After failing to write one word for four months, I decided I had to make the dissertation a game. I had to treat myself like a child—develop a system of rewards. The method came to me in a flash: eight proposed chapters, eight Aeons in FFX. The idea of a pilgrimage. My old, dusty idol.
How we must look when we ride through the farms and villages between holds: two women mages, soft skin bound in studded leather armor, conjuration circles ringing our proud heads.
It’s hard to remember, sixteen years later, what I found so mesmerizing about a graphically obsolete princess. The jerky, jagged game was unrecognizable to the world I remembered spending dozens of hours in.
When I was in the final weeks of a tough, brawling pregnancy with my son, my sweet husband, Devan, asked me if there was anything we could do to take my mind off of it, help pass the time. I told him I wanted to play Mario Kart.
Flying an airplane is much like playing a videogame—there is the sensation of controlling something much larger than you are: an embodiment of a vessel, a commanding of an internal and external space. There is movement and stasis: all things reactionary.
We think video games are literature, and so why shouldn't there be literature about video games? That's the question we're hoping to answer here. Read more.
