Indie games roundup!

In this Critical Distance digest, I'm bringing you three little collections of pieces published in the past week about some of the latest hit indie games. We'll be exploring action movie pacing, the awkwardness of interactivity, and how to make the familiar feel terrifying.

Superhot

• Superhot review | Eurogamer.net Christian Donlan considers dramatic tension and Superhot

"Turns out there is a killer trick to creating hyper-violent entertainment: do the slow stuff fast, and the fast stuff slow."

• Superhot Is the Shooter Game for People Who Hate Shooter Games | VICE | United Kingdom Ed Smith explains why Superhot appeals to a different play style than other shooters
• SUPERHOT Review Impressions | ZAM

Anatomy

• Uninterpretative | Short on Games: January/February 2016 How Anatomy sees the house as a body

"The theory of houses espoused in Anatomy is of the house as body. The tapes tell the story of living room as heart, bathroom as digestive tract, bedroom as mind, and basement as subconscious."

• ANATOMY Review Impressions | ZAMClaris Cyarron looks at Anatomy from her perspective as an architect and game designer (full disclosure: Claris and I have a close professional and personal relationship).

Firewatch

• How Firewatch hearkens back to relationships on the early internet | Gamasutra (Content warning: spoilers)Kat Cross describes the interpersonal intimacy of Firewatch through the terms of another medium.

"Cibele takes on the online dimension of this phenomenon forthrightly, but Firewatch abstracts it away from even the mediating force of the Internet, instead exploring all the other ways we can have ineffable but meaningful contact with human life."

• Firewatch Debrief | Experience Points: EXP Podcast #366: How Firewatch uses the physicality and immediacy of videogames for storytelling
• Bad Hands in Firewatch | Pippin BarrPippin Barr offers an amusing critique that seems to have been missed in most writing on it so far (note, I'm sure the problem raised is a technical issue that will be patched in future, but I like this narrativist reading of its effect on the experience.)