Category: Games

Borderlands

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • May 16th, 2022

In which our heroes find a good job, with good benefits and decent lodging.

A screenshot from the game NORCO showing a tree of connected, or disconnected, relationships

NORCO Is A Connected Web Of Estrangement

By Ruth Cassidy • May 12th, 2022

The desire for connection and rejection of it shapes the core family in a web, but it plays out across the story’s politics too.

Detail of Thomas Moran's "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone," featuring a waterfall pouring into a majestic mountain canyon. The cliffs are illuminated with golden, late-afternoon light.

Troika Backgrounds

By Brian Taylor • May 12th, 2022

Inspired by 1872.

Dread

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • May 9th, 2022

Just pull one block out. What’s the worst that could happen?

An engraving of a fierce Roman chariot race. The drivers lash at their horses while throngs of people look on.

The Mysteries of Motorsport

By Ben Sailer • May 6th, 2022

A melon farmer accidentally falls into a time warp and is commissioned to produce words on a popular videogame by the insatiable content overlords of Unwinnable Monthly LLC.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

A cropped selection of the box art for Horrified: American Monsters, featuring the head of a Sasquatch and a spectral figure.

We Did Warn You: Playing Horrified 2 During [checks notes] Still a Pandemic

By Orrin Grey • May 5th, 2022

The good news is, most of the winning formula that made its predecessor tick is reproduced nicely here.

A sepia-toned pen and ink drawing of a couple ensconced in a game of chess. The man holds his head in his hands.

Kings of the Cable: The British Chess Association Festival of 1872

By Levi Rubeck • May 3rd, 2022

With more players gaining proficiency with pawns and rooks and bishops by the day, a hunger has emerged – the people cry out for more games, more analysis and more rivalry!

Players Handbook Rerun

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • May 2nd, 2022

What revelations lurk behind the idol of Moloch, within the pages of the first edition Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook?

The Fantasy Trip

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • April 25th, 2022

That’s over the river and through the woods, right?

A pen and ink drawing of Victorian children playing a game of hoop & stick.

The Future of Merry-Making!

By Ed Coleman • April 22nd, 2022

Hoop & stick (and other frivolities).

Revving the Engine

A top-down view of several houses in a neighborhood. They all have the same brown thatch, and the streets between them are cobblestone.

Beyond the Backdrop

By Levi Rubeck • April 20th, 2022

The digital scene maker RPGScenery helps pen and paper RPG game masters visualize their stories while making combat scenes more immersive and manageable.

Dragonriders of the Styx

By Stu Horvath • April 18th, 2022

Strap in, cuz we got bootleg toys!

Letter from the Editor

Unwinnable Monthly – April 1872

By David Shimomura • April 15th, 2022

A trip down memory lane for this special milestone!

Friction Burns

Detective Kim Kitsuragi leangs against his blue police lorry reading a newspaper while his partner Detective Harry Du Boi sits in the cab holding a sword and the painterly white of the Pale looms behind them

In Disco Elysium, Cops Aren’t Community

By Ruth Cassidy • April 14th, 2022

No matter how kindly or redemptively you play Harry, and for all Kim speaks to his belief that the RCM are doing good, Disco Elysium itself recognises that cops are not social care.

No Accounting for Taste

In a still from Evangelion: 3.0+1.0, a dark-haired boy stares longingly in front of a blue sky filled with fluffy clouds.

Everything Old is New Again. And Then Some

By Adam Boffa • April 12th, 2022

Thanks to one weird trick, the reboot has gotten a new lease on life.

Return to Dark Tower

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • April 11th, 2022

The tower wakes…

Here's the Thing

Finally Clicking With No Man’s Sky

By Rob Rich • April 8th, 2022

Rob admits to having a difficult time staying invested in No Man’s Sky and explains why things have suddenly changed for him.

Casting Deep Meteo

A close-up of Arthur Morgan, the protagonist of the videogame Red Dead Redemption 2. He is a brunette white man with a five o'clock shadow. He wears a chambray shirt with suspenders and a black Stetson hat with brown braided leather trim.

No Free Will on the Range

By Levi Rubeck • April 6th, 2022

Red Dead Redemption 2 is not a buffet but a meal of many courses, each slicing away a little more denial from the last, to keep the saliva flowing.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

Versus Mode: Batman: The Animated Series – Rogues Gallery x Sinister Six

By Orrin Grey • April 5th, 2022

To be honest, at the time I played Rogues Gallery, I had never so much as heard of Sinister Six. Once I had played them both, though, the startling similarity of their concepts was enough to make me briefly wonder if they shared a designer.

The Heavy Pour

A line drawing of a girl in cutoff jean shorts and sneakers hanging upside down from a large tree branch. She is beaming.

Extra Lives

By Sara Clemens • April 5th, 2022

I can hunch over Electronic Gaming Monthly in the magazine aisle and pretend to be another angsty videogame geek. Everyone knows those are boys.

Invisibility

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • April 4th, 2022

No one can see you: does that make you a monster?

Rookie of the Year

A close-up on a bowl of cornflakes. A single slivered almond features prominently.

How to Play ‘Crunch of the Day’

By Matt Marrone • April 1st, 2022

Matt dishes the deets on the newest breakfast game sweeping the nation.

Interlinked

An animated woman gestures in the air serenely in front of blue computer code. She has long white hair with red highlights, light eyes, and is wearing a futuristic white and black outfit.

Reverse-Engineering a Living Archive

By Phoenix Simms • March 31st, 2022

Creative ideas in games, just like politics in games, don’t exist in isolation. Everything is a remix.

Collision Detection

A videogame screenshot shows several 16-bit characters engaged in a gunfight while paddling down a river in a canoe. Toppled stone ruins make up the scene behind them.

Harder Core Than Thou

By Ben Sailer • March 30th, 2022

Ben tries to figure out what defines games as hardcore and nearly goes insane.

Past Presence

In a screenshot from the game Dark Souls 2, a knight in full armor carrying a sword and shield advances against three foes who seem to have emerged from beneath the roots of a giant tree.

Die, Retrieve, Repeat, Succeed

By Emily Price • March 29th, 2022

The Souls series – and in particular, Dark Souls 2 – rewards death in the same breath that it punishes you for it.

Troika

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • March 28th, 2022

Like fly agaric, but with dice.

Eyeing Elsewhere

In a screenshot from the videogame Yakuza: Like a Dragon, a shirtless man lies prone in a pile of rubble.

Taking Up Space

By Phillip Russell • March 28th, 2022

Yakuza: Like a Dragon impressively leans into the friction that exists when deploying political statements into its narrative.

Revving the Engine

The sunlit facade of the museum in the videogame Mukti. Smoke pours out of a smokestack in the foreground.

Night in the Museum

By Ben Sailer • March 24th, 2022

Mukti is an upcoming first-person narrative adventure title that sheds light on human trafficking and the plight of its survivors.

Feature Excerpt

A red-headed woman rides a bicycle down a cobblestone street, scarf flying wildly behind her. A man in jorts and t-shirt chases after her on foot, arms flailing.

Imagine the Possibilities

By Noah Hertz • March 23rd, 2022

How a college course in Second Life taught me everything I needed to know about the Metaverse.

Feature Excerpt

A silver sports car makes a left-banked turn on a professional racetrack. Lush trees line the outer perimeter of the track.

Missing Mediocrity

By Evan Dennis • March 22nd, 2022

The extinction of regular cars in racing games.

Sailors on the Starless Sea

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • March 21st, 2022

Our first funnel!

Letter from the Editor

Unwinnable Monthly – March 2022

By David Shimomura • March 15th, 2022

Driving games! College classes! Too many exclamation points!

Glorantha

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • March 14th, 2022

Stu’s back on his RuneQuest bullshit again.

Forms in Light

Lost Cities

By Justin Reeve • March 10th, 2022

Shadow of the Tomb Raider gets a lot wrong about archaeology, but the game at least pokes a hole in the myth of the lost city.

Casting Deep Meteo

An astronaut floats adrift in darkest space. The face of their helmet is partially shattered, revealing a grimacing red skull within.

Impossible Decisions: The Game

By Levi Rubeck • March 8th, 2022

As I am not interested in a Mothership experience completely devoid of hope, I presume my players aren’t either. But this isn’t a stroll down candy corn avenue.

King Kong

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • March 7th, 2022

The Eighth Wonder of the World left some surprising marks on D&D.

Friction Burns

a still frame of the reload animation for a Hi-Power in Fallout New Vegas.

Weapon Degradation – Or Ephemeral Equipment?

By Ruth Cassidy • March 4th, 2022

Does having the specific language to spot a mechanic – or a narrative trope – prime players and critics to see what they know, instead of what they’re experiencing?

Another Look

In a browned-out videogame screen, a soldier in fatigues faces off against two mud-colored tanks.

Killing My People

By Yussef Cole • March 4th, 2022

My mother once walked in on my brother and I playing a PlayStation game called SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. She interrupted our session, asking why we were “killing our people?”

Collision Detection

A blurry photo of a clock reading quarter-to-twelve. It looks as if the viewer is the one with blurred vision.

Pressing Pause

By Ben Sailer • March 2nd, 2022

Ben gets his year-end wrap-ups from various entertainment services and has an unexpected epiphany.

Exploits Feature

The Absurd Pleasures of Atari 2600 Box Art

By Alexander B. Joy • February 28th, 2022

Unrepresentative box art once formed a key pillar of classic gaming.