Hey, my name is Joel…

…and welcome to TheThirdMedium!

I launched this blog in February 2022, halfway through my undergraduate degree in the University of Alberta’s department of English and Film Studies. As the department’s name suggests, its courses primarily focused on literature and film, but I wanted to apply the analytical skills I was learning to my favourite narrative medium: video games. So, I began TheThirdMedium as a written platform where I could explore the following question: what does it mean to play a great story?

Since then, I’ve learnt that to do justice to video games as narrative media, I need to step out of my comfortable English-major shell. So, I started exploring the growing, interdisciplinary field of game studies. In September 2023, expanded my commentary into video format with the launch of my YouTube channel; in January 2024, I released my first video game on itch.io; and in September 2024, I began my Master’s of Arts in Communication and Culture at York University. More details on my thesis are upcoming, but one thing is certain: it’ll be about video games.

Feel free to get in touch through the contact page or the comments on any of my posts. Thanks for stopping by, and have fun! You can access all my various media content through the buttons at the bottom of this page.

Links to my published work:

“How 2B[?] The Narrative Mechanics of Posthumanism in NieR: Automata.” 2025. In Press Start, pp. 1-22. https://press-start.gla.ac.uk/press-start/article/view/316/168

“Conquering the Curriculum: Learning Social Studies from Crusader Kings II.” October 22, 2024. In Play the Past. https://www.playthepast.org/?p=8214

“PSA: Take Care of Your Horses.” October 1, 2024. In Unwinnable Exploits, Issue 79. https://shop.unwinnable.com/product/exploits

“The Anthropocene and the Posthuman in The Back of the Turtle.” 2023. In Crossings: An Undergraduate Arts Journal. https://crossingsjournal.ca/index.php/crossings/article/view/134