In the Trenches with Root By Levi Rubeck • January 17th, 2019 Where Root delightfully succeeds is melding the central conceits of territorial control games like Risk with resource management sims like Settlers of Catan, all blended with the exceptional art of illustrator Kyle Ferrin bringing in a whiff of Mouse Guard.
Letter From the Editor Unwinnable Monthly – January 2019 By Stu Horvath • January 16th, 2019 Welcome to a new year of Unwinnable Monthly. Here’s what is inside the January issue.
GRIS: Her Journey By Jeremy Signor • January 16th, 2019 GRIS wants to be Journey, but ultimately learns the wrong lessons and loses its voice.
Backlog What Was the Question? And Why Do You Ask? By Gavin Craig • January 15th, 2019 The most complicated question in Mass Effect: do geth units have souls?
Realistic Teen Witch Simulator: A Post-Mortem, Sorta By Kris Ligman • January 15th, 2019 I tried a new religion and all I got was this lousy Twine game.
Checkpoint Surviving a Dead Galaxy in Duskers By Corey Milne • January 15th, 2019 From its mechanics to its setting, Duskers exudes a sense of isolation.
The Burnt Offering Scimitar By Stu Horvath • January 15th, 2019 Pronunciation may not be at the front of the player’s mind as they slash through baddies, but it can prompt some interesting discussions.
Gris and the problem of symbolic hurt By Malindy Hetfeld • January 14th, 2019 Gris is a beautiful art game that knows it’s beautiful, but it’s metaphors often lack an emotional punch.
Collision Detection At Least Videogame Advertising Has Grown Up By Ben Sailer • January 11th, 2019 The days of shit-talking the competition are gone. Now videogame companies demand our attention by . . . just making better products.
Short Ride Review – I Want To Ride My Bicycle By Alan Smithee • January 10th, 2019 At once wonderfully cathartic and incredibly frustrating, in a rather lofty way Short Ride represents the human desire to continue in the face of failure.
Stickman Hook Review – By Hook Or By Crook By Alan Smithee • January 10th, 2019 Here’s an age-old question that never fails to break the ice: if you could have superpowers, what would they be?
Documentary Sunday The Power of Glove By Megan Condis • January 10th, 2019 With videogame culture obsessed with retrofuturiusm, it’s only a matter of time before the ultimate nostalgic artifact makes a comeback: the Nintendo Power Glove.
Hardware Digital Body By Eron Rauch • January 9th, 2019 Eron Rauch reviews the exhibit A Whole Different Ball Game: Playing Through 60 Years of Sports Videogames at the Museum of Moving Image.
Another Look Corrupted Architecture By Yussef Cole • January 8th, 2019 In both Bloodborne and The Favourite, wanton avarice rots leaders from within, spreading like a plague to their surroundings.
This Mortal Coyle Willow By Deirdre Coyle • January 8th, 2019 Just like Willow from Don’t Starve, Deirdre can’t control what goes on in the world. But she can keep her sanity meter up in the meantime.
Feature Excerpt Videogames in Kuwait By David Wolinsky and Tali XOXO • January 7th, 2019 David Wolinsky and Tali XOXO share their impressions of GX and Kuwait Battle Royale.
Feature Excerpt Go to Jail: The Complicated World of Pirated Board Games By Ryan Cooper • January 7th, 2019 Tabletop Simulator lets board game fans recreate their favorite games and craft a globalized shared space. . . even if that means breaking a few laws to do so.
Feature Excerpt Scorched Earth By Devin Raposo • January 7th, 2019 Fornite’s 50v50 mode can feel like performance art or improvisational city-planning, with outcomes based more on luck than coordination.
The Marvel Super Heroes RPG By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • January 7th, 2019 Make ours Marvel! This episode, we discuss TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes RPG, Mysterium and Blades in the Dark.
Exploits Feature The Importance of Preservation By Khee Hoon Chan • January 3rd, 2019 The preservation of videogames’ short, albeit eventful, history is fraught with challenges, its very value undermined by the industry’s biggest companies
To Better Know that Death By Levi Rubeck • January 3rd, 2019 Gather round, lay out the tarot and find out the manner of our end.
Road Trip By Jeremy Signor • January 2nd, 2019 When you’re trapped in a car with nothing to do but play handheld games, you start to see their inherent worth.
Best of 2018 Best Tabletop Games We Played in 2018 By Team Unwinnable • December 26th, 2018 These are the tabletop games that spoke to us in 2018.
Sears Wish Books, 1982-84 By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • December 24th, 2018 Happy Holidays! This episode, the guys look at the Sears Wish Book catalogs that contained Dungeons & Dragons products.
Escape from the Sweet Board Game Bubble By Levi Rubeck • December 20th, 2018 There’s a bubble brewing around board games.
The Master of Unlocking By Jeremy Signor • December 19th, 2018 Unlocking aspects of a game is an old bit of gameplay feedback that’s still satisfying.
E-soterica The Contradiction of Language in Subserial Network By Khee Hoon Chan • December 19th, 2018 The use of language is instrumental to Subserial Network, and it’s refreshing to see how certain words are used to subvert our expectations of this world.
A Gift From the Algorithm: Crokinole By David Shimomura • December 18th, 2018 Trying to understand why any particular video on YouTube gets recommended to any particular person is probably as easy to do as land a spaceship on the moon.
Letter From the Editor Unwinnable Monthly – December 2018 By Stu Horvath • December 17th, 2018 Our final issue of the year is jam packed with thought provoking stories. Find out more here!
Ludum Dare 43 Makes Sacrifices in the Best Way By Alyse Stanley • December 17th, 2018 So many good games made in just 48 hours.
The Chest By Stu Horvath • December 14th, 2018 Unwinnable chats with Ferenc Vincze about his animated film The Chest, made using Unreal Engine 4.
Argent and the Struggle for Power By Sam Desatoff • December 13th, 2018 Beginning the game felt nearly insurmountable, like climbing a cardboard Everest.
When I Flip a Card, I Hear the Sounds of Transforming By Levi Rubeck • December 13th, 2018 The Tranformers CCG is…more than meets the eye. (not sorry)
The Catch By Jeremy Signor • December 12th, 2018 The raw feeling of capturing a Pokémon is augmented in Pokémon Let’s Go.
E-soterica Adorable Point-and-Click Games, Rise! By Alyse Stanley • December 12th, 2018 The media would have you think this genre is dead. But they haven’t played A Frog Detective or Nairi.
Cancer, OCD, Spider-Man & Me By Blake Hester • December 12th, 2018 Sometimes you just need a fucking break. Sometimes you don’t need to be challenged, sometimes you just need to drown out all the noise.
Dragon Magazine By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • December 10th, 2018 The guys talk about Dragon Magazine, Khan of Khans and Stu’s now complete Planescape collection.
Six Days of Snow By Gingy Gibson • December 7th, 2018 Stop trying to make wanting to bang minors romantic.
