AuthorJenn Frank

I started writing about videogames professionally in late 2005. I like vintage computer games and preservation, books, and horror games.

The Audacity of Alan Wake II

Previously on Alan Wake… In 2010, bestselling author Alan Wake took his wife Alice on vacation to Washington State. There—after enduring years of writer’s block—he was finally motivated to embark on a manuscript for a new novel, Departure. But when the events described in that work-in-progress started coming true in real life, Alan realized he needed to hurry up and write an ending...

Say You Don’t Know Me: One Night in Pokémon Go

Pokemon Go playground night main

It was already after 11pm. My husband found me in our bathroom, where I was working to pull my hair up into a lazy French twist. I clipped the knot into place with a barrette. “Are you getting dressed for Pokémon?” my husband asked me, bewildered. I didn’t answer. Instead, I put on a necklace. My husband smirked at me. Then he looked at himself in the mirror. “I already look like a...

An Improbable Conceit: The Importance of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls

  Editor’s note: There are a number of articles between 2015 and 2016 I have no recollection of writing but, as Paste Games’s then-assistant editor, I was supposed to be contributing regularly. (I preferred to hide out and edit others.) At this point, I’d been a GamerGate target for 32 months. This text is frantic—the kind of disorganized thinking that reads like hastily...

The 10 Best Mobile Games of 2015

Any end-of-year ranking is not going to be easy work—but ranking mobile games is perhaps toughest of all. It’s very much comparing apples to Mack trucks: One app might be something of a simple toy, while the next may be a full-fledged RPG, for instance. Still, it’s a task we here at Paste Games are willing to undertake. We’ve whittled this list down to just ten of 2015’s best. (Eleven, really...

Gamergate and the year in video gaming 2014, entry 8

  Entry 8: Gamergate is the most expansive real-world ARG in video game history. Editor’s note: Being asked to contribute to a end-of-year letters series at Slate was a dream come true—but trying to evaluate GamerGate and put it in its “historical context” when you’re still very much experiencing it, is assuming a pose of objectivity that must surely be deleterious to...

Jenn Frank’s Top 10 Games of 2014

Frankly, it’s about time we heard what Jenn’s favorite games of 2014 were. In 2005 Jenn started writing 90- and 120-word game reviews for Electronic Gaming Monthly; from 2006 to 2008 she was dreadful as 1UP.com’s CM. Fortunately, she is better remembered for her irregular appearances on Retronauts, a podcast about being an old person. Since 2008 she has written for Kill...

I’ve Been Playing ‘Snood’ for 14 Years, and It Won’t Stop Insulting Me

a stock image of a VERY old computer. On the monitor are three people pointing at the viewer. Their heads have been replaced with Snood cartoon faces.

I tented my fingers, bending them into a writerly stretch. Then I poised my hands over my new laptop’s keyboard, a musician ready to compose on her instrument. I froze, waiting for inspiration to strike me down. It wasn’t right, I wasn’t ready. Something was missing. I’d already installed Scrivener, for writing; Notepad++, for blogging and code; LibreOffice, for editing...

The 10 Best Game Boy Games

  The original Game Boy is always called the original Game Boy. In the videogames industry, where everything is in flux and obsolescence is planned, this naming convention—”original Game Boy”—is anomalous. For instance: We often refer to the first PlayStation, retroactively, as the “PS1.” Even original-formula Coca-Cola is called “Coke Classic,” while old-school Mountain Dew is...

The Rolodex

  “We should hire based on merit rather than gender.” It’s a great idea in theory, but can it work in practice? Editor’s note: One of my strengths, debatably, is patiently explaining certain concepts to my two core demographics—straight guys with good intentions, and my readers’ own Baby Boomer moms. A lot of these Explainers are mortifying for me to revisit...

Animal Crossing: New Leaf Review (3DS)

Villagers hang out together, swimming in the sea or hanging out on the shore

It’s 3:30 AM. My “villager,” a bobble-headed avatar with the face of a Tarutaru, is sitting on a sofa in a model home, her legs swinging, an idle loop. Near her, a television is tuned to static. In my real life I’m ignoring the Nintendo 3DS, which I’ve left open and running on the kitchen counter. At 3:32 AM—a full minute early, by my estimation—a UFO crosses the television screen. The animation...

Jenn Frank

I started writing about videogames professionally in late 2005. I like vintage computer games and preservation, books, and horror games.