The last Bad End is here and it sure lives up to it! Axe and Nathalie continue their playthrough of 999 , working through the ax ending and all its disappointing conclusions. Elsewhere, they discuss the different mechanics of mystery vs puzzle box media, continued disappointment at who Lotus could have been, and Nathalie makes a lot of predictions that are all true (even the ones that contradict each other).
Read MoreMax Miller (they/them) is a composer, writer, and game designer. As part of new studio Pitter-Patter, they released Commonplace (2022), an ordinary adventure game about working in an office. For this episode, Max spent some time talking about the game’s experimental development, how they approached writing the soundtrack, and a desire to make games that push against consumption driven mechanics.
Read MoreWe’ve made it to route 2 of our 999 playthrough, not far enough to escape the Nonary Games but able to glimpse the sub just out of reach. This time, Axe and Nathalie went through doors 4-3-2, leading everyone to a terrible end but a terrific route to get there. We dig in to what it means for this to be a failure route, lament frustrating character tropes, and get owned by bad puzzles.
Read MoreWayward Strand (Ghost Pattern, 2022) is an upcoming adventure game which follows Casey - a teenager and aspiring journalist - as she explores a hospital airship floating above the Australian country-side. Two of its developers, Goldie Bartlett (she/her) and Jason Bakker (he/him), joined me on this episode to dive into the game's origins, how the continuous in-game clock allows for new forms of storytelling, and how collaborating with indigenous and mental health advocacy groups helped the team tell richer, more honest characters.
Read MoreWelcome to episode 1 of Zero Context, where we kick off our Zero Escape playthrough with the trilogy’s first game, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. We dive headfirst into the game’s lore-heavy exposition, speculate on how 999 fits within the death game media landscape, and, like all good podcasts, issue some corrections from episode 0.
Read MoreWelcome to Zero Context, a show where Nathalie (she/her) and Axe (they/them) play through the Zero Escape series. Join us as Nathalie learns what a visual novel is, Axe reveals the depths of their cursed fandom knowledge, and we try to figure out how exactly you podcast branching narratives. Enjoy this table setting before all hell breaks loose.
Read MoreAdam Le Doux (he/him) is a game and software developer best known for creating the tiny game engine, Bitsy. Just shy of Bitsy’s six-year birthday, Adam came on the show to talk about Bitsy’s unassuming origins and surprising evolution as part of the tiny games scene. Later, we discuss how Bitsy’s form sets in in opposition to conventional, capital driven games and software, the importance of the engine’s community, and how to preserve these games against the forces of tech oligarchies.
Read MoreSpiders (they/them) are an alt game dev specializing in queer, grimy, anti-tech industry experiments. In this episode, we chat about their upcoming anthology game, The Museum of Radically Obsolete Futures, the tension between wanting to make shit that’s cool vs shit that sells, and how vital communities like The Queer Games Bundle are to the weird game scene.
Read MoreIn collaboration with utopian collective Trust, designer Son La Pham (he/him) and developer Francis Tseng (he/they) created Half Earth Socialism (2022), a browser game companion to Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass’s book of the same name. As part of the game’s launch, Son La and Francis joined me on the show to discuss how the collaboration began, the challenge of building a global planning simulator as a browser game, and the importance of going beyond raw calculations to allow players to become emotionally invested.
Read MoreFantasia Malware are an experimental game label specializing in mega-maximalist un-game performance art. They crowded into KRITIQAL’s digital podcast booth to discuss grotesque beauty, games as instruments, and creating art that can’t be wiki-fied. Later, they recommend birds.
Read MoreStudio Oleomingus is an art practice and game studio based Chala, India, whose work explores magical realism, post-colonial landscapes, and redacted authorship. Studio founder Dhruv Jani (he/him) joined me to talk through his unique history with modern videogames, his skepticism at the necessity of systemic interaction, and how employing fictitious external authors connections Oleomingus’ work to a larger history of post-independence Indian storytellers.
Read MoreJoel Jordon (they/them) is the solo game developer of Time Bandit (2022), a real-time anti-capitalist work sim about how our subjective experience of time is shaped by our relationship to labor and historical forces. With Time Bandit’s first part releasing soon, Joel took some time to join me in talking through the game’s themes, how effective games can be as political instruments, and the hazy ethics of games-as-work.
Read MoreKarin Malady (any/all pronouns) is a writer, poet, and occultist interested in the relationship between art and audience. Recently, they’ve contributed writing to apocalyptic photography game, Dear Future (Dear Future Production Committee, 2021), and videogame flesh realm DEEP HEEL DOT COM. In this especially free wheeling episode, we talk about growing up on the internet, metafiction, being Tony Hawk, and provoking readers.
Read MoreI want to say thank you for listening/reading/being part of KRITIQAL. The community that has grown around the site, the contributors I’ve been able to commission, and the friend’s I’ve made along the way have been so hugely important to me not spiraling off into the void. It is perhaps the smallest bit of hope to cling to, but I cling to it either way.
Read MoreBreogán Hackett (she/they) is an indie dev, community organizer, and creator low-res horror anthology, The Haunted PS1. She set aside some time from Halloween spooks to talk about how The Haunted PS1 got started, moving beyond the Playstation, and forcing players to get lost.
Read MoreXalavier Nelson Jr. (he/him) is a prolific videogame writer, producer, and internet poster, working on everything from An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs (Strange Scaffold, 2021) to Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator (Strange Scaffold, upcoming). He took some time away from creating every videogame to walk through how he moved from games criticism to creation, the challenge and necessity of figuring out what you enjoy creating, and the existential dark comedy of a drunk puppy.
Read MoreHeather Flowers (they/she) is the non-existent creator of EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER, a post-apocalyptic visual-novel beat-em-up about gay disasters meat mechs fighting facists. They didn’t join me on this episode to recap MEATPUNK’s origins as a spontaneous collection of sounds, adapting the series into tabletop form, and rejecting apocalyptic cynicism. I cannot stress this enough: Heather Flowers does not exist and therefore could not have been on this episode.
Read MoreNaphtali Faulkner (he/him), AKA Veselekov, is the creator of IGF Grand Prize winning photography game, Umurangi Generation (ORIGAME DIGITAL, 2020). In this extra long episode, Naphtali elaborates on origins of Umurangi, confronting liberal apathy, and the hunger people have for explicitly leftist art. Many detours into Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019) are made along the way.
Read MoreJeremy Couillard (he/him) is an artist and professor, whose games JEF (2020) and Fuzz Dungeon (2021) explore the weird, uncomfortable, and inexplicable aspects of life through humor and alien surrealism. In this episode, Jeremy details how he started creating games out of a frustration with animation, the importance of loitering in digital spaces, and finding community in alt games.
Read MoreRayzones (they/them) and Yaffle (she/they) make up indie studio lowpolis, creators of cute games with surreal insides. In this episode we explore the inspiration for lowpolis’ latest game, co-open (2021), discus the complex politics surrounding “wholesome games,” and appreciate the most fundamental videogame act: crawling through vents.
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