Gamasutra Member Blogs: From gender criticism to Danielle Bunten Berry

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, such as gender criticism for gamers, game design pioneer Danielle Bunten Berry, and more.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs The importance of content-spacing and level-design in free-roam games (Aleksander Adamkiewicz) Aleksander Adamkiewicz argues that long, moody treks across a large map in a visually stunning environment can only get you so far... The state of music games (Adil Sherwani) News of the death of music games has been greatly exaggerated. Adil Sherwani says that remarkable innovation in the mobile space hints at an exciting future for this genre, offering vastly higher levels of player agency than the "glorified QTE" experience of games past.. Intro to gender criticism for gamers: From Princess Peach, to Claire Redfield, to FemSheps (Kaitlin Tremblay) While video games are capable of achieving a progressive gender politic, Kaitlin Tremblay believes this can only be achieved with a conscious acknowledgement of the tenets of gender criticism. Because we don't want more Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volley games, now do we. In memorial: A tribute to Danielle Bunten Berry (L Meagher-Swanson) L Meagher-Swanson offers an affectionate tribute to one of the video game industry's most intriguing and influential pioneers, from the dawn of game design. Diablo III: An eternal abusive relationship (Eric Schwarz) Diablo III relies entirely upon depriving players of lasting rewards. Eric Schwarz examines how it is expertly designed and paced to make sure we're never satisfied.