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Games can be more than mere entertainment. In our column Alt+Home, intermedia artist Kent Sheely explores the ways independent developers are challenging the status quo, creating brand new experiences, and making a difference in the world.

A lot of the games I played as a kid gave me the creeps, despite--or rather, due to--their simplicity. One of the first games that I remember having this effect was Sleuth for MS-DOS, a thriller in the style of a “whodunnit”-style mystery. Its graphics were entirely composed of alphanumeric characters and symbols, and all context and dialogue were delivered through on-screen descriptions, yet when the status window would announce “the murderer is now stalking you,” I would feel a genuine sense of fear. Even campy titles like Haunted House for the Atari had the power to spook me, simply because their limited graphics and sounds let my imagination run wild, the single-color objects and electronic sounds inspiring nightmarish scenarios in my mind.

T raf Teil 1 von Hotline Miami noch auf ungeteilte Begeisterung, scheiden sich bei Wrong Number die Geister. Zeit, Klartext zu reden. Dieser Artikel erschien ursprünglich für Haywire Magazine.

Hotline Miami 2 is a bad game.

There’s perfectly nothing controversial about that statement: it wants to be a bad game, at least as far as its desire to be deliberately frustrating instead of entertaining is concerned. Wrong Number picks up where the first game left off in terms of difficulty and revolves around such delightful activities as getting stuck on objects, trying to figure out whether lines drawn across its top-down environments depict solid objects or decoration, and being shot from off screen. Don’t worry though, it’s all part of the plan. The game is showing me what a monster I am because of all the fun I’m not having hurting others.

Games can be more than mere entertainment. In our column Alt+Home, intermedia artist Kent Sheely explores the ways independent developers are challenging the status quo, creating brand new experiences, and making a difference in the world.

The Magnavox Odyssey, which made its debut in 1972, was the first video game console released to the public. It was exceptionally crude by modern standards, relying on translucent overlay sheets placed onto the screen of the television to provide context for the rudimentary graphics. Every game was governed by a handful of illuminated bars whose movements were controlled by either the game controllers or by simple program routines calculated within the console. The Odyssey itself shipped with other tactile components such as poker chips, dice, and pre-printed score sheets, which made it seem much more like an adaptable board game than a video game console; a large portion of the gameplay was moderated by the players.

Games can be more than mere entertainment. In our new column Alt+Home, intermedia artist Kent Sheely explores the ways independent developers are challenging the status quo, creating brand new experiences, and making a difference in the world.

In public service communities, such as those based on political activism, social work, and counseling, close empathetic attachment is a requirement for being good at the job. The ability to be compassionate and attentive to the needs of others is a wonderful gift, but often comes with the cost of personal well-being; thus, having a regimen of activities that allow the psyche to rest and recover is a necessary tool for making sure one’s own emotional batteries stay charged. This practice is generally known as “self-care,” and can entail any number of exercises, mental or physical, that keep the individual in good mental condition. Even for people who don’t work in the aforementioned areas, such activities can be invaluable for combating daily stress and psychological drain.

"Bridging Worlds" is a series by LA-based artist and VGT guest author Eron Rauch about the blurred line between games and art. These articles are intended as conversation starters about the burgeoning intersection between the fine art world, academic studies of games, virtual photography, and video game creation. This time, Eron visited Indiecade - again - and, at first, found himself alienated. The photo project that resulted from this encounter with the "oasis that is Indiecade" can be seen in full on Eron's own site; the following article and selection of photos is a look not only at an event most European readers will most likely never experience themselves, but also a glimpse into Eron's creative process.