Abnormal Mapping 22: Offline

The Mappers are joined in this January episode by one of the few games writers they’re genuinely intimidated by, and they go on a heady adventure into lands untold. How does anyone understand the landscape of a culture whose history keeps disappearing? What does it mean to want to work in a field and criticize works when every aspect of that production is increasingly devalued in both money and regard? What does it mean to explore the murky issues of consent in games? And how long can you exist on a ghostly train ride before it becomes a lens through which you view your own predispositions? All these questions and more are yours inside when Em and Jackson try their best to keep up with Lana Polansky in this heady, intense, appropriately metaphorical train wreck of an episode. Please enjoy!You can get our podcast on iTunes, on Stitcher, or you can download it directly by clicking here.Our guest this month is Lana Polansky, who you can find at Sufficiently Human and on Patreonand Twitter.This Month’s Game Club Game: offɭineNext Month’s Game Club Game: Yakuza 3Music In This EpisodeBlown Away by Kevin McLeodthe soundscape of offɭine by NAWKSHSnowflakes by Shoji MeguroThings (All Of Them, Until We Can’t Link Anymore) Discussed in This EpisodeArcade ReviewFive out of TenZEALCahiers du cinémaCritical DistanceGood Games Writing@OldGamesWritingZoya StreetReading EGMCelia Pearce Tracy Fullerton Jacquelyn Ford MorieA Game of One’s Own Computers as Theatre by Brenda Laurel Frances Hodgson Burnett Hélène CixousSimone de BeauvoirCharlotte Perkins GilmanVirginia Woolf Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter BenjaminLeigh Alexander “You Can Sleep Here All Night”: Video Games and Labor by Ian WilliamsForskaTJ ThomasAustin C HoweEspen AarsethRoland BarthesSusan SontagGita JacksonMike Joffe (Check out our prior episode featuring an interview with Mike!)Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal Videogames of the Oppressed by Gonzalo FrascaThe Crew Review: Postcard America by Austin Walker Level 99 Capitalist by Stephen BeirneGender Trouble by Judith Butler80 DaysJustice Points podcast .error404Bayonetta and .error404: Two Concepts of Nudity by Katherine CrossConsensual Torture Simulator by Merritt Kopas Hurt Me Plenty by Robert Yang Flushed: A Toilet Gaming E-ZinePol ClarissouMystZorkTwineLas Meninas, Diego VelazquezGlitchhikersnight tuneStarsEven The StarsAndi Mcclure2:22AMBeeswingActual Sunlight (and Jackson’s old writing on that game)There Are Monsters Under Your BedEveryone’s Hot For Worf (Lana’s upcoming parody game)