Kylie Broderick is a Ph.D. candidate and Mellon Fellow in modern Middle East history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is also the managing editor of Jadaliyya and a Co-Editor of the Resistance, Subversion, and Mobilization page.… Continue Reading
FirstPersonPodcast · First Person Podcast Episode 55: RPG Actual Play With Mariah E. Marsden And Kelley Paige Mason Hello, and welcome to the 55th episode of the First Person Podcast! I’m Alex Chalk, resident labour guy and editor for Commentaries,… Continue Reading
FirstPersonPodcast · First Person Podcast Episode 54: The Social Functions Of RPGs Welcome to the 54th episode of the First Person Podcast. This month will be examining the social functions of roleplaying games: how the stories and characters we make… Continue Reading
Players in Disco Elysium are presented with a different set of choices than those that prevail in conventional RPGs, but this on its face isn’t important if we don’t articulate how and why choice matters in the RPG genre. Player agency in RPGs always begins and ends with some expectation of choice. It is in RPGs where expectations of player agency are highest and where the idea of what constitutes freedom is most produced. Choice thus marks a common point of departure for RPGs and how they are received. However, it is important not to accept the notion of agency uncritically and question its significance based on its own conceptual ambiguity (Stang, 2019). Continue Reading
Welcome back to First Person Podcast after our August hiatus. On this episode you are joined by, Giuseppe Femia, the FPS Podcast Producer, Sabrina Sgandurra, our new Editor-in-Chief/Book Reviews Editor, Lia Black, our new Co-Managing Editor/Commentaries Editor, and Patrick Dolan, our other new Co-Managing Editor/Essays Editor. In this episode, we’re going to be discussing the companions that venture forward with us into the night. Or, the ones that stand by us through the good and the bad. We will be examining and discussing the plot significance that the in-game companions have and what they undergo while keeping us company. Continue Reading
Episode 6 of the First Person Podcast will discuss the critical darling Undertale. We cover the attempts at gender neutrality, the ups and downs of pacifism, the anxiety produced when mixing bullet hell and RPG elements and the barriers to entry when playing such a meta game. This podcast is full of spoilers so we recommend you play Undertale first if you were planning on it. Continue Reading
It was a hazy, mid-May afternoon in when PES United faced off against Merseyside Red in one of the greatest games in the English League’s history. It had to come down to this: Merseyside Red had stolen the title from PES United the previous season when PES United’s captain Iouga went down with an injury—and the club’s chances went down with him. In the off-season Merseyside Red swooped in to sign Ordaz, who had made his name with PES United. Continue Reading