Issue #3 Press Release.

Today, A Carrier of Fire has the great pleasure to announce the third issue of The Broken Paragon: An Anthology of Essays on Gaming.  Boasting several eye-catching and unprecedented articles, TBP #3 continues to explore today's industry trendsetters, who influenced them and what their effects are on the medium.

We're very excited to announce an exclusive interview with Jon St. John, the veteran voice actor who has given life to Duke Nukem, Big the Cat and countless other gaming characters.  We attended Jon's panel at MadiCon, a sci-fi and fantasy convention in Harrisonburg, VA in March, and spoke with him for an hour about voice acting, convention life, industry secrets and rock stardom.  He's a terrific source and an uncommonly nice guy; we're honored to have had the chance to speak with him.  Look for quotes and excerpts from our article "The Voice Actor as Celebrity: An Interview with Jon St. John" in our upcoming Issue 3 Preview on this blog, and keep an eye out for the full piece, only available in The Broken Paragon #3.

The centerpiece for issue three is a massive three-part essay on choice-based gameplay in the current generation of console gaming.  Decision-making in games has evolved considerably in the last 30 years, even rising from the last generation's trend of black-and-white morality-based choice to the current iteration of morally gray decisions.  In this essay, jonny Lupsha explores tactical combat choice in the Mass Effect series, the "lose-lose" scenarios of personal philosophy and morality in Telltale Games' The Walking Dead and players' romantic beliefs in Catherine.  The full-length pieces on Mass Effect and Catherine focus primarily on examining varying outcomes of player decisions, while the Walking Dead article focuses on gamer psychology and the thought process behind decision-making.

Finally, issue three features a look at the popular series Pinball Arcade and Zen Pinball.  The classic pinball table made its way to video games nearly 30 years ago and has evolved into a dichotomy split between hyper-realistic historical archiving of famous tables and wild experiences that could only exist on a virtual platform.  Both experiences have their pros and cons, and we delve into them both to determine which is which.

The Broken Paragon #3 will be released for $1 on Tuesday, June 4.  As always, we appreciate and are humbled by our subscribers and supporters.  To thank our fans for helping us to produce issue three, all current subscribers to The Broken Paragon will receive an exclusive bonus pack prior to release featuring the finished choice-based gameplay essay and a complete transcript of our interview with Jon St. John.  This file will not be available anywhere else, so make sure to subscribe before June 4!

Thank you for your continued support and interest in The Broken Paragon and A Carrier of Fire.  We're committed to continuing our studies of video gaming and wouldn't be here without you.  The more you help us get the word out about this exciting endeavor, the bigger TBP becomes.  Stay tuned; stay geeked!