Dave Gilbert (he/him) is the founder and head of Wadjet Eye Games, creators of numerous modern adventure game classics including Unavowed and the Blackwell Saga. Dave stopped in to discuss the studio’s history, moving into publishing, and the emotionally intense experience of closing out Rosa Blackwell and Joey’s story with The Blackwell Epiphany.
Read MoreGhostrunner may as well have fallen backwards into cyberpunk for want of a theme. It can wrench nothing from this stone that has not already been alienated by other derivative works, and squanders its movement on inconsistent combat and weightless platforming. It is perhaps the perfect game to prelude Cyberpunk 2077, both clinging to imagery they don’t understand, hoping for depth by association.
Read MoreKaile Hultner (they/them) joins me on this episode to dive into their philosophy of how to write about games as cultural objects, the need for games journalists to adopt ethics standards, and how good it is that you can pet the eagle in The Pathless (Giant Squid, 2020).
Read MoreSkeleton (they/them) of DEEP HEEL DOT COM joins me to discuss the site’s identity, our frustrations with the state of games writing (go away Kotaku), and the importance of building alternative media that is not embedded with advertising and a callous middle-class aesthetic.
Read MoreWe are all going to die before we clear our backlogs. Life is too short to spend on games made under abuse. It’s too short to criticize Ubisoft’s workplace and then devout a week of coverage to each of their games. There is so little we can control under capitalism, but what we can do is decide what media we spend our time with.
Read MoreOma Keeling (they/them) is an experimental game designer and critic. Their work explores queer history, poetry, and punk art in ways that are messy, inspiring, and often hard to explain. Oma joined me to discuss their early games work at art school, the complicated relationship games have to history, and how they seem to keep making games about falling in love with vehicles.
Read MoreI feel I’m going to quickly start repeating myself in summarizing these zines, but it should be taken as a complement that they are consistently exciting, surprising, and well produced. It is inspiring to see such an artistic range within this issue, the complete lack of pretensions, an appreciation for everyone involved.
Read MoreI've been intrigued by the project since playing the opening track, Copy Machine, and was so glad to have the opportunity to speak with its dev team trio: YenTing Lo (she/her) whose music forms the basis of each game, Vanja Mrgan (he/him) who produces art and contributes to design, Ferran Bertomeu Castells (he/him) who handles programming along with design.
Read MoreQueerheart (Afterglow Games, 2019) is an attempt at a digital gallery. It compiles vintage adverts, poems, clips of silent films, alongside original works taking a variety of forms. Click around the halls and you’re taken to different non-spaces: a vaporwave poetry corner, some hotel rooms hiding text-to-speech memoirs, a tv playing clips of early queer cinema. It is the inversion of the white cube – vibrant, messy, enveloping.
Read MoreMaria Mison (she/they) makes games exploring identity, trauma, self-expression, and doing difficult things, as well as the form games can take and our relationship to cultural symbols. They join me to talk about their prolific first year as a game designer, the way games help inform their theater and dance practice, and the importance of taking care of your players, before enthusiastically closing out on our shared love of shōnen manga boys.
Read MoreI sat down with GMG’s communications director, Isra Shabir (she/her), to learn how the camp began, what the process was like shifting to online, and what they have planned moving forward with more online events.
Read MoreMatthew Pusti (he/him) makes synth-driven electronic music as Makeup and Vanity Set. He joined me to discuss how he began in music, the move to working in games and podcasts, and the inspiration for his latest album.
Read MoreNicolas O’Brien (he/him) is a researcher and experimental artist who recently released The Last Survey (2020), a “visual novel essay” which explores the myth of equitable capitalism and modern technocracies. He joined me to talk about the inspiration for the game, the challenge of making anti-capitalist art within established models, and the stress of our own culpability.
Read MoreIndiepocalypse is a monthly zine and collection of indie games featuring weird, quirky, and creative explorations of the medium. Here are some thoughts on issue 8, featuring: 1980s interfaces, angels, and a computer making friends with bumblebees.
Read MoreHannah Nicklin (she/her) discusses how she went from being a playwright to a games author, how Mutazione approaches domesticity and time, and how she is building a more diverse team for Die Gute Fabrik’s next project.
Read MoreWelcome. We made it. 2020. Wow, what a year. A lot has happened as I’ve been trying to write this list, but what’s important is that video games are good and here and should definitely be allowed to exist.
Read MoreMelos Han-Tani (he/him) is a game designer, musician, and half of Analgesic Productions. On episode 22 of Kritiqal Care he joined me to talk making games that recognize the humans behind them, why he likes writing music for games, and some of the musicians he looks (listens?) toward for inspiration.
Read MoreI’m not asking Abzu to just be Journey, but if it is already working from that point of reference it’s strange how little Abzu understands why Journey worked at all. If Journey was a ballet Abzu is a SeaWorld show. Flashy, controlled, at times inspiring, its artifice fully on display.
Read MoreHaving begun as an indie dev with games like Fragile Soft Machines and Visual Out, MadameBerry (she/her) has since left games and is now pursuing live painting on Twitch.
Read MoreThe Last Survey is a two (arguably one) man play about justifications and the failure of modern liberalism to try to both hold on to capitalism and appear sympathetic to our concerns. It holds you in this limbo and dares you to justify your way out.
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