Etcetera #3 - Mental health & representation in video games

“A Short Hike managed to execute an experience which fueled the fires of two of my inhibitive mental divergences in a way which felt…safe, actually.” I loved A Short Hike during my brief play through last year. A component of the plot includes feelings of anxiety, which the game frames in an interesting way.

See also: Madeleine’s struggles with anxiety and depression in Celeste; Majora’s Mask as an anxiety nightmare; if Link takes the role of the player in Zelda games, why can’t/shouldn’t we break its concepts of identity?

“Games provide a window into other worlds, but for many BAME and working-class students that window is shut tight.” For all of game design and development’s supposed democratisation—anyone with a computer can download, say, Unity, and start making something—the professional career path is still dominated by the same people (or, better: the same profile of people) who have been there at any point in the past 20-30 years. As with all issues of representation, this is reflected in the types of games that are made and their characters and plots. The effects of the pandemic on children’s education could exacerbate this.

See also: the Orientalist xenophobia of games like Cyberpunk 2077; How India’s shifting political climate is influencing local game development

Writing about writing and punctuation is seemingly more popular than ever and this is the third week in a row I’ve included something along those lines. This is a good example though: despite its short length I found more consistently interesting that a book that it references, Semicolon by Cecelia Watson, which I found to be a little too long and dry.

See also: For a great article on the history of punctuation, try Beside the point? Punctuation is dead, long live punctuation by Florence Hazrat.

As a teenager in the late 1990s I fell in love with a large number of bands, but two in particular: The Beach Boys and The Clash. I listened to everything I could by each of them. At the time, this was rather more difficult and expensive than it is now, and fraught with danger—one of the first Clash albums I bought was Cut The Crap, ugh—but I fell for the frankly unhinged Sandinista! as soon as I heard it. This piece by the always excellent Rob Sheffield looks at one of the best triple albums ever. (Any major rivals other than All Things Must Pass? Maybe 69 Love Songs?)

See also: Pennie Smith on photographing The Clash, including the iconic cover of London Calling

Victorian planners are the reason that streets in British towns are full of big trees—they left spaces for them in their plans, and they grew through the relatively uncompacted streets that were originally designed for pedestrians and horses. While the pandemic has encouraged people to spend more time on local streets and in parks, fostering a greater awareness and interest in local flora and fauna, mature trees are perpetually under threat from construction. Developers often justify this activity by claiming that they’re planting many more trees than they’re removing, but a simple exploration of the maths relating to rates of tree growth and carbon sequestration exposes this for the greenwash that it is.

See also: Botanically, what makes a tree a tree?; loggers have all but removed Peru’s mahogany trees, so they’re turning their attention to other important trees; will the pandemic reduce London’s population?

“An oral history of Wales, as recorded by the Welsh Life Institute.” A new podcast from comic book artist and raconteur John Tucker. There’s a sort of magical realism that permeates everything John does; his characters inhabit worlds that are 99.9% the same as ours, with minor yet hugely upending variations. This Foul Earth is no different, embracing the chaos and fragmentation of modern Welsh life via newspaper eating and deity-sanctioned assassination.

There are too many commas in that subheading. ‘Athens, France’ is a song from BC,NR’s debut For the First Time. The album is extremely interesting: the lyrics are by turns enigmatic and banal, while the music—guitar-heavy post-rock breakouts with barking horns and occasional moments of calm—is never anything less than bewitching.

I’ve been playing Velocity 2X (from 2018; currently 75% off on Switch, also available on PC and PS4) and having great fun with it. It’s part shoot-‘em-up, part speedrun challenge and part side-scrolling adventure. Highly recommended, particularly at this low price.