I wrote this article for the now defunct roleplaying magazine Playground. It went under before this got published, so here it is. If you want to read old issues of Playground, they’re all here. Better Dead Than Red Playing the right-wing roleplaying game The Price of Freedom. The Communist party Continue Reading
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Pikseliparatiisi: Eurooppalainen äärioikeisto videopelipahiksina
Videopeleissä ei kauheasti nähdä mitään, mikä olisi tunnistettavissa arjeksi nykyaikaisessa Länsi-Euroopassa. Silloinkin kun pelihahmot elävät tavallisten ihmisten elämää, se tapahtuu anonyymissä Amerikassa, kuten ranskalaispelissä Heavy Rain. Norjalaispeli Dreamfall Chapters on ilahduttava poikkeus sääntöön. Se ilmestyy osissa, joista toinen on julkaistu äskettäin. Chaptersin toinen päähenkilö Zoë Castillo on vapaaehtoisena mukana vasemmistokandidaatti Continue Reading
Non-Digital: The Arcane Mysteries of Descriptive Game Design
I wrote about the booklet Manhattan 2010 here. It was an attempt to map out a childhood roleplaying game as a playable design. In conceptual terms, there’s something very interesting going on here. Almost all game design is prescriptive. “This is how I think you should play the game.” However, Continue Reading
Pikseliparatiisi: Tappamatta jättämisen autuus
Pelaan videopelejä työkseni. Monissa niistä tapetaan vihollisia, esimerkiksi venäläisiä tai arabeja. Call of Duty -peleissä tai Battlefieldeissä tapetaan satoja vastustajia. Headshottia toisen perään. Se on peliä, ja mitä pidempään pelaa, sitä enemmän se tuntuu vain peliltä. Fiktion fiktiivisyys on yhä ilmeisempää, eikä keksittyä pikselihahmoa ajattele ihmisen kuvana. Tarpeeksi monen räiskintäpelin Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Real Hamlet
This past weekend, I played in the larp Inside Hamlet, in Denmark. The larp gave the play a Marxist vision of decadent nobles living their last murderous days while the Reds were closing in. In the end, when the rebels finally break down the doors, they find only piles of Continue Reading
Pikseliparatiisi: Gamergate poliisisarjassa
Gamergate on normalisoitunut osaksi videopelikenttää. Yksi tapa miten tämä näkyy on, että siihen on alettu viitata muualla popkulttuurissa. Yksi esimerkki tästä on 11. 2. 2015 esitetty poliisisarja Law & Order: Special Victims Unitin jakso Intimidation Game. Jakso alkaa lupaavasti, joskin pöhkösti. Ice T:n hahmo on pelaaja, ja selittää muille pelislangia. Continue Reading
Roleplaying Game Movie Night #20: Warhammer 40K
I and some friends have a project of trying to watch all movies, tv episodes and other stuff with moving pictures related to roleplaying games ever made. We’re pretty far along on this goal. I’ll write here about old and new things we’ve found and watched. Dragonlance is not the Continue Reading
Roleplaying Game Movie Night #19: Dragonlance
I and some friends have a project of trying to watch all movies, tv episodes and other stuff with moving pictures related to roleplaying games ever made. We’re pretty far along on this goal. I’ll write here about old and new things we’ve found and watched. When I was twelve, Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Against Chess
Chess has arguably pervaded our culture more thoroughly than any other game. It’s used as a metaphor, a visual motif and as decoration, and sometimes people even play it. My chess career started and ended while I was still underage. There’s one game I remember loving as a child much Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #135 – Russian State Museum of Arctic and Antarctic
Museum: Russian State Museum of Artic and Antarctic (St. Petersburg) Russia and the Soviet Union have a long history of exploration in the Arctic and Antarctic. I visited the Russian State Museum of Arctic and Antarctic in St. Petersburg, and while the Artic section is bigger and better, there’s some Continue Reading