Bookwarm Games

https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/timothy-summers

https://www.ludomusicology.org/

His new book is Pixel Soundtracks: Exploring Video Game Music Through Twenty Games

You'll hear snippets of audio from Buck Rogers; Uematsu's FFVI Opera (and Toby Fox/Undertale's Mettaton riffing on it); Dvorak's Songs My Mother Taught Me; the Prelude of Stravinsky's Firebird; the Wagner Museum theme from The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery; the Title theme from the Follins' NES Silver Surfer; the opening of MOTHER/EarthBound Zero (and cf. Undertale's opening); the Michael Nyman/ St Paul's Cathedral Choir arrangement of Suzuki/Tanaka's Eight Melodies from MOTHER; Kondo's Kakariko Village from Zelda: Ocarina of Time; the Summers Resort theme and a fun sound effect moment that plays after you've OK'd naming all your characters and favorite things in EarthBound. I think that's all of them!

I'm working on a post to help me think through more of the lines of argument, examples, and allusions you'll also hear, especially all of the scholarly work mentioned by Dr Summers in the course of this conversation, so check out https://videogameacademia.org/ for more.

Thanks for listening!

We discuss Professor Kozlowski's proposal for Manchester Games Centre's Multiplatform 2025 conference on the theme "Rituals of Play".

More on https://videogameacademia.org/

Thanks for listening!

⁠⁠⁠⁠Slides⁠⁠⁠⁠ to accompany the ⁠⁠video⁠⁠ (⁠⁠part 1⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠part 2⁠⁠).

Quite a few of these are uploaded to YouTube, and there may be even more still lingering in the Twitch archives. I tried to track the project ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠.

As Signum is rebranding some of its content in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Plaza⁠⁠⁠⁠, there may be a more polished version available someday, but I wanted to share it such as it is. My hope is still to incorporate this material into a book about Pullman, which I'm ⁠⁠⁠⁠envisioning⁠⁠⁠⁠ as more of an intellectual biography than the commentaries and analyses I've released so far. Collaborators welcome!

Thanks to the team at Signum for lending me the platform for these experiments in reading video games and playing books on Twitch, and thank you for listening.

⁠⁠⁠Slides⁠⁠⁠ to accompany the ⁠⁠video⁠⁠ (⁠part 1⁠ and ⁠part 2⁠).

Quite a few of these are uploaded to YouTube, and there may be even more still lingering in the Twitch archives. I tried to track the project ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

As Signum is rebranding some of its content in the ⁠⁠⁠Plaza⁠⁠⁠, there may be a more polished version available someday, but I wanted to share it such as it is. My hope is still to incorporate this material into a book about Pullman, which I'm ⁠⁠⁠envisioning⁠⁠⁠ as more of an intellectual biography than the commentaries and analyses I've released so far. Collaborators welcome!

Thanks to the team at Signum for lending me the platform for these experiments in reading video games and playing books on Twitch, and thank you for listening.

⁠⁠Slides⁠⁠ to accompany the ⁠⁠video⁠⁠ (part 1 and part 2).

Quite a few of these are uploaded to YouTube, and there may be even more still lingering in the Twitch archives. I tried to track the project ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

As Signum is rebranding some of its content in the ⁠⁠Plaza⁠⁠, there may be a more polished version available someday, but I wanted to share it such as it is. My hope is still to incorporate this material into a book about Pullman, which I'm ⁠⁠envisioning⁠⁠ as more of an intellectual biography than the commentaries and analyses I've released so far. Collaborators welcome!

Thanks to the team at Signum for lending me the platform for these experiments in reading video games and playing books on Twitch, and thank you for listening.

Slides to accompany the video.

Quite a few of these are uploaded to YouTube, and there may be even more still lingering in the Twitch archives. I tried to track the project here.

As Signum is rebranding some of its content in the Plaza, there may be a more polished version available someday, but I wanted to share it such as it is. My hope is still to incorporate this material into a book about Pullman, which I'm envisioning as more of an intellectual biography than the commentaries and analyses I've released so far. Collaborators welcome!

Thanks to the team at Signum for lending me the platform for these experiments in reading video games and playing books on Twitch, and thank you for listening.

⁠Slides⁠ to accompany the ⁠video⁠.

Quite a few of these are uploaded to YouTube, and there may be even more still lingering in the Twitch archives. I tried to track the project ⁠here⁠.

As Signum is rebranding some of its content in the ⁠Plaza⁠, there may be a more polished version available someday, but I wanted to share it such as it is. My hope is still to incorporate this material into a book about Pullman, which I'm ⁠envisioning⁠ as more of an intellectual biography than the commentaries and analyses I've released so far. Collaborators welcome!

Thanks to the team at Signum for lending me the platform for these experiments in reading video games and playing books on Twitch, and thank you for listening.

The preview session for Video Game Studies in SPACE.

Inviting students to share their delight in, and deepen their appreciation of, video games, we will discuss examples of the art, music, gameplay, and story from a range of influential titles. We will introduce and experiment with some of the theoretical frameworks that have been applied to video games as media objects and cultural artifacts. But mostly, we will enjoy learning more about the medium and the games we already love. Aside from links and selections shared throughout the module, Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow will be the only required reading.

And for a true expelliarmus from the past, here's some audio recorded at Norwescon 42 with Sarah Miller, for a podcast created by Alexander Schmid, discussing the Harry Potter books.

Thanks to Signum U for hosting my course, to the organizers at Norwescon, and you for listening!

Presentation slides - essential for playing Name That Tony! with us and reading text boxes from EarthBound

Reflecting on two secondary characters, Tony from Snow Wood and Tony Makarios, respectively appearing in EarthBound, a video game released for the Super Nintendo in 1995, and The Golden Compass, a book by Philip Pullman published that same year, players and readers of all ages are invited to consider themes of loss and recovery from a new perspective. Both characters are kidnapped, one at the start and one near the end of the adventures in which they figure; both characters have someone important taken away from them in turn. Their responses provide significant symbolic images and gameplay mechanics that draw us closer to the heart of these stories.

Thanks to the team at Signum U for hosting, and to you for listening.

https://videogameacademia.org/

For more on the presentations: videogameacademia.org

Thanks for listening.

Inspired by Prof Kozlowski's recent post on FFVIII and IX, I'm sharing the audio from my talk on a not-too-dissimilar essay, Rat Tail and Knights of the Round: Summoning King Arthur in Final Fantasy IV and VII.

Abstract: Video games play a significant role in transmitting images of heroism in contemporary culture. This talk concerns allusions to King Arthur in the Final Fantasy video game series, read in the light of mythic narratives present in the role-playing game genre. I focus on representative Arthuriana in Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VII, which I take to be illustrative of the tension between crystalizing and splintering tendencies at work in the series. I draw comparisons between two major examples, the Excalibur weapon and Knights of the Round summon magic. For a tentative framework of theory, I make reference to Tolkien’s imagery of light as refracted by Verlyn Flieger’s analysis in Splintered Light.

Referenced slides.

For more about my presentations at Signum U's TexMoot: videogameacademia.org

https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/danganronpa/

Spoilers and CW: be ready to talk about gender, sexuality, jealousy, transphobia, and "Gentleman" Genocide Jack.

Thanks for listening!

Gamelogica youtube channel

The Pixels

We're still hoping for a Criterion Collection of video games, but in the meantime, we'll do our part to bring you thoughtful critique and analysis of games' deeper meaning, with a healthy dash of the ridiculous.

https://videogameacademia.org/

Dylan Holmes joins me to discuss his history of storytelling in video games, A Mind Forever Voyaging. Read his book if you're interested in games like FF7, MGS, Deus Ex, and Dear Esther, or in questions about cinematic technique, player choice, power and escapism. Read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin all the way to the end and you'll find it among her acknowledgments. Plus, it's translated into French as ⁠Little Big Stories: Voyage au coeur de la narration⁠ (surely not a reference to another great novel, Little, Big, by John Crowley?!)

Read more from Dylan at Nightmare Mode and Augmented Vision. See my review over on ThePixels. The Secret of Monkey Island audio comes from the SCUMM Bar fansite.

Thanks for reading and listening.

We come full circle, as it were, Alex and I, discussing his recently published paper "Popularizing Paradiso: On the Difficulties of Podcasting Dante’s Most Academic Canticle" and his work bridging popular culture with the field of comparative literature.

At long last, Alex and I wander off on another side quest, discussing Miyazaki's recent film, The Boy and the Heron, and its resonances for us with myth and history. (As always, I wish I knew more about the language, like how to translate "How Do You Live?")

Other episodes in this series on the storied Studio Ghibli can be found most readily on Alex's youtube.

Thanks for listening.

A conversation with Alyse Knorr, 'achiever' (to cite her Super Mario Bros 3, where I first encountered her work and reviewed it for The Pixels). In which we discuss:

- Sweetbitter Podcast, with new episodes coming soon about Mary Magdalen and a fourth season in the works

- Switchback Books, which she edits with her wife

- Regis University, where she teaches alongside colleagues such as Russ Arnold

- her poetry, research, and the novel she's writing

- Annotated Glass and Sappho fragment 31

- 'Bright Star,' Keats, Eliot, Carson's Autobiography of Red; Gilgamesh and Enheduanna

- 'Anatomy Exam'

- Ardor, a book of eco-queer domestic life and love

- Every Last Thing, a book of tantrums and embarrassed apologies

- Micaela Tore's MA thesis on Copper Mother

(and around here you'll get a musical interlude from moonbowmusic)

- Topophilia: Elizabeth Bishop's 'The Map'; Henry Jenkins' 'Complete Freedom of Movement'; Sean Fenty's nostalgia piece in Playing the Past.

- her new class on Video Games and Meaning: topics, problems, persuasion and social justice: Hair Nah and microaggressions; Oregon Trail and colonialism; Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin; Passage; citizen science; This War of Mine; Papers, Please; Train; Anna Anthropy's Dys4ia, Queers in Love at End of World, and ZZT.

- Her new novel (agents, check it out), a postapocalyptic story of love and a journey in a world with too much stuff, not enough people

Alyse also recommends Merlin for birdwatching; "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock," by TS Eliot; "Married," "Alone," "In Dispraise of Poetry," and "Failing and Flying," by Jack Gilbert.

Thank you for reading and listening! from the Video Game Academy

MG Prezioso, PhD candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, joins me to discuss her work on the role of enchantment in promoting literacy for young readers, particularly in the case of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Her article appears in Children's Literature in Education; for more on Pullman's view of education, see his essays in Daemon Voices and sundry remarks available online. Thanks for listening!

First, here's the link to a recent conversation with Evan Minto on Season 3 Episode 3 of His Dark Materials, The Intention Craft. 

Then, listen on for one of my semi-monthly discussions from the Middle-earth to EarthBound series on Signum Academy, an introduction to classic JRPGs like  Dragon Quest and MOTHER/EarthBound in the light of Tolkien's influence on storytelling. 

There's more bookwarm games and gamecool books to come in the new year, starting with a new Video Game Studies module in SPACE.

Happy holidays, and thanks for listening! 

Professor Kozlowski spins us a yarn of the high seas. Pirate opportunism, whale physics, development metafiction, and a polyphony of voices and moral gray areas--it's a good game, but is it actually an Assassin's Creed? Well, yeah. It says so on the box. 

Along for the ride as Professor Kozlowski weaves together the 2012 PS3 game's disparate threads better than the Ubisoft team does: Patriots and Loyalists; colonizers and oppressed; East coast cities and homesteads; first hour fake-outs and begrudging good riddance to the Desmond stuff. But hey, the naval battles are pretty cool. See also: The Year Project Moon Took Over Ben's Life and Fahrenheit 451