Kill Screen Archives: Ryan Kuo

Love for a Machine

For more than two years, Ryan Kuo has edited for Kill Screen. As he heads off to pursue an M.S. at MIT, he reflects on the life of iPad gaming that is now ending when he gives back the tablet to the company. When is an app more than an app?

Aug 3 Essays

A Series of Uninteresting Decisions

The popular airline simulator Pocket Planes may not provide goals, direction, or even motivation, but it does demonstrate the importance of being bored with a videogame.

Jul 27 Essays

Where's Your Head At?

Why is Phil Fish's new puzzle game so addictive? Because it hides everything in plain sight, and lays bare the rest.

Apr 25 Reviews

Interview: Gearbox Software explains their love of guns and Borderlands 2.

Apr 24 News

Play of the Day: Epic sax swinging in Epic Sax Game

Mar 27 News

The Mass Effect Is Not What You Thought

Everything looks wrong at first about BioWare's final space opera. It turns out the makers gutted Mass Effect 3 to make it right. Here are their conclusions about humanity.

Mar 15 Reviews

The Vita's Identity Question

With apps, games, multimedia, multitasking, and online functionality galore, Sony's newly released PlayStation Vita wants to be everything to everyone. Ryan Kuo argues that it is definitely one thing for one person: the hardcore gamer, whatever that looks like.

Feb 24 Essays

Burrito Bison

In our second Flash column, the joys of landing butt-first on gelatinous bears. Ryan Kuo gives three talking points about Juicy Beast's cannonball game.

Dec 27 Columns Flash Forward

How Will Videogames Pass Go?

A rumination on the effects of rationality and irrationality on videogames big and small, including Skyrim, Dark Souls, Passage, and Braid—and why it's important that game systems come out of culture.

Dec 12 Essays

Review: Bastion

What does it feel like when your game talks back to you? Bastion quite literally finds a soul in the unlikeliest of places.

Jul 19 Reviews

Review: Bumpy Road

An endless game doubles as a meditation on love. Just don't run out of gas, or drive into a hole in the ground. We review Simogo's latest, Bumpy Road.

May 19 Reviews

Review: Air Supply

Cheap and easy iPhone games are a dime a dozen. How do they affect us on a deeper level if they're meant as distractions? Quantum Sheep's monochromatic space jumper tackles the dilemma head on.

Mar 30 Reviews

Review: Battleheart

Lovely. I love watching Battleheart move. Because screenshots on Touch Arcade make the thing look like shovelware, but it's lovely in motion. The knight pokes an orc with his stubby sword and the orc flops onto his back and blinks in and out of oblivion.

Mar 10 Reviews

To Click or to Click

“What does the Like icon really communicate?”

As teenagers we spoke in likes. We would articulate our thoughts about a new interest, and we would fail. We used the word “like” to cover up our mistakes. This Radiohead album is like, like, um, kind of a—it’s like, you know, those electronic undercurrents that they’d like just begun to develop in their last album, we would stammer to a girl. And as college students we did the same. “I’m a Harvard professor,” wrote Lawrence Lessig in a review of The Social Network. “Trust me: The students don’t speak this language.” We were a far cry from Aaron Sorkin’s seamless script; we filled the gaps in our sentences with likes. Our thoughts and selves then appeared continuous.

Jan 24 Articles

The Archive