Gunpoint preview

I wrote a little article on Tap today about my experiences with Gunpoint. Check it out!

Gunpoint is an interesting game: it’s gotten a lot of press coverage for an indie demo, because it’s made by a person who is also writing about games and thus “in the press.” It inspires jokes about nepotism.

I tend to cover what comes across my desk and is personally interesting to me, be it indie, AAA, whatever; as a basically-independent blogger I have that luxury. Gunpoint is interesting to me because I read Tom Francis’ design articles before he started making the game, and because the game itself has a cool hook. It turned out to be pretty fun in its own right. I personally now live in that weird space between being a developer and being in the press, so I know where this game is coming from. It seems to be created out of the sheer joy of creating a thing.

Some people say that the press shouldn’t develop games, or that the press shouldn’t declare themselves to be fans of particular games or back games on Kickstarter. I suppose it’s all good to want to hold all game writers to a neutral standard, but I disagree with this. I think it definitely depends on one’s role within the press. After all, are we not fans of games? Isn’t that why we write about them in the first place?

It’s possible, I suppose, that there is a role for someone who doesn’t actually like games in the video game press, to do the “hard-hitting journalism” some think is needed. But that’s probably what it would take: someone who is informed about games, but doesn’t actually like them. Or at least most of them. It’s a tall order.