The Sunday Papers
Sundays are for rolling a critical success. Before you reach toss the dice, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).
For The Map is Mostly Water, Simon Sarris wrote about reading well. Many great takes and lots of advice on how to read good words. Sarris' take on fiction vs non-fiction is the equivalent of a chef kiss.
If you read what is excellent you will not suddenly become excellent, but a life that is sown with stories is one better positioned to think and dream. The more stories, the more likely one is to understand and identify all the influences that act upon oneself in life.
Mikhail Klimentov argues that nobody's a critic for ReaderGrev. Klimentov examines MovieTok creators who don't consider themselves critics because they're not a fan of them, and how the line between opinion-haver and criticism can "blur if you're not paying attention".
Some critics have art history degrees. Others play in local bands. Some dream of becoming artists in their own right. Others still have never picked up an instrument or a camera or a paintbrush or Unity or whatever. But while these things can alter the scope or cut or persuasiveness of a critic’s work, the qualifications for the role are 1) you have experienced the thing you’re talking about and 2) you can talk about it. This is perhaps the greatest point of similarity between critics and the pointedly-not-critics on TikTok.
Hilver did the numbers on what makes wholesome games wholesome for Unwinnable. Hilver analyses this year's Wholesome Direct and comes away with an interesting set of data. Are wholesome games predictable? Also, I wouldn't go into this thinking it's some properly scientific study, of course it isn't. Just go along with
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