by Jill Scharr When most people think of arts in New York, theater will come to mind long before videogames do. But recently at the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village, videogames were a close second. Exile, by Nastaran Ahmadi, is a 2013 Mentor Project Play running from April 3-13. It centers around the development of a game,…
The caffienated nature of NY Comic Con: Loud, nerd cheering, boisterous as a stadium huzzahs. Hot, sweaty cosplay. Skinny guy in a Sonic costume, posing on a motorcycle long as an SUV. Completely energetic dancing girls in the booths, so peppy, they could fly like a 60s comic book hero. None of these visions had…
A funny thing happened at GDC this year. I noticed it before even touching down inSan Francisco. As I booked my week-long gauntlet of previews and interviews, a trend emerged: many of the games I was carving out time to check out at were of the free-to-play variety. “Nuts to that,” I thought at the…
Last year at the Game Developer’s Conference, I bumped into one of the best known daily games reporters in the business. Like me, he is also an author. He knew I had a book that was about to hit, and he kindly suggested that I get in touch with a French publishing representative called Jean-Marc…
The rain was whipping horribly as darkness descended on lower Manhattan. On the face, the pelting rain felt like tornado-spewed hail, biting into the pores. The clothes were soaked within a minute. Jorge Jimenez and I stood near the Williamsburg Bridge, waiting for the GameTruck, a party rental service that brings videogames to you. The…
Alexander burned the midnight oil while writing Serious Same 3
I’m taking this time to write about a newly launched project that’s been in the pipeline for quite some time. It has little to do with our Critics Circle, except to say that I always urge our members to be creative and independent-minded and outspoken. Plus, I need to explain to you why this space…
On 9/11, there were no more videogames. On that morning with its molten-steel-bright sun, I stood with two neighbors, director John Waters and actor Tim Guinee, on 6th Avenue and 12th Street. It was just before the towers came down, and the NY1 report, still chilling, was that a small plane, perhaps a Cessna, had…
Despite a deep love for breakthrough technology and videogames, I’m still old school. If I spot a magazine I’ve never before seen, I’ll check it out with an enthusiastic curiosity. So it was as I approached a table far away from the concert at Summerstage in Central Park. I was flying from the visceral excitement…
A while back, Mass Effect genius Mac Walters and I had a talk about the art of writing in the science fiction videogame series, the latest iteration of which tops many year end lists this year. About one-sixth of this five-part series was published in EGM. But, as writing in games begins to get the…