The Gold Machine interprets and critiques interactive texts via literary and cultural analysis, beginning with Infocom’s games from the 1980’s.| Gold Machine
Gold Machine : Literary readings of interactive texts.| Gold Machine
"The Game Formerly Known as Hidden Nazi Mode" turns 15 years this month. A look back at the game and its reception.| Gold Machine
In this final essay on Steve Meretzky's Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Drew Cook considers the difference between titillation and comic joy.| Gold Machine
In part 2 of Gold Machine's 3-part series about Infocom's Leather Goddesses of Phobos, we examine its worldbuiding and play.| Gold Machine
The Gold Machine interprets and critiques interactive texts via literary and cultural analysis, beginning with Infocom’s games from the 1980’s.| Gold Machine
In this final post about Infocom's Trinity, Drew considers philosophical responses to its rather bleak conclusion.| Gold Machine
When bad things happen to all sorts of people. The Tragic Plane Crash and Other Myths “Tragedy” is a word that gets repeated often in our media. When something horrific happens, it is called a tragedy. Plane crashes, we are told, are tragedies, and so are collapsing buildings. You might think I’m going somewhere pedantic […] The post The Dearth of Tragedy appeared first on Gold Machine.| Gold Machine
The best ending is not the ending. Depraved Indifference as a Cosmic Horror For the past handful of posts, I’ve maintained the position that humanity is, separate from humans as individuals, a kind of inexorable force, a destructive tendency or eventuality visited upon the earth. In fact, I’ve consistently preferred the term “creation” over “earth” […] The post Suffer the Children appeared first on Gold Machine.| Gold Machine
Another Pull at an Old Thread Recent discussions have attempted to bolster a few, key ideas. The first and most controversial, given the present critical landscape, is that while historical detail informs our understanding of humanity, it isn’t, in and of itself, a theme or interpretive “code wheel” that can unlock the meaning of Trinity. […] The post Now I Am Become Death appeared first on Gold Machine.| Gold Machine
Examining the Libra episode of Infocom's Trinity, which features a swarm of lemmings at a Soviet atomic test site.| Gold Machine
An initial foray into the small vignettes that inform the dramatic and thematic heart of Trinity, beginning with a very memorable dolphin.| Gold Machine
In this second of two posts about critical reactions to Infocom's Trinity, Gold Machine considers content published after 2010.| Gold Machine
Gold Machine takes a look at reviews of Trinity from years ranging from 1994 to 2010 before drawing some tentative conclusions.| Gold Machine