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Feature: COLA for all!
If you've been reading Priceless Play for a while, you know that I'm a PhD student. Here in the United States, a significant part of being a PhD student is being employed as a Teaching Assistant, or TA. TAs do a lot of important work to keep a university running smoothly: we grade assignments and papers, facilitate classes, give lectures, and act as a liaison…
Feature: Cats for Valentine's Day and a Valentine's Day for Cats!
Well, gang, it's the day after Valentine's Day. The cynic's Half-Price Chocolate Day, the romantic's Intimacy Hangover day, and a day I will spend with my cat. Rather self-indulgently, I'd like to stake a claim in both the cynic's camp and the romantic's, though I don't think my cat cares for either chocolate or long talks about the future of our relationship. She'll never speak.…
Feature: Breaking down and building up
To say that there's a lot going on in the world right now would be an understatement. I recently played Studio Oleomingus's The Indifferent Wonder Of An Edible Place, which destroyed me (in the best possible way). I wrote about it here, but it didn't come easy. For a couple of hours, I walked around my apartment in a daze, wondering how I could possibly…
Feature: Games to stave away existential dread
Well, we've made it to February of 2020. Has the sheen of the new decade worn off yet? It sure does seem like, even with the new numbers and everything, we're pretty much right where we left off. My laundry doesn't suddenly do itself now that I live in the future, and politics still suck. It seems that coming to live in the brave new…
Feature: Roguelites, clickers, and city sims for troubled times
I know a game is good when I write down a to-do list with pen and paper. Games are great for goal-setting, but they're also great for goofing around and goalless, meaningful mindlessness. This is why I'm a big fan of roguelite games, which feel like endless loops of manageable tasks. Weirdly, the endlessness of them never really feels onerous. Instead of feeling frustrated with…
Feature: Games to grow with
My ten-year high school reunion was last year. I didn't go, obviously, because I am too cool and also I live something like 3,000 miles away from my old high school. I don't know about you, but I don't super love remembering who I was in high school. It's a truly terrifying time: the searing tension between becoming an independent being and desperately needing reassurance…
Feature: Begin 2020 with confidence and verve
We have entered 2020. We survived that entire monolith of a decade. I don't know what 2019 was like for you, but I think I can say with a degree of certitude that I have had better years. Despite the apocalyptic politics, the extreme weather (incl. fires, floods, and earthquakes oh my), and the continued existence of Twitter.com, time is still marching defiantly onward. Admirable,…
Feature: Go west
As I am writing this right now, I still exist in that dreamlike anticipation prior to the UK general election. I don't know yet what the results will bring, but I sure am tense about it. And so, it has been helpful to delve into an eensy bit of escapism. Video games do an alright job with taking one's mind off things, and today I…
Feature: It's the most wonderful time of the year
Year after year, there are many hallmarks which signal the nearing holidays (aside from the shortening daylight hours and the date on the calendar). Snowy romantic comedies on TV. Office cookie swaps. Mulled wine, Christmas markets, my friends' annual Hannukah donut party, and an increasing sense of obligation to return to my parents' house to see family. There aren't many games I'd be quick to…
Feature: Games to play when feeling low
I have been feeling a bit low lately. It's likely a combination of the season (where did the sun go?), drop in temperature (yes it's 11°C in Los Angeles, and my home is built to get hot air out of it!), and another year coming to an end. 2019 really didn't have too much to offer me and I am psyched to see it go.…
Feature: 20 free games you can play right now
I am floored by the sheer number of indie games available at the moment. If you look, there's a game about nearly everything under the sun -- multipalyer kissing, packing up an old apartment, baseball lesbians, haunted empty MMO servers, Bitsy poems about the sea, and alien art exhibitions. If you have only ten seconds to spare, five minutes, or two hours, there's a free…
Feature: Feeling weird about/with games
I've been thinking a lot about "weird games" lately. When folks call things weird it seems to be a shortcut for saying, "this is different from what I usually experience, and was, therefore, unexpected." Sometimes it is dismissive, sometimes it is contentious, sometimes 'weird' is worn as a badge of honour. In a past life, I considered myself an art historian (this is because I…
Feature: Games about food to bring us together
I love food. To me, food isn't just something I have to consume periodically throughout the day in order to survive -- it's a crucial part of my understanding of the world. I'm a food-oriented tourist (burrata in Florence! smoked fish in Copenhagen!) and a food-oriented friend (come over for dinner! let's go out for brunch!). Because of my penchant for produce and fervor for…
Feature: Scare away with Priceless Play
I know that Southern California is straight out of a horror movie because right now, this sliver of The Golden State is on fire. It's not the first time, and it probably won't be the last. I've seen ash rain from the sky, I've seen the sky turn ruddy browns in the middle of the day, and sometimes I think the very air is squeezing…
Feature: Things are getting scarier around here.
Hey Priceless Pals: welcome back to this corner's celebration of all things spooky, scary, and Halloween. Last week was a kind introduction to the reason for the season: spooky stories to play in the dark. Well, we're still riding that spooky rather than scary vein, but I've got to say: these games are scarier than last week's. I am a fan of the creeping, gnawing…
Feature: Spooky - not scary.
These days I love horror. However, I haven't always been a fan of all things spooky, scary, and skeleton-related. There was a brief period of time (I call this time "childhood") where even catching so much as a glimpse of a horror film would give me nightmares. Then my older brother brought home the game Fatal Frame. As the neighbourhood kids and I watched him…
Feature: Free games of the week, short and sweet.
Hello? Is this thing on? It's good to be back! I took a handful of weeks off to write exams (thank you all for your well-wishes!), and now I am returned to the RPS feeding tube of content. I'm poised and ready with my itch.io firehose, looking forward to blasting y'all week after week with those sweet, sweet video games. In my weeks off, my…
Feature: Free games of the week to tide you over
Greetings, all! It's the end of August, and so, these dog days are over. The temperatures might remain warm well into September, but do not be fooled: autumn is on its way. It has been one year since I started writing Priceless Play, carrying the baton for Free Games of the Week. I love it! Bringing you weird writing on weird games week after week…
Feature: Games of mourning and melancholia
Whenever I go a week without writing a Priceless Play, my head goes a little fuzzy. It has become a part of my weekly routine and when I take a week off here and there to tend to other writing commitments, I feel a little lost. When I load itch.io back up again, my fingers feel a little clumsy, as if I have lost the…
Feature: The tiniest slice of the Game Maker's Toolkit Jam 2019
The Game Maker's Toolkit Jam is, according to itch.io, the largest jam on its website. Wow! That sounds... overwhelming. The 48-hour jam is focused on "design, mechanics, and clever ideas" and ran from the 2nd of August to the 4th. There are nearly 3,000 entries and there's no way anyone is going to be able to accurately cover all of them in a sustainable timeframe.…
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