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The Offworld Collection
The Offworld Collection features a tremendously diverse roster of contributors, writing about everything from the fascinating world of women's pinball, to the lingo of Chinese games culture, to the small, intimate games that explore how young adults deal with sex and technology. It's a book for anyone with a passion for design, play and criticism.
When editors Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson relaunched Offworld, our goal was to build a website that focused on the writing and game design work of women, people of color and other marginalized folks. We wanted to create a space that actively welcomed perspectives that are often ignored by mainstream game culture, a place where where we could share our expertise and insight into the art of game creation and the culture of play. After a year of publishing incredible content from an all-star roster of writers, we're publishing a book collection.
Contents
Introduction
Leigh Alexander
We are not colonists
Gita Jackson
Women take a place at the pinball table
Laura Hudson
The divine witches of cyberspace
Leigh Alexander
No girl wins: why women unlearn their love of video games
Juliet Kahn
Playing on ‘Indian time’
Daniel Starkey
Altgames, a punk movement
Zoe Quinn
All the women I know in video games are tired
Leigh Alexander
In Bloodborne’s brutal world, I found myself
Laura Hudson
How to make a truly democratic game design tool
Anna Anthropy
You have 20 minutes before the sun blows up
Laura Hudson
How to play as a spiritual hole
Leigh Alexander
In fantasy worlds, historical accuracy is a lie
Tanya DePass
The many inglorious deaths of my virtual fish
Leigh Alexander
The existential dread of fighting games
Maddy Myers
I’ve been texting with an astronaut
Laura Hudson
This moving game about gravity will catch you
Katherine Cross
What a car is to a girl
Leigh Alexander
The vast, unplayable history of video games
Gita Jackson
Piracy gave me a future
Daniel Starkey
Astonishing comics that ‘save your game’ when you turn the page
Laura Hudson
And maybe they won’t kill you
Leigh Alexander
How hip hop can teach you to code
Shareef Jackson
War without tears
Maxwell Neely-Cohen
Should you kill monsters, or empthaize with them?
Laura Hudson
On being a strange, brilliant clown
Leigh Alexander
Edutainment failed me
Aroon Karuna
Subversive games about waitresses and hairdressers
Laura Hudson
The queer masculinity of stealth games
Riley MacLeod
Meet the secret new horror mistress of video games
Leigh Alexander
I love my untouchable virtual body
Aevee Bee
The millennials are just fine, and so are their sex games
Laura Hudson
The clone that wasn’t
Leigh Alexander
China loves the lingo of games
Christina Xu
Remembering Syberia, an adventure game about a woman finding herself
Katherine Cross
Why Final Fantasy VII matters
Leigh Alexander
Black characters in video games must be more than inhuman stereotypes
Sidney Fussell
The poetry in game-making
Katriel Paige
How card games became cool again
By Kim Nguyen
The Beginner’s Guide is a game that doesn’t want to be written about
Laura Hudson
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is forever
Leigh Alexander
My games are tools of healing and community
Soha Kareem
The other side of Braid
Liz Ryerson
Interactive movies make their glorious return
Leigh Alexander
How should we talk about Final Fantasy VII’s crossdressing sequence?
Sarah Nyberg
A brilliant murder mystery you solve with a search engine
Laura Hudson
Edgy sex games highlight intimacy, not conquest
Merritt Kopas
Creating a spectrum of feelings with only four keys
Leigh Alexander
How we developed a black woman protagonist who mattered
Catt Small
Around a more diverse world in 80 days
Katherine Cross
Shenmue through a prism
Annie Mok
Why Silent Hill mattered
Leigh Alexander
A game studio in Cameroon envisions a new history for Africa
Laura Hudson
Video games without people of color are not neutral
Sidney Fussell
How ceMelusine captures a moment
Leigh Alexander
What games must learn from children’s books
Anna Anthropy
A unique roleplaying game that lets you literally make history
Katherine Cross
The radical games event where the next speaker is you
Laura Hudson
Home is where the future of games is
Leigh Alexander
When editors Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson relaunched Offworld, our goal was to build a website that focused on the writing and game design work of women, people of color and other marginalized folks. We wanted to create a space that actively welcomed perspectives that are often ignored by mainstream game culture, a place where where we could share our expertise and insight into the art of game creation and the culture of play. After a year of publishing incredible content from an all-star roster of writers, we're publishing a book collection.
Contents
Introduction
Leigh Alexander
We are not colonists
Gita Jackson
Women take a place at the pinball table
Laura Hudson
The divine witches of cyberspace
Leigh Alexander
No girl wins: why women unlearn their love of video games
Juliet Kahn
Playing on ‘Indian time’
Daniel Starkey
Altgames, a punk movement
Zoe Quinn
All the women I know in video games are tired
Leigh Alexander
In Bloodborne’s brutal world, I found myself
Laura Hudson
How to make a truly democratic game design tool
Anna Anthropy
You have 20 minutes before the sun blows up
Laura Hudson
How to play as a spiritual hole
Leigh Alexander
In fantasy worlds, historical accuracy is a lie
Tanya DePass
The many inglorious deaths of my virtual fish
Leigh Alexander
The existential dread of fighting games
Maddy Myers
I’ve been texting with an astronaut
Laura Hudson
This moving game about gravity will catch you
Katherine Cross
What a car is to a girl
Leigh Alexander
The vast, unplayable history of video games
Gita Jackson
Piracy gave me a future
Daniel Starkey
Astonishing comics that ‘save your game’ when you turn the page
Laura Hudson
And maybe they won’t kill you
Leigh Alexander
How hip hop can teach you to code
Shareef Jackson
War without tears
Maxwell Neely-Cohen
Should you kill monsters, or empthaize with them?
Laura Hudson
On being a strange, brilliant clown
Leigh Alexander
Edutainment failed me
Aroon Karuna
Subversive games about waitresses and hairdressers
Laura Hudson
The queer masculinity of stealth games
Riley MacLeod
Meet the secret new horror mistress of video games
Leigh Alexander
I love my untouchable virtual body
Aevee Bee
The millennials are just fine, and so are their sex games
Laura Hudson
The clone that wasn’t
Leigh Alexander
China loves the lingo of games
Christina Xu
Remembering Syberia, an adventure game about a woman finding herself
Katherine Cross
Why Final Fantasy VII matters
Leigh Alexander
Black characters in video games must be more than inhuman stereotypes
Sidney Fussell
The poetry in game-making
Katriel Paige
How card games became cool again
By Kim Nguyen
The Beginner’s Guide is a game that doesn’t want to be written about
Laura Hudson
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is forever
Leigh Alexander
My games are tools of healing and community
Soha Kareem
The other side of Braid
Liz Ryerson
Interactive movies make their glorious return
Leigh Alexander
How should we talk about Final Fantasy VII’s crossdressing sequence?
Sarah Nyberg
A brilliant murder mystery you solve with a search engine
Laura Hudson
Edgy sex games highlight intimacy, not conquest
Merritt Kopas
Creating a spectrum of feelings with only four keys
Leigh Alexander
How we developed a black woman protagonist who mattered
Catt Small
Around a more diverse world in 80 days
Katherine Cross
Shenmue through a prism
Annie Mok
Why Silent Hill mattered
Leigh Alexander
A game studio in Cameroon envisions a new history for Africa
Laura Hudson
Video games without people of color are not neutral
Sidney Fussell
How ceMelusine captures a moment
Leigh Alexander
What games must learn from children’s books
Anna Anthropy
A unique roleplaying game that lets you literally make history
Katherine Cross
The radical games event where the next speaker is you
Laura Hudson
Home is where the future of games is
Leigh Alexander
217 pages, ebook
First published September 1, 2016
5 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 2, 2026
The vast majority of these essays and reviews introduced me to something new, be it an obscure game or a different interpretation of a familiar one or an unusual design philosophy. For that alone, I strongly recommend the collection.
Here're my more specific reasons:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
Here're my more specific reasons:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
April 30, 2017
This is, no lie, the book of games criticism I have been waiting for: poetic, nuanced, thoughtful, insightful, genuinely representative, often moving, and super inspiring. I'd call this a rare gem of a collection, and entirely worth reading for ANY lover of video games, though especially those who see games as an expressive and emotional form. Superb.
October 1, 2018
The material written by eds Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson holds up really well, but there's a bit of a gulf between them and most of the rest of contributions (with a few exceptions).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews