Levi Rubeck

A close-up of the gremlin Brain from Gremlins 2. He looks a bit more intelligent than his brethren due to the wire-rimmed glasses magnifying his yellow-red eyes.

Stripe, Mohawk, Brainy, Linux, Windows

By Levi Rubeck • January 10th, 2023

It’s a miracle any hardware, software, or network has run as long as they have, and we are best not considering that miracle and its ties to nuclear armament systems and whatnot. Better to concern ourselves with the gremlins in our own home, for now.

Casting Deep Meteo

Ghost of Tsushima and the Cutting Word

By Levi Rubeck • December 16th, 2022

Reading poetry becomes work; writing poetry is meant to be freedom unbound.

Casting Deep Meteo

Barry Windsor-Smith’s Taxonomy of Monsters

By Levi Rubeck • November 9th, 2022

Barry Windsor-Smith is a veteran of superhero comics, and as such, knows that you can’t title a book Monsters without a menagerie of such.

Casting Deep Meteo

The protagonist of the videogame Severed Steel holds two pistols akimbo as she crouches down low, ready for all takers.

The Fresh and Vertical

By Levi Rubeck • October 11th, 2022

Lately Levi’s been picking through Severed Steel, a title still honing in on the parkour and the shooting but sidestepping long set pieces for a series of puzzle rooms and time dilation.

Casting Deep Meteo

Detail from Blind Girls' The Weight of Everything album cover art, featuring a spiderweb of cracked glass.

The Meat Box: Four Quick Bites

By Levi Rubeck • September 12th, 2022

With nary a word of acknowledgement, Levi casts such deep meteo he ends up mimicking Noah Springer’s “The Beat Box” column. Good picks, though.

Casting Deep Meteo

In a painting done in the style of 70s fantasy/sci-fi artwork, a group of robed nomads and their camels make their way across a desert landscape. A mysterious object floats in the distant sky.

Riff and Tear

By Levi Rubeck • August 5th, 2022

Levi comes not to bury the DOOMs, but to praise doom metal.

Casting Deep Meteo

A screenshot of a message received from a student loan portal reading "your loan balance is $0."

One Ring to Forgive Them All

By Levi Rubeck • July 1st, 2022

The epic tale of the most expensive mistake Levi would definitely make again.

Casting Deep Meteo

Four player-characters from the videogame The Anacrusis lined up shoulder to shoulder in what looks like a large bright space station.

A Contender for Cultish Adoration

By Levi Rubeck • June 8th, 2022

The vibe of The Anacrusis is Star Trek lined with Austin Powers – polymer one-piece uniforms meets chalk-candy make-up and analog design.

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!

Exploits Feature

Almost Ready to Face the Present

By Levi Rubeck • May 2nd, 2022

Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence has reminded us that we are more resilient than we often believe ourselves to be.

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.

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.

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.

Casting Deep Meteo

A fiery meteor cascades through an inky blue sky.

An Introduction

By Levi Rubeck • February 9th, 2022

A word of explanation on the particular alchemy of interests that fascinate and beguile our newest magazine columnist.

Casting Deep Meteo

In a pastel style, a man runs away from a bear while the bear is peppered with arrows.

The Soothing Tundra

By Levi Rubeck • November 16th, 2021

Even when we weren’t sure if we could go outside despite the pandemic, Caroline could scale mountains and map her surroundings as a way to regain a simulacrum of life outside the apartment.

Casting Deep Meteo

The record for The Body and BIG|BRAVE's Leaving None but Small Birds, accompanied by its insert. The album art features a geometric orange and white house on green grass against a deep blue sky. The insert lists all of the album's track names within a minimalistic sketch of a house.

Swaying from Seed to Stalk with The Body and BIG|BRAVE

By Levi Rubeck • October 12th, 2021

Coming together, The Body and BIG|BRAVE tear down their own houses to build back from their shared beams.

Casting Deep Meteo

A screenshot of the game American Truck Simulator showing a Truck riding down a California highway with a hot rod in the opposite direction. In the distance, in the form of a "hollywood sign" you can see "World of Trucks."

American Truck Simulator: Wyoming in Miniature

By Levi Rubeck • September 28th, 2021

I’m in this convoy for the vistas, the big hauls, the roadside magic, even if it must refrain from truly mimicking the vastness of the time spent cruising those roads in real life.

Casting Deep Meteo

two characters fighting a skeleton monster on a lit ledge.

Greak and the Deft Power of Short Stories

By Levi Rubeck • September 21st, 2021

Greak doesn’t overstay its welcome, and is clearsighted in its goals from the beginning.

Casting Deep Meteo

Two images - one of a character running into a forest, from the game Below, merged with an image of ASCII art from the game Caves of Qud.

The Mental Umami of Risk and Reward

By Levi Rubeck • September 14th, 2021

Though Below has killed me almost as often as Caves of Qud, each defeat similarly instructs enough to encourage another descent.

Revving the Engine

Watching, Watching, Watching

By Levi Rubeck • July 29th, 2021

I see you.

Casting Deep Meteo

centered, the bald head of Agent 47 holding a handgun in a gloved fist, surrounded by images of himself doing other rad action-movie like things.

The Play About the Scottish Hitman

By Levi Rubeck • May 11th, 2021

Hitman (2016) is a game that conjures this spirit of the theater and allows me to flow through that liminal space of being directed while remaining free to wander the stage at my whim.

The two band members of 68 in a red stylized image, overlapping. This is a section of their album cover for Give One Take One

’68 Releases a Menu Worthy of the Meal

By Levi Rubeck • April 13th, 2021

This wasn’t a boast but a call-to-arms, and there are many who took on the charge.

Detail from the cover art for We are Always Alone of a girl in a schoolgirl outfit, a purple and red light above her head.

portrayal of guilt’s Anthems Against False Hope

By Levi Rubeck • April 5th, 2021

Anthems for sinking ships, as if the tide itself was a choleric spirit drawing you down to a lightless ocean floor.

Casting Deep Meteo

The Lust of Early Access: Everspace 2 and 30XX

By Levi Rubeck • February 11th, 2021

Everspace 2 fulfills a similar desire to expand upon the past, in this case, more Star Fox vibrations.

Casting Deep Meteo

El Hijo, the Solid Snake of Tag

By Levi Rubeck • February 4th, 2021

In stealth games, I always aspire to be the ghost.

Casting Deep Meteo

Red Dead Redemption Precedes the Territory

By Levi Rubeck • December 16th, 2020

The many flavors of The West (of the United States, specifically) are boiled down to a single salty broth for cinematic consumption.

Casting Deep Meteo

The cover for Jeremy Enigk's alsbum Ghosts, which shows a series of uneven white lines.

Searing and Soaring with Jeremy Enigk

By Levi Rubeck • December 2nd, 2020

Ghosts captures an experienced sense of hope that blooms straight off of How It Feels.

Casting Deep Meteo

“To Steady the Box”

By Levi Rubeck • October 22nd, 2020

We are meant to consider that this ability to compress their feelings into a box and hoist it themselves until their arms go numb is a kind of strength.

Casting Deep Meteo

To Thresh New Hay From Those 8-Bit Days

By Levi Rubeck • September 24th, 2020

“Nostalgia’s a helluva drug, one that I’m not regularly predisposed towards.”

Casting Deep Meteo

No Home for Petals

By Levi Rubeck • August 6th, 2020

“Given the trajectory we’re on, perhaps it’s too soon for 2020 comeback stories. And yet I’m charged by the germination of long-term plans of cosmic revival, hopefully to flower as soon as possible.”

Truth Cult’s Sermon of Swagger

By Levi Rubeck • June 18th, 2020

If the first song from Off Fire doesn’t sway you, well, there ain’t much else to bring you aboard. But for those open to receive their chained melodies and swirling dialogues, Truth Cult stands and delivers.

Casting Deep Meteo

Final Fantasy VI’s Nightmares in the Round

By Levi Rubeck • June 4th, 2020

Sometimes the best stories are the ones that sneak up on you.

There is no Why, Only Escape

By Levi Rubeck • May 14th, 2020

GTFO is a brutal, unforgiving, and niche experience.

1983 and the Future of Videogame Writing

By Levi Rubeck • May 7th, 2020

Levi turns back the clock on videogame crit.

Pox Free at PAX East, Part 3

By Levi Rubeck • April 14th, 2020

While playing the Netrunner tourney at PAX Unplugged, the most frequent topic of my eavesdropping was Crokinole.

Gliding by the Light of The Red Lantern

By Levi Rubeck • March 26th, 2020

This upcoming rogue-lite adventure novel has been two years in development, a bit before the annual Alaska race crashed through puppy Twitter, but happy to ride some of those waves nonetheless.

Pox Free at PAX East 2020, Part 2

By Levi Rubeck • March 19th, 2020

Levi serves up two more from PAX East.

Pox Free at PAX East 2020, Part 1

By Levi Rubeck • March 12th, 2020

Three mini essays for the price of one!

Afternoon Cable Justice

By Levi Rubeck • March 4th, 2020

Regardless of what’s kept a card-based metaphor of practicing law from hitting kitchen tables across the globe in the past, Rock Manor games are toiling under green lampshades to fill in the gaps, by preparing their upcoming modular card game Lawyer Up for Kickstarter.

I Believe that My Scoring Potential Has Been Maximized

By Levi Rubeck • February 20th, 2020

The game is called No Return because the one thing you must always remember is that there is no returning any pieces to the bag.