HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:56:12 GMT Server: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu) Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000 Vary: Accept-Encoding Content-Encoding: gzip Content-Length: 1507 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 https://gamestudies.org The international journal of computer game research Ana Bahia https://gamestudies.org/2503/articles/bahia This article explores Flash as a minor videogame platform that enabled independent creators to produce critical and poetic games. Focusing on Molleindustria and Alienmelon, this analysis examines their expressive oeuvres through an Art History methodological lens. DA Hall https://gamestudies.org/2503/articles/da_hall This article argues for an analytic practice in game studies that accounts for videogames’ participation in the long histories of genre. This approach recognizes the historically and culturally-specific interventions games make into aesthetic traditions rather than assuming a naive reflection of ideological structures. Patrick Munnelly https://gamestudies.org/2503/articles/munnelly This article does a comprehensive qualitative study on the field of Queer Game Studies, using Social Semiotic Analysis, Constant Comparison Analysis and Keywords-in-Context. Featuring Twitch streamers and the video game Dead by Daylight, this article reviews the language used by “gaymers” to review LGBTQ gaming practices. Moritz Wischert-Zielke https://gamestudies.org/2503/articles/wischertzielke This essay explores how indie games like Shrinking Pains, The Longest Walk and The Psychotic Bathtub practice demarginalization in the context of mental health depiction. Using the lens of “mindspacing,” it shows that the titles not just tell different stories but reimagine the culturally dominant forms of play as practices of self-care. Taylore Nicole Woodhouse https://gamestudies.org/2503/articles/woodhouse Drawing from archives of Black-targeted newspapers, this article diversifies histories of the golden age of arcades by examining how Black Americans encountered and understood arcades and video games in the 1980s and 1990s.