The (New) Tower of Babel
The (New) Tower of Babel, the second essay in a series on visionary architecture, which traces the Tower as an allegorical image linking ancient myth to modern technological anxieties.
Roleplaying Games Library Acquisition 2021-2022
In 2021-2022, the Game Lab added over 100 tabletop games to its library, selected to showcase the aesthetic, formal, and political experimentation happening in tabletop roleplaying today.
RPG Play Sessions at the Lab 2021-2022
Recap the six indie tabletop RPG play sessions and one RPG-making workshop the lab ran during the 2021–2022 academic year, featuring games like Tunnel Goons, Ech0, Cyberpunk Red, and Public Utility Mechs.
RPG Play Session Summary: A Thousand Thousand Islands
RPG session of Quiet Lake, a module from the Southeast Asian fantasy project A Thousand Thousand Islands, where players tracked a stolen goat into caves ruled by the roach queen Ma Blat.
RPG Play Session Summary: Ech0
RPG session recap of Ech0, a GM-less map-drawing game where a group of kids found the memory drive of Jeb, a long-dead medic mech pilot, in a scrapyard and led their ghost through a war-scarred world to the wreck of their own mech.
RPG Play Session Summary: Beyond the Borderlands and Tunnel Goons
RPG session recap of hexcrawl Beyond the Borderlands, where oddball adventurers laid a farmstead's ghosts to rest and then betrayed their employers to side with a band of kobolds.
Some brief thoughts on Warzone and the War in Donbas
Sam Malabre's essay examines how Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone turn real, ongoing wars into commodified entertainment that echoes US military propaganda.
Negotiating Transitional Spaces in Classic Games
Analyzing the structure of transitional spaces, from Donkey Kong's blank screens to Zelda’s interactive Hyrule Field.
Video Games: The State of the Field
A discussion with Steve Mamber, Peter Lunenfeld, and Eddo Stern.
Warcrack for the Hordes: Why Warcraft Pwns the World
The paradoxical combinations of WOW.