Thoughts.

Utena Tarot. - Feb 2023.

You should go read my new posts over on the Utena Tarot section of the site!

Notes on Video Game Criticism. - Jan 2023.

I mean, think about it for a second. Game criticism, particularly the kind made online, pioneered an entire new format of critique through its use of video. Starting with men screaming for comedy, this has evolved into a complex art form that millions of people will watch, without even playing the game, if the critic is good enough. Why is this?

All art is a dialogue, a new synthesis created from the viewer's mind mixing with that of the artist(s), but games take this to another level by making the art itself react to the will of the viewer. Beyond this it also contains all the other classical forms of art (writing, music, coreography, drama, visual art...). So it's this multilayered, reactive thing, but video games also have goals that push us toward a certain "win state." With other forms of art the end state is simply "get to the end," but games can prioritize a number of actions and modes of interaction through their design. So "video games" as a whole aren't all able to be criticized in the same way because they have different goals. For example you can't argue that Candy Crush and Disco Elysium are trying to do the same things or have the same aims as peices of art. Some games stretch the definition of "art" entirely and are closer to being toys or board games. So there's not even a coherent category of "game" to critique!

In this way a game critic entirely makes the game a reflection of her own will, both her experience and judgement of it completely dependent on her own goals in play and her own aesthetic judgements. In this way it is "pure" criticism, with the critic's light of interpretation beaming through the play experience like glass. I think this is why it's so enjoyable for our generation to watch these long critique videos, they give the critic freedom to construct their own art within the critique.

I don't know if any of that makes sense, but this is why I have a website - so I can inflict my insane rambling inner monologue on all of you :3