SUPERLUNARY triumphs in the moments between pain and reconciliation, characters reaching out to one another as the only thing keeping them from falling inwards. It is not a sad game, not exactly, but its stability comes at a premium. Every pocket of intimacy exists inside a ship built for war, and even with the torpedos removed that fact is hard to ignore.
Read MoreDear Future is an asynchronous massively-multiplayer photography game about exploring an abandoned city. I have been trying to write about it for several weeks and have found myself incapable of doing with any organization or distance. What follow, instead, are orchestrated recollections and half-formed conclusions of my time with the game. A half-step towards the understanding I'm searching for.
Read MoreNathan Blades (he/they) is a tabletop designer, streamer, and voice actor with a particular love of queer cyberpunk. He sat down with me to chronicle his introduction to TTRPGs, the rewards and frustrations of running an actual play show, and finding the line between passion projects and accidentally making yourself a second job. Afterwards, Nathan reminds us that no amount of Twitter arguing can substitute just sitting down and making the damn thing.
Read MoreKat (she/her) makes video essays on games and pop culture as Pixel a Day. Her work seeks to diversify games criticism by invoking her knowledge of art and psychology, interrogating unexplored aspects of games and games culture. In this episode we discuss what drew her to video essays as a form, the importance of looking outside of games, and the challenge of getting noticed as a smaller channel.
Read MoreIs this nirvana? What intimacy can 4K matchmaking systems create more meaningful than sharing a GameBoy in the backseat of a car? Capitalism won’t allow that experience to be enough. It can’t monetize a memory, a yellowed cartridge, the worm lights illuminating unlit and unconnected screens.
Read MoreNilson Carroll (he/him) is an archivist, MFA student, and ROM hacker working to preserve obscure and queer internet culture. His thesis project, Video Games Have Been Queer, chronicles his history with games and the queer culture within and around them which is often ignored. We talk about his early experiences with ROM hacking, the importance of preserving digital culture, and the earnest, wondrous possibility of glitches.
Read MoreDeath Crown’s simplicity is its draw and its curse, illuminating both fatiguing elements of the strategy genre but also how that reduction has created a game in search of itself.
Read MoreLena NW (she/her) is a multimedia artist, rapper, and game designer whose work touches on the messy, fraught, and darkly humorous effects of fringe internet culture. Her MFA project, Nightmare Temptation Academy (2020), crystalizes her experience growing up on the internet and becoming desensitized to shock content, while also exploring digital alienation and collage creativity.
Read MoreCassandra Lugo (they/them) creates compact procedural games under the name prophet goddess. Their work explores the unique abilities of generative content, the lack of win conditions, and glitchy digital aesthetics. We discuss the origins of their interest in procedural generation, the frequent pitfalls with how it is utilized, and the sorts of games prophet goddess wants to see more of.
Read MoreEven the Ocean sits unfortunately between an early indie hit and a decade defining classic. It is the studio’s most technically accomplished game to date but lacks the emotional heft of its siblings; a delight in itself that falls shy of the incredibly high bar Analgesic have set for themselves. But as a transitional piece it is one of the best modern examples we have of thematic development across games, made more interesting through Anodyne 2's parallels.
Read MoreNem (they/them) runs the leftist tabletop studio and occasional publisher, Sandy Pug Games, creating games exploring anti-capitalism, alternative forms of interaction, and what it would be like if DMC’s Dante was in Dungeon World. Recently, they have helped facilitate the Our Shores Kickstarter, allowing members of the South-East Asian TTRPG scene (RPGSEA) access to funds and exposure they had previously been denied.
Read MoreColin (he/they) of melessthanthree makes crunchy action games about catholic guilt and queer acceptance. He joined me to talk about early adventures goofing off in coding class, bucking publisher marketability, and Lucah: Born of a Dream’s intriguing and often confounding narrative structure.
Read MoreIndie game dev and co-found of Abyssal Uncreations, Hyacinth Nil (they/them) makes games about cosmic horror, broken technology, and how manufactured online identities. They took some time to walk me through their early efforts of longform LARPs as a kid, looking back on Transfer (Abyssal Uncreations, 2017), and the ways systematized morality reveals the empty politics of many games.
Read MoreVideo games are built on violence. Violence towards their creators at the hands of industry overlords. Violence towards their fans through the cultivation of toxic communities. Violence to the planet by the manufacturing of useless hardware and the ballooning footprint of server farms. Violence as the primary verb through which we understand our interactions in these digital worlds. The argument of whether games should be violent is over, violence has won.
Read MoreTaylor McCue (choosing not to disclose pronouns) is a game developer whose work explores trans identities, bodily autonomy, and the dehumanizing impact of institutions. We discussed the flawed act of asking for pronouns, what led Taylor to make games, and the using Gameboy ROMs as a form of preservation.
Read MoreThe 10mg Collection (2020) is a series of 10 micro-games by as many teams, collected together as a showcase of smaller experiments within the medium. A Dizain poem is a form comprising 10 lines of 10 syllables each, with an ababbccdcd rhyme scheme. This collection of poems is an attempt to bring these two things together.
Read MoreGames took a lot of different forms this year and the way we approached them was even more varied than usual, so instead of a traditional games-of-the-year list I thought it would be fun to ask the guests of Kritiqal Care to look back on their favorite game related moments from the year - whether that’s something they played, read, created, or otherwise experienced.
Read MoreGames, even abstract ones, convey elements of the people that birthed them. They reflect the concerns and interests of a period and can be as enlightening about a culture’s values as any text or document.
Read MoreDave 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.
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