About

Hi, my name is John. This site, Ripe Machine, is my online repository for my opinions on the games I play. The many years that I’ve been playing video games have made me interested in deepening my understanding of the medium—its history and its memetic capabilities. At the same time, though, I don’t want to lose sight of what attracted me to gaming in the first place: having fun.

My goals for this site

Besides just telegraphing my point of view on games, I have multiple personal goals for this site. Online video game discussions usually are centred around the corporate hype cycle about the latest big-budget titles. This hype machine (get it?) is so omnipresent, uncritical, and unreflected, it is a huge detriment to anyone who actually wants to engage with the medium intentionally. For the last few years, I have largely removed myself from this way of consuming video games and things have been great. I intend to keep things the same with this site. That does not mean that I won’t cover big-budget titles at all, but I will try to make room for smaller fish in the pond. And if I do cover a big game, it definitely won’t be close to release. Removing myself from hype-driven consumption allows me to play games at my own pace and engage with them critically.
This is also why I won’t shy away from spoilers in my writing. What’s the point of critiquing media if you can’t talk about it in its entirety? Of course, I won’t go out of my way to be a dick to people who care about this stuff, but if a game has a plot point or mechanic late into it that I think would be interesting to discuss, I will.

My other motivation for this site has actually nothing to do with gaming. The truth is, I’m a terrible writer. My only proper experience with writing is in an academic setting. So I want to use this project to improve at conveying ideas—hopefully in a way that doesn’t come off as too distant or stilted. And secondly, my memory is terrible, too. I often find myself slowly wandering in circles in my mind as I try to engage with prior ideas of mine from just a few weeks ago. I hope that through writing, my ideas become less ephemeral.

Other facts about this site

Reviews are rated on a linear scale from zero to ten.
This site follows the principles of Brutalist Web Design.

Cool sites to check out

Enough about me and Ripe Machine. Time for a blogroll of sorts. All the following websites cover video games in fascinating ways. I read them regularly, and I highly recommend giving them a read.

Bullet Points Monthly: A monthly published webzine, where one game is picked and analysed in multiple short pieces. Editors like Reid McCarter or Ed Smith provide a consistent voice. The guest contributions, however, usually with quite heterodox opinions as far as mainstream games criticism goes, are even more intriguing. The site’s accumulated backlog is a true treasure trove.
The Game Boy Abyss: Game Boy Mitch is on a quest to play through the Game Boy Advance’s vast catalogue of games. He writes about it by reviewing his experience with one game per week. By my rough calculations, this undertaking will take at least 28 years, so I’m wishing him a lot of diamonds in the rough of licensed shovelware.
Mitch is a fellow Neo-citizen and publishes even more reviews irregularly on Through A Console, Darkly.
The Gorkhon Archives: Pathologic occupies a special place in the online video game criticism community. Unfortunately, most people associate the games with the boring non-debate on whether games have to be fun to be good. Can we please talk about something else? There is so much more to Pathologic. Don’t believe me? Check out this awesome fansite dedicated to the series.