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Category Archives: Deconstructions

Call of Duty: Secret Spielberg Level Unlocked

Call of Duty: Secret Spielberg Level Unlocked
Only with the absurdity of this video can you accurately capture the almost-entirely failed message of Call of Duty.
Choice quote: “My girlfriend has walked in front of the telly again.”

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Non-Linear Stories v1.0: Choose Your Own Adventure

While every boy knows that Fighting Fantasy was like, you know, 900 times better, than Choose Your Own Adventure, the level to which Christian Swinheart goes to dissect the CYOA series is nothing short of phenomenal. His visualizations of the story paths, in particular, are beautiful depictions of a system in operation.
While I won’t bother [...]

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Reimagineering

Last week, the second and final installment of the Episodes of Liberty City downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV, The Ballad of Gay Tony, was released. Unlike the more sullen story of Nico Bellic, clawing his way up from nothing, Gay Tony’s Luis begins with a crisp suit, good job, plenty of cash and [...]

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It’s All (About) Fun and Games

I’m a new member of the lab here, and that means that I’ve got a lot of learning to do. I need to learn about the different projects in the lab, learn about the various systems involved in those projects, and even about programming languages used in those systems. But I also need to learn [...]

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It’s The Bat!

We can talk about the production values, the voice actors, the longevity, the setting, maybe we could talk about some procedural logic or game studies du jour operational logic, but all there really is to say is that Batman: Arkham Asylum is a fantastic game. The reason why: you get to be Batman. Crazy, no?

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Nonlinear Storytelling in Games: Deconstructing the Varieties of Nonlinear Experiences

What is “the mark of the narrative”? In chapter 1 of her book, Marie-Laure Ryan, discusses the transmedial nature of narrative and gives a broad definition provided by H. Porter Abbott:  Narrative is the combination of story and discourse.  I believe the distinction of story and discourse is quite novel and under-appreciated in the area [...]

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