Abstract: Hitman 2’s Mumbai mission, just like the film Extraction, looks at the oriental space in a similar ‘diseased’ yellow filter which is akin to the Mexico of Breaking Bad. Here, we have the perfect orientalist reduction of a culture. By digitising Mumbai and creating it into a gamic world, it produces a rather lazilyContinue reading “Hitman 2 and its spectre of Mumbai: A lost city in translation – Samya Brata Roy”
Tag Archives: talks
Playing Dystopia: Searching for the Neganthropocene in Papers, Please and Orwell
The way we play games and the way games play us is constantly changing. The physical shrinking of space can no longer be compensated by expansive gamescapes which otherwise provided a reprieve from diminishing access to space in 20th and 21st century childhood (Mayra, An Introduction to Game Studies). Gamescapes, increasingly, are becoming neo-explorations ofContinue reading “Playing Dystopia: Searching for the Neganthropocene in Papers, Please and Orwell”
Speaking to the ‘Missing’ Player: Subaltern Poetics in Indian Videogames
The degree of interactivity and agency of the player-character in videogames is often a moot question in Games Studies discourses (Atkins 2002 , Juul 2004, Salen and Zimmerman 2001). The assumption is that whether illusory or real, agency is an important element that drives the plot of digital games. To assume this, however, is toContinue reading “Speaking to the ‘Missing’ Player: Subaltern Poetics in Indian Videogames”
Talk by Poonam Chowdhury: ‘Journey and the Art of Aesthetic Storytelling’
Thatgamecompany’s ‘Journey’ (2012) is a videogame like no other. This serene atmospheric game came out at a time when fast-paced, aggressive, AAA games were (and still are) the norm. Soon after the game’s release in 2012, thatgamecompany’s courage and hard work started getting the appreciation it deserved. ‘Journey’ has won several ‘Game of the Year’Continue reading “Talk by Poonam Chowdhury: ‘Journey and the Art of Aesthetic Storytelling’”
The Vanishing Curator: Souvik Kar
Playing back to the Empire, in videogames, is rife with tensions. The imperialist sentiment inherent in reverse-colonist discourse featured in most strategy-based videogames like Europa Universalis IV, where the player could conquer Europe playing for the Marathas, has been noted by Souvik Mukherjee (2017) as playing into the colonial logic while futilely trying to challengeContinue reading “The Vanishing Curator: Souvik Kar”
What is it like to be a Gamer or pursue Game Studies in India? Riko Banerjee
Even though video gaming as a hobby and career is slowly getting recognition in India, majority of the population still scoff at the activity, shunning gamers and game researchers alike, citing out-of-context and sometimes even false media propaganda. The challenges faced by a typical gamer in India include lack of information, budget limitation, lack ofContinue reading “What is it like to be a Gamer or pursue Game Studies in India? Riko Banerjee”
Aritro Bhattacharya— The Secret Seekers, NieR:Automata and Searching for Meaning in a Meaningless World
The Shadow of the Colossus (released in Japan as Wander and the Colossus) sparked a decade long search for a hidden mystery in the game’s world by a community of Gamers who aptly named themselves “The Secret Seekers”. This real-life quest for a hidden truth mirrors the plot of another game, NieR:Automata in which theContinue reading “Aritro Bhattacharya— The Secret Seekers, NieR:Automata and Searching for Meaning in a Meaningless World”
Digital Games Research Association, India 