Unwinnable Monthly – August 2020
This is a reprint of the letter from the editor in Unwinnable Monthly Issue 129. You can buy Issue 129 now, or purchase a monthly subscription to make sure you never miss an issue!
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Welcome to the August issue!
First off, let’s talk features. Our cover story sees Melissa King chatting with Kero Kero Bonito’s Gus Lobban about their new song “It’s Bugsnax!” for the forthcoming videogame Bugsnax. Mark Hill looks at the comfortable dystopia of Mirror’s Edge. Ruth Cassidy examines the power of choice in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Finally, in our sponsored feature, we talk to the folks behind the forthcoming music game No Straight Roads.
Several of our regular columnists are off this month (sad!) but I’m also excited to introduce the debuts of three new columnists. First, you’ll find Oluwatayo Adewole’s World Tour, in which they check out media from a different country every month – this month they tackle the film Bait and the new album from Charmpit, both out of England. Then you’ll find Diego Nicolás Argüello’s Traces, where he discusses the trajectory of career and his favorite superhero movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. Finally, Autumn Wright’s Always Autumn looks at, well, the idea of autumn as an ending (and Evangelion). Judging from these beginnings, I am keen to see where all three go from here.
Also in the unusual category, Amanda Hudgins got a guest writer for their column, in which Ailuridae warns folks about getting their sex education from fanfiction.
Plenty of regulars are not on vacation this month, too. Noah Springer’s got a new batch of hip hop records for you to listen to. Harry Rabinowitz reads the intense graphic novel Mis(h)adra. Declan Taggart plays a round of GeoGuessr. Ben Sailer embraces Blaseball. Matt Marrone abandons West World for Person of Interest. Justin Reeve looks at the effects of decay in A Plague Tale. Rob Rich argues that 70 bucks is a perfectly OK price for a next generation videogame. Finally, we shine our artist spotlight on Jennie Gyllblad, creator of beautifully smutty comic books.
Hope you dig it! As ever, we’ll see you in a couple weeks with the next Exploits.
Stu Horvath
Kearny, New Jersey
August 15, 2020
