Max 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 MoreIf the speedrun is an act of monastic devotion, proof of love for the game and power over the self, Asprey’s softlocks are not even so much as puzzles to be solved as koans to be contemplated, exercises in cosmic futility. Their construction is the art, the absolute knowledge required to construct such a lock the proof of devotion, examination of the cage a rumination on the nature of the virtual world.
Read MoreTaking away expected methods of interaction doesn’t isolate Madotsuki from these characters, it simply means she must create new ways of communicating. The lack of dialogue doesn’t stop her from sitting down to play the flute with O-Man or at the piano with Seccom Masada-sensei. It doesn’t stop her standing next to Maussan Bros to watch the lights in the sky. To say that Madotsuki can’t interact with Yume Nikki’s NPCs is to ignore the many uncoordinated, unspoken encounters created out of the game’s silence.
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