Media and Comms Lecturer at Unimelb 🏫 | Critical Game Studies Scholar 🎮 | Deputy Director of MAGPIE 🐦⬛| DiGRAA Board Member 🌏 | Checkpoint Critic & Writer ✍️ | She/Her
https://linktr.ee/cbarkman
Cassandra (Cass) Barkman
Reviewed new NZ game Rose and Locket after being previously enamoured with it at PAX. Launch seems to have flown under the radar, which is a shame given how striking and assured the game itself is; big recommend.
checkpointgaming.net/reviews/2026...
New Article about E3 and other “Gamer Christmas” Events. Very proud to finally write about this topic so please give it a read! And give @cassiebara29.bsky.social some love for her invaluable co-author work
Deeply disrespectful to the entire Australian cultural sector that the Office of the Arts can't be bothered actually reading all the submissions people are working very hard on for the National Cultural Policy, and instead will be asking genAI for a summary.
www.arts.gov.au/have-your-sa...
In it, I reflect on my experience playing Stardew Valley for the first while recovering from surgery and how it oscillated between pleasurable and stressful in a way that forced me to reflect on my own relationship to leisure and games as a game studies scholar.
New article out! Its called "Leisure or Labour: An Aesthetic Reading of Playing Stardew Valley" in the latest special issue of Well Played titled 'Well Read Games'.
playstorypress.org/well-played-...
The article argues that presentations like Nintendo Directs and States of Play should be considered a key contemporary promotional paratext that offers insights into how their respective publishers attempt to shape their brand identity and corporate vision.
Reviewed the new Star Wars movie, which was an exercise in such 'its fine' mediocrity that waking up this morning most of the plot has already left my brain.
