Cozy games and Romantic poetry both invite us to “return to nature,” but what does that really mean? Is escape from industrialism the best we can do, or are these texts asking more complicated questions?
Luis Aguasvivas braved the pain of endless lines for the chance to find videogame glory at PAX East 2024. Did he find it?
Palworld seems to think it’s being edgy when it’s mostly being dumb, but it does raise one good question. Nate Schmidt asks what it means to be entertained by cruelty to animals, even when those animals aren’t real.
The final bosses of The Evil Within and Star Fox 64 take the form of giant brains. The goal is to mash them and return to reality. Don Everhart approves of this: the mind is more than what’s inside the skull.
Nate Schmidt considers the relationship between Croteam’s The Talos Principle and debates about artificial intelligence. What can a game about a world with no humans tell us about co-existing with AI?
Tof Eklund and Roger Whitson consider the similarities of Dredge and Moby Dick. Both reflect the eldritch terrors of capitalism that echo through history from Aotearoa, New Zealand to New Bedford.
We talk about the difference between a side quest that feels like a job and a whole game that makes you do a specific job. Is Geralt of Rivia just one step away from being your building’s gruff super?
Nate, Don, and Christian go on an epic journey through the eldritch void, wind up in World of Horror, talk Venom in Spider-Man 2, and argue about talking flowers in Super Mario Wonder.
Join Nate, Christian, Roger, and Don as they finally lay out a firm and simple spectrum with which to rate all games, and it goes from narcissism to nihilism. What’s to rate? How about a menu of Akka Arrh, Season, Dredge, Dead Cells and Castlevania, and more? It's a super blast.
Don Everhart and Nate Schmidt are joined by bundle organizers Caroline Delbert and Taylor McCue. Recommendations include ways to support the queer games community as well as a wide range of games and art from the bundle.
We talk sin, punishment, cults, and Kirby! Also, portable console highs and lows—JoyCon drift and Steam Deck love.
We rant about Square-Enix, gush over Lego games, tell tales of Elden Ring, and highly recommend Citizen Sleeper!
We argue about whether Elden Ring is any different from Dark Souls and ask important questions like is FromSoft the Arcade Fire of videogames?
We interview game designer Jason Cordova about the tabletop roleplaying games, Brindlewood Bay and The Between, as well as his work managing The Gauntlet and the indie RPG magazine Codex.
One developer’s quest to make a museum out of the lockpicking mini-games in videogames.
We discuss Death’s Gambit, Amnesia: Rebirth, Cozy Grove, Lost Judgment, Inscryption, Lake, and more!
Rental is shorter gentler than many other horror games, but it still explores some of our most primal fears.
With a retro art style and dialogue filled with meaningful consequences, AstralShift’s latest is a big step forward, going places few RPG Maker games are able to go.
Of course Balatro isn’t the first card-based roguelike. Balatro isn’t even the first poker-based roguelike (consider, for example, 2022’s Poker Quest: Swords and Spades). But Balatro is the first poker-based roguelike that reminds me of 1992’s Mah Jongg for Windows, and that’s why I can’t stop playing it.
Helldivers 2 presents an oddly alluring bug hunt, as long as you have friends who can watch as you’re blown up. It might lack some of the punch of Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, but its satire is still good for some laughs.
Tears of the Kingdom, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways.
What can the wargame Battle Platform Antilles teach us about the limits of human beings and the forces of entropy?
For all of Tunic’s foxy brilliance, it forgets the lesson of Zelda: make the players feel smart.
Have you always wanted to experience the end of the world? Well, have I got the game for you: ARC!
Boyfriend Dungeon is a crushworthy queer romance game, but it doesn’t come without some baggage.
Highwater mixes its dark themes with a heaping spoonful of what-the-fuckery in the vein of 90's surrealist films.
Nate Schmidt reviews Replay, the new graphic memoir by Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner.
It’s one thing to play and review a single Llamasoft game, but what can a reviewer do when faced with dozens of them? Don Everhart takes a trip through Digital Eclipse’s interactive documentary and encounters worlds of light, color, and fuzz.
It’s not easy to get the hang of Penny’s momentum, but her big break provides lots of opportunities to practice. Although she could have had a friendlier debut, Penny’s Big Breakaway rolls into the platforming conversation with style.
Edmond Chang reviews Aaron Trammell’s Repairing Play: A Black Phenomenology. Trammell challenges Game Studies to engage with BIPOC histories, scholarship, and pedagogies ;through feeling and understanding that play is embodied practice, affective experiences; and “through the lens of Black radical tradition,” what he calls “a form of intellectual reparations.”
Season is a moving meditation on loss, change, and hope for the future. And it lets you ride a bicycle through beautiful landscapes.
Tom Tyler’s scholarly book Game: Animals, Video Games, and Humanity asks how video games let us play (or play with) animals, what animals can teach us about play, and what humans owe to their non-human neighbors.
Radiant Citadel is 5e’s latest push towards diversity. Who is included in D&D community, culture, and canon?
Bardsung would be a brilliant exploration-driven RPG board game, if only it would get out of its own way.
Tof Eklund didn’t play all the big games this year, but they did play some wonderful little ones, mostly with their kids. Frog Detective 3, Cobalt Core, and Chants of Sennaar all top their list of great indie games they played in 2023.
Nate Schmidt asks, “Why do you have to like the whole game for it to make it on the GoTY list?” Then he lists four games he was too lazy or exhausted to finish.
Edcel offers a list of his favorite games from 2023, including Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Bayonetta 3, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and Garden Story.
Don Everhart reviews his year of gaming in 2023, discussing Armored Core VI, Akka Arrh, Waste Eater., and the state of labor in games. Semiosis makes a cameo.
Roger Whitson enjoys taking in the environments of AdamGryu’s A Short Hike. Maybe we should all just pick our heads up, take things at our own pace, and see what the world has in store.
Don Everhart considers ecological disaster, technological solutionism, and class conflict as depicted in Waste Eater. A game by Cain Maddox, Waste Eater asks a crucial question that should always be put to these solutions: who will do the work?
Tof Eklund has thoughts on the relationships within Walk with the Living (2022), a tactical role playing game created by Cole Brayfield. When even the reanimated skeleton is gay, you know you're in for a good time.
Roger Whitson examines We Become What We Behold, a 2016 game self-published by Nicky Case. Whitson considers what the game adds to the conversation around media effects.
From Battle Cats to Brawl Stars, Edcel Cintron-Gonzalez highlights some of the best mobile games of 2021!
In 2021, it was the small games - the indie games full of heart and subtle pleasures - that truly impressed.
Luis Aguasvivas interviews Paolo Pedercini, creator of The New York Times Simulator, on media literacy, SEO, and the degree to which games are praxis.
An interview with development studio Dang! about their brilliant indie shooter, Boomerang X!
Interview with the Denmark-based indie studio Triple Topping, creators of Welcome to Elk.
Interview with Alenda Chang, author of Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games
Interview with Brendan Keogh, Author of A Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames
Interview with Patrick Jagoda about his new book Experimental Games.
Interview of Kaizen Game Works (Creators of Paradise Killer)