By Harold Goldberg

After Friday’s summer community event, join us for a panel the following day at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library in the Celeste Bartos Forum, 476 5th Avenue! The NEW YORK VIDEOGAME CRITICS CIRCLE will join the library’s big Summer Reading Games Day from 12:30 – 1:00 p.m. for an engaging panel discussion on games like Gorogoa, Nintendo Labo, Celeste and more!

Panelists will include: Christopher Byrd (The Washington Post), Harold Goldberg (All Your Base Are Belong To Us), Allegra Frank (Polygon), Scott Stein (CNET) and Sherri Smith (Tom’s Guide).

Plus, we’ll have a table set up all day long at the big event – with giveaways and info on our non-profit group. Come see us!

We’ll talk about the playable games on display:

GOROGOA (Buried Signal, 2017) is an imaginative, hand-drawn puzzle game, which took its creator (Jason Roberts) five years to make. The game presents an evocative, wordless narrative revolving around a boy, a dragon, and five colored apples. However, its intuitive mechanics elevate this simple story to something whimsical and magical, as players drag one of four panels across the screen to combine or replace another. An experience quite unlike any other, GOROGOA is a game for everyone.

CELESTE (Matt Makes Games, Inc., 2018) is a challenging, pixel art platformer about a young woman climbing a mysterious mountain. On her journey, Madeline encounters quirky friends, her evil twin, and her personal and very real struggles with anxiety and self-doubt. Made by the creators of TOWERFALL, CELESTE is one of the most original, heart-felt, and maddeningly-difficult games of this year. (Allegra will also talk about FLORENCE.)

THE LAST GUARDIAN (SIE Japan Studio, 2016) was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, best known for his work on SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS (1995) and ICO (2001). Despite its lengthy, 9 year development process, the puzzle platformer still retains his vision. A boy and a mythical half-cat, half-bird creature (named Trico) negotiate physical obstacles as well as past traumas to progress side-by-side through a beautiful, ruined world.

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS (Bluepoint, 2018) is a reimagined version of the PlayStation 2 classic, originally released in 1995. The protagonist Wander, roams a forbidden land with his horse Argo, seeking to defeat sixteen fearsome colossi in order to bring the young Mono back to life. SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS is a meditation on scale, sacrifice, and the nature of good and evil.