Undead destruction with everyday objects?  No wonder Dead Rising has caused so many giggles of glee.  Besides, what more poignant (if largely unconscious) point could be made about modern consumerism than a shopping mall full of zombies?

Frankly, after a recent bout of “Hey, it’s fall!” shopping, I’m beginning to feel like a zombie myself.  Two hours in a mall–trudging through the same stores you’ve trudged through in every other mall, navigating the straggling clusters of dolled up tweens–I even understand that dragging foot thing zombies have going on.  My limbs want out.  I don’t blame them.

Leave it to camp to say something absurd and profound.

Maybe you have a family like mine, with a hypersensitive mother and a teenage brother who’d rather play RPG’s than do his homework.  Or maybe you’re just a gamer walking down the street, listening to people talk.  Either way, you’re bound to have encountered the dreaded phenomenon: “video game” as a dirty word.

In my house, “video game” gets spit out with extra venom (Of course, never at me.  Apparently being female negates being both a gamer and a game writer).  It’s why the dish washer isn’t emptied, why the laundry isn’t done, it’s the assumed black hole of laziness and sloth.  It’s incontrovertibly “junk”–even though the people who call it that have never played.

For us, it may seem like ignorance, but for a large portion of the world, it’s supposed common sense.  Pay attention to the way video games are referenced around you, and you’ll hear a lot of smack.  Yes, I’m going home to play a game.  You got a problem with that?

This post should really have some punny title about toying with monkeys. But, first of all, that just sounds wrong. And, second of all, how often do you get to utter the command form of “roll”?

Anyways, the release of Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and a timely monkey-in-a-ball-related purchase have gotten me thinking about the Monkey Ball franchise itself. I’m know I’m not the only one who looks at AiAi and wonders just what vending machine he rolled out of. Usually–logically–our toys are designed after our video game characters. So when did our video game characters start modelling themselves after our toys?

Is is a marketing ploy? Is it an easy way to give personality to a game that would otherwise be about rolling boring balls? And with such toy-like characters, why oh why isn’t Monkey Ball fulfilling its destiny and selling us more adorable merchandise?

Some final thoughts post-Avatars of Story: Is there a gender divide in the narratology vs. ludology debate? Try this excerpt on for size:

“In a classic paper, the MUD designer Richard Bartle had distinquished four types of players among the denizens of virtual worlds: killers, achievers, socializers, and explorers… Killers and achievers are primarily ludus players, socializers and explorers paidia players. We can expect these four typse of players to display significantly different attitudes toward narrative. Killers and achievers may regard narrative as a quickly forgotten, disposable commodity, good only to provide clues for progressing in the game. Socializers will exchange stories about the game-world, perform small narrative scripts of their own invention, and generally enjoy the enactment through role-playing of the narrative design written into the game. As for explorers, they will view the game-world as a space full of stories awaiting discovery” (Ryan, 199).

Perhaps I’m not the first one to mention it (I’m ready and willing to admit I’m not a regular follower of this issue) but it seemed to me that what Ryan described could also be looked at through the lense of gender. Typically, killers and achievers are “male”; socializers and explorers are “female”. And given Ryan’s explanation of what narrative would mean to these different types of players, it makes sense that we would also see gender trends in the thinkers who side with narratology or ludology.

As far as Avatars of Story is concerned, the narratology=female, ludology=male conjecture seems to hold true(ish). Ryan brings up more women who side with narratology–including herself– and more men who side with ludology. But it could just be coincidence. Is this a setup other people have noticed? If so, why would women be more prone to stand up for/identify with narrative?