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Reposted by Eric Stein (he/him)

A Meal of Thorns @mealofthorns.bsky.social · 1d

Check out this nice review of FICTIONAL GAMES that @steinea.bsky.social did for ARB a while back: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2023/05/26/i...

Imagined Agency: Review of Stefano Gualeni and Riccardo Fassone’s Fictional Games

Eric Stein Under Review:Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play. Stefano Gualeni and Riccardo Fassone. Bloomsbury Academic, January 2023. Throughout the media we enjoy, fr…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

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Reposted by Eric Stein (he/him)

Cameron Ellis @camerontellis.bsky.social · 2d

Astronaut meme: "Wait, it's all perception?" "Always has been"

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Reposted by Eric Stein (he/him)

Edmond Chang @edmondchang.bsky.social · 10d

Roll with Advantage: Creative, Collaborative, and Critical Responses to Dungeons & Dragons (Play Story Press 2025) edited by Suzanne Richardson & Edmond Y. Chang: playstorypress.org/books/roll-w... - in print or open access PDF! #analoggamestudies #creativewriting #dungeonsanddragons #dnd

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Reposted by Eric Stein (he/him)

Ash Parrish @adashtra.bsky.social · 12d

Silksong true ending as praxis, in this essay I will

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 20d

The Mist, Phantom, Cogwork Dancers last night. Unlocked Whiteward before going to sleep. This game, man. Mechanically, aesthetically, just so impressive. And the WRITING! Achingly beautiful. Talking with the Caretaker in Songclave, some real gut-punch lines.

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Frank Cifaldi @frankcifaldi.bsky.social · 22d

I'm starting to get texts about this now so I guess I need to say something:

There is a fundraiser going around about a "preservation disaster" raising money right now that I highly advise you to stay very far away from. A particular British tabloid is running with it unquestioningly. Thread:

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

And of course I should emphasize, Zenodo is still the best, though a bit less "discoverability" friendly compared to other platforms. Their terms, though, are why I always post there first as the canonical source for my open access research.

about.zenodo.org/terms/

The Zenodo service (“Zenodo”) is offered by CERN as part of its mission to make available the results of its work.

Use of Zenodo, both the uploading and downloading of data, denotes agreement with the following terms:

1. Zenodo is an open dissemination research data repository for the preservation and making available of research, educational and informational content. Access to Zenodo’s content is open to all, for non-military purposes only.

2. Content may be uploaded free of charge by those without ready access to an organised data centre.

3. The uploader is exclusively responsible for the content that they upload to Zenodo and shall indemnify and hold CERN free and harmless in connection with their use of the service. The uploader shall ensure that their content is suitable for open dissemination, and that it complies with these terms and applicable laws, including, but not limited to, privacy, data protection and intellectual property rights. In addition, where data that was originally sensitive personal data is being uploaded for open dissemination through Zenodo, the uploader shall ensure that such data is either anonymised to an appropriate degree or fully consent cleared.

4. Access to Zenodo, and all content, is provided on an “as-is” basis. Users of content (“Users”) shall respect applicable license conditions. Download and use of content from Zenodo does not transfer any intellectual property rights in the content to the User.

...

Terms continue at https://about.zenodo.org/terms/, too long to include whole thing in alt text.

Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

I'm not an expert in this stuff, but PhilPapers and KC Works make me more comfortable than ResearchGate.

Links here:

philpapers.org/help/terms.h...

about.hcommons.org/terms-of-ser...

www.researchgate.net/terms-of-ser...

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

ResearchGate terms

If you are a Member, you can add Member Submissions to the Service. You retain all ownership rights in your Member Submissions. However, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable license to use your Member Submissions (including to host, reproduce, distribute, modify, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your Member Submissions for the sole purpose of making available and improving our Service. You also grant Users a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, non-transferable and non-sublicensable license to access your Member Submissions through the Service and use the Member Submissions solely in connection with using the Service.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

Knowledge Commons terms

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

PhilPapers terms

Regarding texts (for example, full articles) submitted to the PhilPapers Archive or PhilArchive: the PhilPapers Foundation acknowledges that it obtains no intellectual property rights to these texts. However, when submitting texts to our services, you give the PhilPapers Foundation a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to host and display these texts. Users have the right to request that texts they submitted be removed from PhilPapers and PhilArchive.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

I put PDFs on Zenodo first, searchable by name, and linked from my ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4131-2695

I syndicate to PhilPapers and Knowledge Commons, which from a quick re-scan of ToCs have much better policies. I also syndicate to ResearchGate, though their ToCs are a bit more concerning...

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 22d

Wow, these ToCs are awful. I've made my research available on several platforms for a while for exactly this reason, as well as syndicating on my personal site. This was an easy few clicks to delete my Academia page. The site has rapidly worsened over the last few years, so I'm not sad to leave it.

James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 23d

I've deleted my academia.edu. The new ToCs were totally unacceptable.

Academia.edu - Find Research Papers, Topics, Researchers

Academia.edu is the platform to share, find, and explore 50 Million research papers. Join us to accelerate your research needs & academic interests.

academia.edu

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Reposted by Eric Stein (he/him)

Jacob Geller @jacobgeller.com · 25d

THEY LET ME WRITE ANOTHER BOOK

"You’re Not Overthinking It" is available for pre-order right now. It collects the most meaningful essays of my career alongside hundreds of new annotations on each piece’s creation, background, and legacy. Far more details below: www.lostincult.co.uk/overthinking

Book: "You're not overthinking it," blue cover depicting an overgrown futuristic cityscape. Alongside it is a yellow slipcase with a patterned die-cut and an emboss of the same city.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 26d

Looking back, looking at the map as it expands, has a very similar feeling to doing a big hike and looking back from a high point at where you've come, like woah, that was really tough, but also I made it here!

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 26d

Yes, exactly this! I am not good at these kind of games, but it's been amazing how learnable these totally wild fights feel. Final Widow phase was impossible until suddenly it wasn't.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 26d

Spot on. I do not have the fastest reflexes, but it's been incredible to feel Silksong teaching me to *slow down*. I beat Widow and Last Judge when I was able to actually calm myself and stay still in the arena. Panic is my #1 cause of a failed boss run.

SpacePrez @spaceprez.bsky.social · 26d

The thing about silksong difficulty is that every boss goes from being very hard to very easy as soon as you learn all their moves and telegraphs.

Every single attack is telegraphed and every single attack has a thing you can do to avoid it and a thing you can do to punish it. Every. Single. One.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · 27d

Beautifully written. The whole review is worth a read, captures a lot of what I love about this game. May we be like the bugs, indeed!

Niv M. Sultan @nivmsultan.bsky.social · 28d

reviewed Silksong, whose friction is fundamental to its humanism. (may we, twisted by this historical moment into alienated vermin, be like the bugs)

www.slantmagazine.com/games/hollow...

"But as you meet more of Pharloom’s inhabitants, and as you endure the trials they’ve long braved, the truth of things rings clarion clear: Silksong’s speed bumps are entirely appropriate, as well as admirable. You learn that laborers are forced to work until they drop dead, that poor creatures on brutal pilgrimage must pay to rest on certain benches along the way. Anything won or eked out in Pharloom is done so by tooth and nail. Of course bosses are going to summon minions to overwhelm you. Of course territorial ants are going to booby-trap the checkpoint nestled in their home. Of course this place is going to grind you into dust."

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · Sep 10

(Oh, and one more thing: the Plasmium Vial from the Wormways and the Fractured Mask from Hunter's March are your best friends here. Tricks! This also implies an order of zones to do before Sinner's Road... This was my last zone before I continue down the critical path.)

Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · Sep 10

Time your hits to knock enemies into hazards. Wall cling to hide as flying enemies patrol so you can get the jump on them and pogo them to death. Worms hurt you, but they hurt enemies more. And enemies that mantle? Cheese those ledges! All of this turns an oppressive space into an opportunity space.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · Sep 10

Sinner's Road plays dirty, and you should play dirty back! The environment punishes you, but it wants you to get creative with all the mechanics you've learned to twist the environment to your advantage.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · Sep 10

I think "tricks" is the operative word here. Hunter's March had environmental tricks, but Sinner's Road has those + gameplay tricks, all sorts of design elements testing your skills, removing or torquing mechanics, and in general forcing you to think creatively.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · Sep 10

I ran through Sinner's Road tonight and it is evil and mean and incredible. So many awful curveball surprises which made for great early game tests of all the tricks I've learned so far. Liz describes it perfectly here.

Liz England @lizardengland.bsky.social · Sep 9

My current Silksong hot take is that I like Sinner's Road best so far out of all the areas in terms of how it handles challenge variety and difficulty. I feel simultaneously incredibly skilled and powerful and a puny little bug being absolutely bodied by the experience.

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Eric Stein (he/him) @steinea.bsky.social · Sep 8

"I want games that I can argue with, games that trust me to read them closely, games that demand I think through them."

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · Sep 8

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play
possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

The Expressionist Games Manifesto

“Work! Intoxication! Brain-racking! Chewing, eating, gorging, rooting up! Rapturous birth pangs! Jabbing of the brush, preferably right…

possumcreek.medium.com

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Robert Ashley @robertashley.bsky.social · Sep 6

Digging into Silksong, and of course it’s beautiful, but it also SOUNDS so good. All those crunchy rocks and rosary beads rolling around, the voices, and the music.

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