2243: Issue 2 of the Digitally Downloaded Magazine is Now Available

Hello! I’m rather pleased to announce that, as the header says, the second edition of the Digitally Downloaded magazine, put together by me and Mr Matt Sainsbury (from the site of the same name), is now available. You can read it here, or hopefully it will embed correctly below.

The topic is “fanservice”, but we’re not limiting ourselves to the tits and ass variety of fanservice; no, we take on fanservice in all its forms, including life and hometown as a deliberate aesthetic choice, continuity fanservice, plain ol’ titillation and fanservice as characterisation.

The specific games we cover in the magazine range from Senran Kagura to Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F via Final Fantasy XIV and Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed — quite an eclectic mix of games to cover, I think you’ll agree. There’s also an interesting interview with some Aussie developers who are making their own take on the Zero Escape/Danganronpa formula and deliberately incorporating fanservice for an authentically Japanese-style feel, plus some lovely pictures of Digitally Downloaded mascot Danica “DeeDee” Dee.

I’m really pleased with how this project is coming together, and response to the magazine so far has been good. With each issue, we’ll try something new, and hopefully we’ll be able to make this a long-running feature. I’m certainly having a blast doing games writing the way it used to be done… or rather, a distinctly 21st century take on print format games writing.

Next issue we’ll be covering the thorny topic of “not-games” — those experiences that critics are quick to (often unreasonably) brand “not a game” for not falling into neat genre categories, or perhaps not incorporating traditional “gameplay” in the way you might expect. Yes, we’ll be exploring the walking simulators, software toys, visual novels and other interesting interactive entertainment experiences of the world in an attempt to figure out why these titles “not being games” bothers some people quite so much.

Matt and I hope you enjoy the magazine; please share it around and let people know about it! If you like what you see, please consider throwing us a few quid via Patreon; you can find Matt’s page here, and mine here.