Vol. 17, Iss. 1, 2023

Complete issue as PDF

Postcolonial Play in the Orient’s Sandbox

22 Dec 2023

Postcolonial Play in the Orient’s Sandbox
Souvik Mukherjee, Zahra Rizvi Editorial In this introduction to the special double issue, the guest editors outline their vision behind the work by giving a short overview of the orientalist bias in game studies, the postcolonialist turn in the field, and the need for South Asia-centric scholarship to contribute to and invite South-South discourse in games scholarship. This short introduction also introduces the various contributions to this double issue which…

Editorial

“Raji’s Burden”

22 Dec 2023

“Raji’s Burden”
Soraya Murray Article This article uses a visual culture studies approach to examine how video games invoking non-Western cultural specificities face heightened pressures to completely and “authentically” represent their cultures. Focusing on the independent Indian video game Raji: An Ancient Epic (Nodding Heads 2020) as a key example, I employ art historian Kobena Mercer’s concept of the “burden of representation” to show how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect…

Article

How Not to Play an Indian Mythic: Raji: A Modern Fantasy

22 Dec 2023

How Not to Play an Indian Mythic: Raji: A Modern Fantasy
Arkabrata Chaudhury, Arunoday Chaudhuri Article The current paper analyses the video game Raji: An Ancient Epic (Nodding Head Games 2020) to determine the accuracy of its representation of historical Indian experiences, in the domains of architecture, aesthetics, spatiality, technology, and so on. The ludic elements of the game, including weapon or enemy design and their compatibility with reflecting an Indian ethos in video game mechanisms have also been discussed. The…

Article

Mukherjee, Souvik. 2022. Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent. Development, Culture(s) and Representations. Bloomsbury

22 Dec 2023

Mukherjee, Souvik. 2022. Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent. Development, Culture(s) and Representations. Bloomsbury
Xenia Zeiler Book Review The book Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent. Development, Culture(s) and Representations is the first ever comprehensive presentation and discussion of material spanning over all nations of South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Discussed by the leading expert on the theme, it offers both an overview of as well as numerous detailed examples of both, historical and contemporary developments.…

Book Review