Point and click adventure games, says Kathy Rain and Whispers of a Machine creator Joel Staaf Hästö, hit a "sweet spot" between puzzles that exercise logical thinking and stories that stimulate emotions.
Kingdoms of Amalur takes all of the principles of videogames – agency, choice, exploration, conflict – and turns them into an expansive experience of testing the conventions, and even the technical framework, of videogame fiction itself.
Board games show us a path out of our addiction to the on-screen desert of gaming by making the real world a tactile oasis for entertainment. You're playing against people, not code, and you might even learn some history, biology, or economics while you're at it.
If the Lara facing us is a living contradiction, at once a sex symbol and a rejection of the objectifying gaze, the videogame's Lara Croft -- mute, unreal, and looking the other way -- is a virtual contradiction, at once a sort of riot grrrl and a sort of fetish.
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