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.
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?
No Accounting for Tastes Stressful Environment By Adam Boffa • January 15th, 2019 First Reformed considers the emotional impact of climate change awareness. Sometimes.
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 Usurper Noteworthy Metal – December By Astrid Budgor • January 11th, 2019 In the spirit of List Season, Astrid made a roundup of metal records she missed over the course of the 2018.
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.
Here's the Thing The Near Miss By Rob Rich • January 10th, 2019 The over-reliance of CG in movies bothers just about everybody these days, but to Rob, “The Near Miss” is one of the most egregious offenses.
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.
The Heavy Pour Get Your Kicks at the Cosmic Horrorshow: A True Story By Sara Clemens • January 9th, 2019 On a Route 66 roadtrip, Sara asks: “What am I doing in the middle of this godforsaken desert?”
Memscape The History of Twitter’s Little Bunnies By Alyse Stanley • January 9th, 2019 Twitter’s ushering in a new age of Ascii art, whether its users know it or not.
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.
Rookie of the Year 2018 and Everything After By Matt Marrone • December 28th, 2018 Matt Marrone’s picks his favorite album of 2018 and celebrates 25 years of friendship.
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!
The Chest By Stu Horvath • December 14th, 2018 Unwinnable chats with Ferenc Vincze about his animated film The Chest, made using Unreal Engine 4.
Self-Insert The Unsinkable Darcy Lewis By Amanda Hudgins • December 7th, 2018 A side character from Thor has almost 15,000 fanfics featuring her. Amanda Hudgins asks the question: Why does Darcy Lewis persist?
Another Look Writing About Games: Learning to Love the Compromise By Yussef Cole • December 6th, 2018 There is only so much compartmentalization you can do in separating a game from its production process and the worldview it espouses before you, as a writer, become morally compromised.
Memescape We Are All Gritty By Alyse Stanley • December 5th, 2018 Gritty: An obsession; a movement; a cult. Ultimately, though, he’s a googly-eyed reflection of this tumultuous time.
Backlog What Matters and What Matters Last By Gavin Craig • December 4th, 2018 It’s a difficult thing to write about videogames when one doesn’t play very many videogames.
Documentary Sunday Terrace House By Megan Condis • November 28th, 2018 Unlike on American reality television, at no point do any of the residents of Terrace House seem interested in ceasing to be polite and starting to get “real.”
Rookie of the Year Let’s Go Paisley By Matt Marrone • November 27th, 2018 Not everything about Paisley Park is weird.
Collision Detection DDR Movie Marks a Positive Step By Ben Sailer • November 26th, 2018 Why make a movie about Dance Dance Revolution? Maybe a better question to ask is, “Why would they make a movie about any other game at all?”
Feature Excerpt Crack the Network: It’s Called Cyberpunk Not Cybersecurity By Liam Conlon • November 23rd, 2018 While disappointed by Cyberpunk 2077’s announcement to exclude a non-binary option, Conlon thinks it’s necessary to desire more than small kernels of representation.
This Mortal Coyle The Encarta MindMaze Witch By Deirdre Coyle • November 21st, 2018 Hidden in Microsoft Encarta ’95 lies one of the foundational goths of Deirdre’s childhood.
Feature Excerpt Flash Forever By Phantom • November 21st, 2018 A history of the delightful weirdness of Flash games.
Unwinnable Monthly – November 2018 By Stu Horvath • November 15th, 2018 The new issue of Unwinnable Monthly is out! Read about inclusive cyberpunk, a history of Flash games and much, much more!
The McMaster Files RimWorld and the Iffy Prospect of Early Access By Jason McMaster • November 13th, 2018 RimWorld is one of the handful of games Jason considers to be the best of this decade, a game many people tried to create but failed – the Dwarf Fortress-like.
Checkpoint Wanderer By Corey Milne • November 12th, 2018 Corey Milne lives out his walking fantasies vicariously through videogames like Absolver.
Backlog Resolution State By Gavin Craig • November 9th, 2018 With most videogames having half-baked conclusions when they don’t continue on indefinitely, Gavin Craig asks: Can you even have a story without an ending?
Another Look The Snowman Gets the David Cage Treatment By Yussef Cole • November 8th, 2018 Paper-thin characterizations and women stripped of their power? Yep, sounds like a Cage game.
Rookie of the Year I’ve Joined the Blue Rose Task Force By Matt Marrone • November 7th, 2018 Matt Marrone has a Twin Peaks-related announcement to make.
Documentary Sunday The Bleeding Edge By Megan Condis • November 6th, 2018 The FDA has failed for decades in its duty to oversee medical technologies, with women disproportionately falling victim.
This Mortal Coyle Mira By Deirdre Coyle • November 5th, 2018 Donut County‘s Mira is The Best because of a) her punk aesthetic and b) her refusal to take any shit even as her world literally falls around her.
Feature Excerpt God of Shame By Kenneth Shepard • November 1st, 2018 Violence is a language with meaning in God of War, rather than the gratuitous thrill of the game’s predecessors. And this legacy is exactly what Kratos means to hide from his son.
Revving the Engine Ghost By Stu Horvath • October 30th, 2018 Unwinnable chats with Robert Wahby, lead project director of Sky Machine Studios, about their forthcoming game Ghost, a foray into stealth, Victoriana and revenge.
The Usurper Noteworthy Metal – October By Astrid Budgor • October 29th, 2018 Astrid Budgor may be sick, but so is NECRONOMIDOL’s newest album.
