’s interesting that a contemporary of Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, may have been one of the pioneers of this juiciness (almost literally), where the “finishing move” at the end of each fight almost (or very often did) counted for more than an actual win in the game.
Saying all that, the casual game, like <a href="https://www.monumentvalleygame.com/mv2" target="_blank">Monument Valley</a> surely appeals to a wider demographic because it eschews the stereotypical traits of the hardcore gamer, at least on the surface?
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>I get it. Fun. Play. Child's play, right?</i></span></center>
What are you getting at? Spit it out, we're all [[FRIENDS|Online Communities]] here...
Would you prefer something a little [[EDGIER|Women and Diversity in Games (Part 1)]]?
Or, if edgy is too much like playschool, for my selected clients I've got [[THIS|Bunnies]]... <H1><b>You've Gotta Start Somewhere. Somewhere. Could Be Anywhere.</b></H1>
Try to step out of the <a href="https://www.twitter.com" target="_blank">DARKNESS</a>.
Into [[ENLIGHTENMENT]]?
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>It's cold <b>and dark</b> though. Tomorrow. Tomorrow might be a better time. I don't like the look of the sky...</i></span></center>
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Foreboding.
Or just the <center><span style="color:green;"><i>... irrational fear of what's possible</i>?</span></center>
What's possible? Maybe we can have a look at <span style="color:yellow;"><font size="200%"><i>The Evolving Nature of Games and Digital Culture?</i></font></span>
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Uh-huh. What's with the [[BLOCK CAPITALS|Start Over]]?
Couldn't you find a more subtle way of having to <span style="color:crimson;">MAKE A CHOICE?</span> A concrete block maybe?
Do I really want to start this?</i></span></center>
So which is it? The [[DARKNESS]]?
Or [[ENLIGHTENMENT]]?
<H1><b>(Not) Just (Not) Fun. It's Too Serious To Be Fun.</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Seems we were just talking about child's play? When did things get so serious? Doesn't anybody want to <b>play</b> any more?</i></span></center>
<H2><b>It's Not Life Or Death. It's More Important.</b></H2>
The provenance of games, perhaps even those of military influence, is surely too wide to be reliably considered from a “single” source? Conflict, in contrast with collaboration, is a more natural catalyst for game behaviours now, as I’m sure it was in antiquity, and as it is a universal characteristic in most of human nature. So perhaps, like language, multiple versions of “games” could have or just plain have emerged and become so cross-pollinated that it may prove a fool’s errand to try to disentangle their history. The Cape reading details the Prussian origins of Kriegspiel but it’s hardly an accident that a militaristic state developed a militaristic gaming approach and applied it as it did? I wonder if the Romans or Greeks had any proto-wargames?
On a related point, the Magnavox Odyssey pioneer preceded the Atari machine by a couple of months but surely nobody is arguing that the Atari is a progression of the Magnavox rather than these being two projects developed in their siloes, with the Magnavox just coming to market first?
The Caffrey reading implies that once wargames became an accepted military exercise, the process saw change in the amount of accurate detail included; instead of rolling a dice or depending on rough estimates of damage etc., the information tended towards what occurred on the battlefield. The examples of the German offensive in the Ardennes in the Second World War and the Japanese command disregarding the outcome of a wargame of the Battle of Midway only to see it played out in reality is particularly striking.
Following on from this is the interesting point about modern wargaming and the social, economic and cultural aspects. Whether the chaotic aftermath of the second Gulf War (after a fairly facile conventional military campaign) was either not gamed or just gamed and ignored, it served to demonstrate that “hearts and minds” is not something that can be ignored.
Following from <i>that</i> thought, I found this game, This War of Mine to be an interesting take on a “war game”.
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Inspired by the events in the Balkans in the 1990s, the player, though placed in a war zone, is a civilian. The aim of the characters is not to win the war but merely to survive until a ceasefire is called. Not the usual modus operandi of a military game but perhaps more “realistic” as the view of the common person rather than an all-seeing general.
<a href="https://www.bohemia.net/games/arma-cold-war-assault" target="_blank">Operation Flashpoint</a>, published in the early 2000s, was notable in that it eschewed the Hollywood aspect of military gaming. Its original iteration had an American force defending a nation from the Russians in the 1980s but the focus was on realistic depictions of battle (“Did anybody realise how boring war is?”). As a low-ranking soldier, the player would do as he was told (or face the consequences) and death, without the benefit of an energy bar or power-ups, often came, infuriatingly, by something the player could not prevent and before there was time to react. It was a global hit, spawned several sequels (of sorts) and the game engine was used by the US military itself.
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Well thanks for that history lesson. I thought this was about fun and games but I was clearly mistaken.</i></span></center>
What? Academia can be [[COOL|That's What You Get]]!
A little knowledge won't kill you. It's not [[UNCOOL|Women and Diversity in Games (Part 1)]] to learn a little...
<H1><b>Bonus!! 1UP!!</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Now this brings me back to when you <b>could</b> play without all the baggage. Now for some Double Dragon...</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Console Wars. Only Slightly Exaggerated.</b></H2>
<a href="https://www.imdb.com/video/vi4086939929?playlistId=tt5215462" target="_blank">Happened upon this on a Saturday night</a> (wild, I know, surfing documentary channels on the weekend) and loved it, even if it was a bit fluffy around the edges. To tie it a little bit to communities of practice, it felt at times like the late 1980s and 1990s in the computer games was still a bit like the wild west, with a lot of mavericks operating in almost open contradiction to the hierarchical (and patriarchal) Japanese corporate culture. The Sega Megadrive had "blast processing" as a selling point, which the Don Drapers of computer games just admitted to <a href="https://segaretro.org/Blast_processing" target="_blank">making it up</a>.
And that's before getting to the games! Nostalgia hit!
<center><span style="color:red;"><i>You Win!</i>
<i>Perfect!</i></span></center>
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You like this? I've a [[TREAT|Kentucky Route Zero]] for you.
What? Would I [[TRICK|Bunnies]] you?
Or would you like something a little [[DIFFERENT|Games and Learning]]?<H1><b>The Same Team. Just Different Goals.</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Wait, there's more of you? How many more? When did you get so ... organised?</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Real World. Real Lives. Just Virtual.</b></H2>
Like Withnail and Marwood, I’ve gone into some MMOGs by accident. Suit up with a virtual assault rifle and you answer Call of Duty and just learn how to drive recklessly with a control pad and you can be flying around the open world of California, sorry, San Andreas in Grand Theft Auto. It’s rather less easy to find yourself accidentally in MMORPGs surely, as there has to be at least some buy-in to the concept of “role-playing” in the likes of WoW, as Bainbridge notes.
Taylor contends that “the boundary between online and offline life is messy, contested and constantly under negotiation”, which is correct, but whereas issues of gender and race can seep into online, surely most of these games do not work without the players bringing in at least some of their real-life character to the virtual world? It’s interesting to think whether something along the lines of <a href="https://www.hbo.com/westworld/season-01/2-chestnut/cast-and-creators-reality-of-artificial-intelligence" target="_blank">HBO's Westworld</a> would actually be a success if (or when it’s) possible.
I remember reading in Juul that play is mostly taken to be free-form while games are rules-based activities. In the likes of Grand Theft Auto or Fortnite, there are objectives, of course, but part of the attraction for people is the ability to explore an open world, and Taylor notes that rules are often “contextual and contested”. In Call of Duty, once multiplayer games got a bit old, there was always the possibility of just going after the guys boosting their way to a killstreak. Is that still a thing? Are people constrained by existing definitions in these games or do they write some new ones?
Pearce’s idea of communities of play is fascinating and of course ties to Taylor’s description of cocreation and participatory culture. This is where the ethnographer comes into his or her own in observing the MMORPGer. The likes of ARMA 2, a military game where the multiplayer world can be modded by community, is an example of a game living on long after a developer wants to forget about it (sell the next one!). Why do they always tend to veer into zombie apocalypse territory?
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Perhaps we should bring a psychologist to accompany our ethnographer…
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>That's good but I'm not ... really interested in nerds? Am I allowed to use that term? I don't mean to be impolite...</i></span></center>
Nerds! You think you're [[IMMUNE|Gamification]] to this?
I get that all the time. Nerds. As if you're not already [[ONE OF US|Games and Learning]]?
<H1><b>The Crunch</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>You've overused the life and death thing. I mean, these people work at something that people use for <b>fun</b>. You can't tell me it's life and death...</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Working To The Virtual Bone</b></H2>
It's true that project management is just not being seen as a skill, or at least a desirable skill, in the industry. This can be excused, you might think, in the cheeky start-up company looking to disrupt. When the likes of Rockstar becomes the Apple of gaming, is nobody looking for work practices to mature just a little? Of course, if project management is a tool that’s used and crunch is just another setting on the tool, that makes things a little darker.
I've referenced Rockstar and the biggest players are often the biggest targets, for better or worse; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2018/10/20/an-employee-speaks-out-about-working-conditions-at-rockstar-games/" target="_blank">this Forbes article</a>, taking information from a Reddit exchange, at least implies that crunch may not be as bad as some reports; perhaps worryingly though, it also seems to confirm that practices such compulsory overtime are normalised – is it the case that the industry, despite its office base, struggles to fit in an office culture? <a href="https://kotaku.com/18-months-after-red-dead-redemption-2-rockstar-has-mad-1842880524" target="_blank"> Rockstar</a> is apparently shifting attitude, including “flexible schedules” and “management and leadership training”. The “iron triangle” is not something so easily changed – indeed, deadlines and product specifications are probably not entirely in the gift of a company anyway as they’re a factor of customer desires and competition. Does the player share some of this responsibility, no matter how unwittingly?
The habitus concept as it applies to crunch is interesting but although it’s most prevalent in tech, I’m sure it doesn’t just happen in tech. I remember reading Coupland’s Microserfs back in the day thinking the way these people lived and worked in one homogenous type of existence was crazy; now there’s 2020 and all that so not so crazy any more.
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Jesus. That's dystopian. Games used to be about the fun. Didn't they?</i></span></center>
You never said anything about fun. I take [[FUN|Casual Gaming]] very seriously.
You don't like it? We're all [[FRIENDS|Online Communities]] here...
You'dont know the half of it, friend. There's dark and then there's the <a href="https://www.twitter.com" target="_blank">DARKNESS</a>...<H1><b>A Brave New World. Just Not For You.</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Is this a club? I thought fun and games were universal. How do I get in?</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Gaze.</b></H2>
I remember Mulvey's piece from my undergraduate days when, to be honest, things were a little simpler. I don't say this to be in any way facetious but there's no doubt digital advances have led to "complications". Notice I didn't say "advances".
Mulvey's treatment of the male gaze is a titan of the field and it's no coincidence that it's still on reading lists after almost 50 years of existence. Her exploration of voyeurism and the scopophilic instinct is a brilliant deconstruction of what drove (and still drives) major parts of the film (and other) industries. Rather less brilliant is my critical examination, somewhere in a folder in the attic with "Film Studies 1999" written on it of how Jane Campion's <i>The Piano</i> turned the male gaze on itself with what Silverstein has termed, of course, the <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/female-gaze-100-overlooked-films-directed-by-women" target="_blank">"female gaze"</a>. Ah for my undergraduate days at the dawn of the 21st century when I thought I knew everything.
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I find it interesting that others have said they are not qualified to speak to issues of gender and diversity because they are not of a particular race or gender; this is what I referred to earlier as a complication. Not being a woman should surely not disqualify people from contributing to debate (as long as it's constructive and contributes to the body of knowledge) on feminism, for example, and for too long the argument of "you wouldn't understand" has been used as a way to fend off debate. The complications I referred to; increased noise-to-signal ratios and disqualifying people from debate on grounds of gender or race is no more acceptable now than it ever was. The echo chamber will eat itself.
On a related note, back when I was doing my undergraduate degree third wave feminism was in its heyday and I lucked out as a result. Reading Carter's <i>The Bloody Chamber</i> really turned my head to literature that was truly breaking free of patriarchal influence and Margaret Atwood remains one of my favourite authors. Ironic and, if I'm honest, depressing, that the likes of Atwood, without whom current iterations of feminism would have a very different face, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42708522" target="_blank">is not above being swallowed</a>by the gender and race relations dynamics that we see today, facilitated by digital "advances".
The subject is full of ironies. Atwood, a pioneering feminist writer whose handmaids are often used as feminist avatars, being "cancelled" because she is perhaps isn't feminist enough these days. And <i>The Piano</i>, often hailed as one of the best films directed by a woman, was produced by Harvey Weinstein's Miramax and would not have seen the success it did without it.
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>No such thing as a guiltless pleasure then...</i></span></center>
Tell me [[MORE|Women and Diversity in Games (Part 2)]]!
Well that's depressing. Got anything a little ... [[LIGHTER|Gamification]]?<H1><b>Your Life, Better.</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>You remember the Arnie flick don't you? The Running Man? It was all a game show. Life and death stuff</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Running Man?</b></H2>
What is that instinct that makes us want to accumulate those points? Tesco club card points, daily steps, likes? Why is civilised behaviour suddenly expendable where there's a possibility to accumulate those points?
I've noticed a good friend of mine who has a Twitter following in the low four figures and whose opinions seem to vary depending on whether I am talking to him over a pint (sad face) or interacting with him on Twitter. I've said this to him and he acknowledges it - his behaviour and posting is influenced by numbers and his desire to have even more. He's spoken about a thrill from seeing a post go viral(ish). He's well educated and one of the most intelligent people I know but there is a shift in his thinking and personality when he goes online.
I know gamification is part of my life and I'm probably one of the early adopters. I know I give companies my data but most of the time I'm comfortable getting something back, whether that's information on my running (which I hope Garmin doesn't sell to my health insurer) or the trusty store coupons for scanning my loyalty card. I know the discounts are priced into the products but even the discount itself makes me feel that I'm winning <i>something...</i>
Augmented reality can be useful but I agree that there may be a time and a place for it and maybe the world's not ready just yet. Saying that, I use a starfinder app on my phone and my young daughter takes a great interest in trying to find the planets and stars with it. Again, perhaps, it is just that people are used to doing things in a certain way and don't necessarily see the need to use such technology if the "old" way suffices...
<center><span style="color:green;"><i>Shit. So I'm already in the Matrix? I don't remember taking that pill</i></span></center>
The Matrix isn't all that. Don't believe everything you see [[IN THE MOVIES|Women and Diversity in Games (Part 1)]].
Try the [[RED PILL|Crunch]]?
It was the [[BLUE PILL|Console Wars]]. Neo should have taken the [[BLUE PILL|Kentucky Route Zero]] <H1><b>A Brave New World. Just Not For You. Or You.</b></H1>
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>I thought you were finished. Can I get a coffee before you ...</i></span></center>
<H2><b>Gaze 2 (I have a lot to say).</b></H2>
We can't make Lara Croft unhappen, no more than we can make <i>Rear Window</i> (or pretty much any Hitchcock movie) unhappen. How does it help? Pretending this
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doesn't exist does not make it go away, and it's debatable as to whether censoring or eliminating such content is the best way to make it <b>NOT HAPPEN</b>. With the likes of #gamergate, would it not be the case that those who are ignorant of history would be doomed to repeat it?
So just give up? You still have misogyny and a lack of diversity in the wider film industry, despite affirmative actions.
Perhaps we can look nearer to home for inspiration. Well, sort of.
If Found (see above) is a game set (for the most part) in 1990s Ireland but that does not stop it addressing questions of gender, race and identity. It is not "about" these issues but they play an integral part of the game itself. It grasps these not as a means to an end but, I imagine, to shift the dynamic away from the focus on what is or what is not but rather what can be.
It's worth noting it's from <a href="https://annapurnainteractive.com" target="_blank">Annapurna Interactive</a>, which produces some amazing games that blur lines of diversity and gender. No surprise either, given some of the cinematic scope of some of its games, is that Annapurna Interactive is part of <a href="https://annapurna.pictures" target="_blank">Annapurna Pictures</a>, which has worked on many award-winning movies and serials with a strong focus on, you guessed it, race, gender, identity and diversity. Not least <i>Zero Dark Thirty</i>, a film that itself broke the rule book by covering a macho subject under the direction of an eminent female director and a cast led by actress Jessica Chastain.
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<center><span style="color:green;"><i>I think I've done well at this stage.</i></span></center>
So near and yet so far, as the saying goes.
[[SO NEAR|Console Wars]]!
[[SO FAR|Bunnies]]!<H1><b>After All That...</b></H1>
My favourite game of the last year. And it's been going for ten years at this stage. You deserve it.
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Play it a little. This is a reward, not a punishment. You did it, after all, and I'd consider this a win. After that you can [[START AGAIN?|Start Over]] if you're a glutton.
And a special note of [[THANKS|Photo Credits]] to these people who have made their work freely available on Unsplash, which made this a bit more visually interesting.<img src="https://changingconversations.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Cover-Page-DH-6007.jpg" width="100%" height="100%" alt="silhouette">
<center><b><i>[[PRESS START|Start Over]]</i></b></center>
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Jeez, what do you think the Internet's for? A repository of mucky stuff?
[[GO BACK TO THE START, SUITABLY CHASTENED|Start Over]]
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You think I don't have feelings?
Now [[TAKE YOUR PUNISHMENT|Start Over]].
Or [[MAKE AN ACT OF CONTRITION|Women and Diversity in Games (Part 1)]]?
You can always [[TRY THE SHORT-CIRCUIT|Bunnies]] if you want to get your hands dirty.<H1><b>Not bothered by the brilliant work of these people that made this (a bit more) playable? [[Get Back!!!|Kentucky Route Zero]]</b></H1>
Cover Page - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@alex_andrews?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Alexander Andrews</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/video-game-dark?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
Start Over - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@the_peacemaker__?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Ebadur Rehman Kaium</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@the_peacemaker__?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
ENLIGHTENMENT - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@helloimnik?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Hello I'm Nik 🎞</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/lego?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
DARKNESS - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@tateisimikito?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Jukan Tateisi</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@tateisimikito?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
Casual Gaming - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@frdx?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Fredrick Tendong</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@frdx?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
Crunch - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@whitfieldjordan?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Jordan Whitfield</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@whitfieldjordan?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
Games and Learning - <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cpc464.computer.750pix.jpg">Arpingstone</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
History - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@stijnswinnen?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Stijn Swinnen</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@stijnswinnen?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
Online Communities - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@mrthetrain?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Joshua Hoehne</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/fortnite?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
Console Wars - <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sega-Mega-Drive-JP-Mk1-Console-Set.jpg">Evan-Amos</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Gamification - Author's own
Women and Diversity in Games (Part 1) - <span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@brittaniburns?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Brittani Burns</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@brittaniburns?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span>
All YouTube videos link to original source