Analog Game Studies

This essay argues that analog games function as platforms that mediate affect through their specific combinations of rules, material components, and the player relationships and experiences. The purpose here is to examine the way that affect is mediated through intimacy during play through a close analysis of Nyctophobia, a board game designed by Catherine Stippell and published by Pandasaurus Games. This paper will examine the way Nyctophobia, which draws on classic tropes from horror slasher films, produces a type of mediated intimacy that orients the affective experience of play in relation to the assemblages of analog play.