Category Archives: Nick Hanford
Framing Meaning through Play – or – Everybody’s Gone to Film School
*Minor spoilers for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture to follow, I think.* The perfect shot is a powerful thing – not only in communicating pleasure and meaning to a viewer, but also in the feelings it can engender within its … Continue reading
Fun Possibilities
When I sit down to produce a singular piece of writing, I generally do a few things to spark creativity and get the ball rolling. I generally search Google Scholar, Critical Distance and my own library for things that might … Continue reading
Hype and Nostalgia: Gaming’s Memory Flows
It took me about four hours to find out that double-clicking made Manny Calavera move faster, running instead of the slow walk I had gotten used to. The game had changed there, in an instant, to something much different. The … Continue reading
Criticism and Habits: My Fear of Never Alone
Every Wednesday in high school I went out to do community service that the campus ministry of my Catholic high school facilitated. We would go to nursing homes, care facilities, and homeless shelters, work for a few hours, and return … Continue reading
Sports Games and Remediation
Brendan Keogh wrote a wonderful article for Reverse Shot on the visual workings of FIFA ’14 and it’s really cool. As someone who plays a ton of different sports games, I’m always excited to see new critical engagements with the … Continue reading
First anniversary: What we’ve learned
For Higher Level Gamer’s one year anniversary, I thought we’d share what we learned while writing for HLG this past year. So, what follows is the result of us sharing what we’ve learned in a google document dialogue for the … Continue reading
A Hook to Grapple With: Transcending Environments with Vertical Accessibility
This E3 is the first time that I’ve paid close attention to the whole spectacle. I’ve only been playing games on a console for a few years now and didn’t really understand how watching game trailers could be exciting. I … Continue reading
A Week with Watch Dogs
As I’ve spent more time with them, the cities that I have lived in or frequented have often slowly shrunk as I got to understand them better. As I knew where I was based on a landmark or could quickly … Continue reading
Ideologies of Failure and Production in Action Painting Pro
Action Painting Pro (APP) is a small, free game that turns MS Paint into a platformer. Players jump around the screen collecting the different tools which the player then becomes, covering the screen in a mess of colors. Failure here … Continue reading
Always in Alpha Podcast, Ep. 2: Titanfall and Hype
We’re back for another Always in Alpha Podcast to talk about Titanfall and its hype–just in time for you to listen before Titanfall comes out on Xbox 360. Streaming:
clanius
Jason Coley
LCooke
ludogabble
Higher Level Gamer 