Category: Games

Unwinnable Monthly, February 2020

By Stu Horvath • February 17th, 2020

The February issue of Unwinnable Monthly is here to infect your brain!

Fantasy Wargaming

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • February 17th, 2020

We crack the cover of Fantasy Wargaming (1981) and check out the stats for the big cheese, God Himself!

Gingy's Corner

Baptism

By Gingy Gibson • February 14th, 2020

Baptism is a short, emotionally removed kinetic visual novel about the horrors of unchecked psychosis (and our own fascination with them).

A gun floating in a room diffuse with purple light.

PAGAN: Autogeny and Queering Online Spaces

By Jeremy Signor • February 12th, 2020

Queer people have to fight to exist. Sometimes, that means queering something that was never meant to be queered.

Old-School Essentials

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • February 10th, 2020

Old-School Essentials might be the final word on Dungeons & Dragons retro clones and hacks.

Collision Detection

What I Think About When I Think About Grandia

By Ben Sailer • February 10th, 2020

What can we learn about social activism from an aging 32-bit-era role-playing game? According to one writer who probably needs to get more sleep, maybe more than one might think.

This Mortal Coyle

Jesse Faden from Control

By Deirdre Coyle • February 7th, 2020

Deirdre desperately wants to be friends with Jesse Faden, someone similarly comfortable with the surreal and unexplainable.

Revving the Engine

Dead Static Drive: A Dark and Winding Road

By Stu Horvath • February 5th, 2020

“I didn’t ever feel like I sought out horror so much as people brought it to me.”

The McMaster Files

Ghosts in the Machine

By Jason McMaster • February 4th, 2020

What happens to our digital life when we die?

Fungi of the Far Realms

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • February 3rd, 2020

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we’re talking magic mushrooms. No, for real.

No Accounting for Taste

Socialism in One Solar System

By Adam Boffa • February 3rd, 2020

The Outer Worlds knows exactly what’s wrong with capitalism. So why doesn’t it talk about what might come next?

Gingy's Corner

Wander No More/Written in the Sky

By Gingy Gibson • January 31st, 2020

This week, let’s talk about two visual novels and a few problems inherent to writing short VNs.

E-soterica

The Quiet Sleep is a Messy and Emotional Tower Defense Game

By Khee Hoon Chan • January 31st, 2020

Our emotions are messy and complex enough – perhaps the pared-down approach of The Quiet Sleep would help us confront – and sit with – the full spectrum of our human emotions.

Forms in Light

Some Things Last Forever

By Justin Reeve • January 30th, 2020

The Outer Worlds provides a reminder that quick fixes often become permanent solutions when it comes to architecture.

A crew of people in a purple lit arcade.

The Beautiful Lies of 198X

By Jeremy Signor • January 29th, 2020

Video games let us escape our lives and give us fake victories that have no bearing on reality. But there’s power in the lie.

Another Look

Spectating at the End of the Universe

By Yussef Cole • January 29th, 2020

Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds rebels against the shortcomings of traditional perspective.

Feature Excerpt

Searching for Kirby(‘s) Air Ride, a Game that Does(n’t) Exist

By Don Everhart • January 28th, 2020

Nostalgic for a game that never existed, Don Everhart considers how he has carried a torch for the never-released Nintendo 64 version of Kirby’s Air Ride. Chasing an online game swap for the Gamecube game Kirby Air Ride may have been the next best thing.

Hate the Empire, Love the Game

By Levi Rubeck • January 28th, 2020

We were blown away by not only how easy It’s a Wonderful World was to pick up and learn, but by how much fun it was despite the lack of any deep interpersonal activity.

Cobwebs

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • January 27th, 2020

This week, we chat with Adam Vass and Sally Cantirino about Cobwebs, their forthcoming storytelling RPG about conspiracies and dark secrets.

Gingy's Corner

XOXO Blood Droplets

By Gingy Gibson • January 24th, 2020

A follow-up that cannot quite escape the shadow its predecessor casts.

NISEI is Building a Beanstalk by the Brick

By Levi Rubeck • January 21st, 2020

NETRUNNER Lives

The Keep on the Borderlands

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • January 20th, 2020

The Caves of Chaos must be sealed! We look at the classic module The Keep on the Borderlands.

Letter From the Editor

Unwinnable Monthly – January 2020

By Stu Horvath • January 17th, 2020

A new year, a new magazine. See what’s inside!

Queer Representation Needs More than a Past

By Jeremy Signor • January 15th, 2020

Queer representation doesn’t mean tacked-on queer pasts for characters. Queer representation means understanding that queer people have a present, too.

Musings