After scrutinizing the sniper Imani and talking about how Gigantic developers are dealing with old-fashioned — and often negative — tropes related to black women on their game, it’s a perfect moment to talk about how signs and symbols may affect and define a character’s gameplay. The perfect one for doing so is my favorite, the scary granny Griselma.

<img class="progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Eh51WmsP72Wm_av1IDe0AQ.jpeg"> [This essay was funded through Patreon under the ZEAL project. ZEAL aims to provide high quality criticism of rarely discussed games and comics, and showcase the talents of exciting new writers and artists.

Governments have been using and perhaps abusing public space. A street is no longer a street, it’s a smart environment that can collect data from the citizens that pass through, tracking their behavior in real time. What was once designed for pedestrian flow is now an assembly of surveillance. The Playable City project, however, is interested in using technology as a way of creating democratic dialogue between citizens and the city from a more playful and human approach.

Musikinésia is a game about mastering the telekinetic powers of a dusty piano by learning how to play a real one. Not long ago, Rock Band 3 (2010) had a plastic keyboard that let players get the hang of rhythms on the piano, and Synthesia (2013) got a little closer to actually being a pack of lessons by using the whole range of a MIDI keyboard as a controller.

It’s well known that Pac-Man, released in 1980, was the first time a game presented food as a relevant feature. At the time, arcades were flooded with musty smells, spaceships, and violent aliens. Pac-Man had to slide through a maze eating small and big pellets, all while avoiding four ghosts to beat each stage.

A year ago, when Rich Vreeland (aka Disasterpeace) said that the work on his score for Mini Metro (2015) would be around 90 percent coding, not many knew what he meant. At the time, the only insight he shared was that he was creating blends of MIDI scripts integrated with music software, and that the results would be part of the procedural audio of the subway system management simulator.

[This essay was funded through Patreon under the ZEAL project. ZEAL aims to provide high quality criticism of rarely discussed games and comics, and showcase the talents of exciting new writers and artists. For details and information on how to donate, please check out our Patreon!] I did not expect my mother to change that way.

Soccer as we know it has undergone several modifications since its earliest stages. Back in 1529, a soccer-esque sport called ‘Calcio Fiorentino’ was being played between two teams with 27 players each in the Piazza Santa Croce, a famous plaza in front of a basilica in Florence, Italy. The players used this game to solve their political differences in a match full of violence and intensity.

PDF with my contributions to the Indie Game Magazine August 2015 issue. The file contains the Super Chibi Knight review and Avenging Angel Preview.

After the opening season of the 2015 North American League of Legends Championship Series, star mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg said he felt a “strange pain on the back side of my left hand.” About a year later, legendary Counter-Strike: Global Offensive