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Feature Excerpt
In key art from the videogame Stray, a robotic citizen kneels down to pet a stray cat in a neon-lit city street.

Surviving Humanity

By Jon Bailes • November 21st, 2022

The cat, the fox and the apocalypse.

Heresy of Rot

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

Everyday continues to be Halloween ’round here.

Transpersonal
Promotional image for Immortality, with a print of a woman in fancy frame writhing in flames

The Rapists of Immortality

By Aster Shen • November 18th, 2022

No matter how many I kill, there’s always more. 

Feature Excerpt

Lost in Translation

By Aidan Moher • November 18th, 2022

The Sega Saturn is one of the best JRPG consoles of all time…just not in the west.

Letter from the Editor

Unwinnable Monthly – November 2022

By David Shimomura • November 15th, 2022

Welcome new subscribers! We’re so happy to have you aboard!

Open World
Screenshot from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019, during the torture interrogation scene, where the military made is in the face of the player camera looking stern and cruel

Subjective Analysis of Modern Warfare 2019’s Objectivity in One Scene

By Edward Smith • November 14th, 2022

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare can be sold to people who want something potentially “hard-hitting”, but also sold to people desiring the opposite. 

Heirs to Heresy

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

Hail Baphomet!

Dimensions
A screenshot from Caroline's game jam game, featuring two boxes of text and a link for the next one that reads "She returns..."

An Hour Making Games in the Belly of Demonicon

By Caroline Delbert • November 8th, 2022

Half a dozen writers and developers signed up for a one-hour game jam over Halloween weekend. What were they (and I) thinking?

Area of Effect
An image of Stonehenge looking majestic as the sun sets behind it, perfectly aligning between two stones.

Contested Landscapes

By Jay Castello • November 8th, 2022

Horror is perhaps the genre where contested space is most easily found lurking.

Another Look
A screenshot from Resident Evil shows the character Jill Valentine ready to grapple with a zombie in the well-appointed sitting room of an old mansion.

Evil in Residence

By Yussef Cole • November 7th, 2022

Resident Evil is a Hellraiser puzzle box; an invitation to partake, to play along, only to realize (too late) that the controller itself is a portal through which the game itself can reach out and draw its horrifying tithe.

Call of Cthulhu 40th Anniversary

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

Cthulhu may be an ageless horror, but the Call of Cthulhu RPG just turned forty!

Rookie of the Year
An image of Charizard, the orange fire-tailed dragon from Pokémon, with his wings outstretched.

Introducing “Pocket Monsters”

By Matt Marrone • November 4th, 2022

Pokémon is a portmanteau. It means pocket monsters.

Made of Lines and Vines
A screenshot from Stray, featuring a cat with a backpack staring at a wall loaded up with photo portraits of various robots, a straw hat, an old timey Victrola record player, and a mish mash of other cultural patterns on the walls and floor

The Stray’s Plummet Into a Strange Future

By Saniya Ahmed • November 3rd, 2022

The environmental storytelling of Stray depicts a futuristic world of stereotypes.

I Played It, Like, Twice...
A close of up the box art of Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape, with a tentacled demon on the left wielding a spear in front of three heroes posing in front of a glowing door

2 Massive 2 Darkness: When Your Darkness is Maybe a Little Too Big

By Orrin Grey • November 2nd, 2022

As much as I love a good dungeon crawl game, much of the time they are too big for me.

Collision Detection
A close-up of Mae, the protagonist of Night in the Woods.

The Boomer Death Cult of Possum Springs

By Ben Sailer • November 2nd, 2022

As the Boomer death cult in Night In The Woods serves to remind us, sometimes the scariest monsters are the ones that could actually exist.

Brain Scratch
Some real gross alien architecture, brutalist Geiger, with two giant humanoid heads looming over a wet altar, all with strange vines descending like tentacles

We Scorn Friction at Our Peril

By Steven Nguyen Scaife • October 31st, 2022

A look at some smaller games that use friction to make a point, to express frustration and access emotions beyond the limited vocabulary of realism and polish.

Here Be Monsters
A screenshot from Resident Evil 2 shows Clare pointing a gun at Mr. X, a huge imposing man in a black leather trench coat

On Being Chased

By Emma Kostopolus • October 31st, 2022

These monsters are more than bundles of code: they are a concrete reminder of the lack of control that we have over our own lives.

I6: Ravenloft (Remastered)

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • October 31st, 2022

A return to Ravenloft…

Dimensions
Screenshot of the search and find feature in Immortality, featuring many still images used to go through the footage; shots of keys, lady in bed, lady in bed with man, weirdos in robes and more

Papers, Apples, Microphones, Chairs: Immortality’s Spatial Miscellany

By Caroline Delbert • October 27th, 2022

Sam Barlow’s recent game projects his text-searching trademark into fully realized feature films. How do you know where to look?

Past Presence
A screenshot from the videogame Roadwarden shows a crossroads in a pixelated, sepia-toned wood.

Roadwarden

By Emily Price • October 27th, 2022

There is a gate made out of living thorns, a tree that drinks your blood, and a river with birds that call to you in human screams.

Assigned, (De)limited Desire
Link, with a mishmash of monster weapons and armor pieces, speaks with Kilton, who's wearing his monster lipstick and makeup while managing the front counter of his balloon monster parts business

Flying Shop of Horrors

By Trevor Richardson • October 26th, 2022

Fanaticism, embodiment, and economics have been stitched together to loom dreadful over all. 

Revving the Engine

Mind the Gap

By Caroline Delbert • October 22nd, 2022

In The Gap, you play as neuroscientist Joshua Hayes, who is suffering from a degenerative genetic disease. Caroline speaks with the developers.

Feature Story
From the videogame Imposter, A drawing of a girl with long purple hair on a field of black. She has no face.

Dimensions

By Caroline Delbert • October 21st, 2022

With enough narrative room, you become the monster.

Transpersonal
Screenshot from Iconoclasts, where a ponytailed mechanic in headphones is speaking to some black clad agents sitting in her cozy home. One named Black says "If we all just chose our profession, nothing in this world would ever get done. He just wants balance, my dear."

“There has never been anything smaller than me”: Agent Black, Iconoclasts and the Necessity of Grief

By Aster Shen • October 21st, 2022

Agent Black cannot let go – she literally cannot let go – of the rocket that symbolizes a potential that will never be realised. 

Feature Story
Artwork from the videogame Sunless Skies shows a small Victorian-styled spacefaring vessel approaching a massive circular space station, giving the appearance the smaller ship is about to be swallowed whole.

Whose Body Horror Is It, Anyway?

By Ruth Cassidy • October 21st, 2022

A look at body horror, the just world fallacy, and lungs that turn into glass.

Feature Excerpt

Monsters Built by Human Hands

By Hyacinth Nil • October 20th, 2022

A close reading of Lakeview Hotel.

Letter from the Editor
Two skeletal soldiers, one with a sword and shield and the other with a spear.

Unwinnable Monthly – October 2022

By David Shimomura • October 17th, 2022

Let the spoopy season begin!

Colonial Marines

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • October 17th, 2022

“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Insert Coin
Screenshot from the game Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, featuring the "Meateor", a meteor that looks like a meatball streaking through the sky, with the text "New opportunities. Organs for everyone." at the bottom

Heart, Kidney, Pancreas, Shard

By Madison Butler • October 13th, 2022

Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator creates tension between the inherent violence of its premise and the player’s enjoyment of the gameplay, offering an engaging critique of capitalism.

Forms in Light

How to Build a Racetrack

By Justin Reeve • October 13th, 2022

Adopting a broader view as to what constitutes architecture can be a worthwhile endeavor.

Open World
A screen shot from the first Grand Theft Auto, with the main character making a phone call and the train tracks wait behind. I'm going to be honest it was hard finding a shot or video of anyone going on to the tracks, given how deadly they are, but this seemed pretty close

Gouranga

By Edward Smith • October 11th, 2022

I hate this idea that games have gotten so big they basically replace your life – and tell you you’re not getting the most out of them and doing everything unless you let them replace your life.

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.

How to Make Your Gaming Blog Stand Out

By Alan Smithee • October 10th, 2022

As an avid gamer, you probably have extensive knowledge about the gaming world.

Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • October 10th, 2022

A very serious educational course on the medieval period, not an RPG.

Another Look
A screenshot from the overworld of The Legend of Zelda showing pixellated brush and the corner of a large blue lake. Several menacing creatures patrol land and water.

End of Zelda

By Yussef Cole • October 7th, 2022

Perhaps in Hyrule, which was apparently inspired by the local woodlands of its designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, we could grasp some of that same fantasy, that escape.

Made of Lines and Vines
Screenshot from the game Outriders, featuring a bright partially overcast sky behind adobe towers, weathered and with exposed knobs of wood

Beneath a Village’s Surface

By Saniya Ahmed • October 5th, 2022

A distinct style of a building in Outriders led to curiosity, then unexpectedly unraveled a worrisome story that was brewing all along.

Interlinked

Acquiring Phantomilian

By Phoenix Simms • October 5th, 2022

Games have their own form of communication and language and, in some instances, they include constructed languages, or conlangs, that are foreign to their players too.

Here Be Monsters
A stone frieze depicting a winged figure holding unbalanced scales.

An Introduction and Manifesto

By Emma Kostopolus • October 3rd, 2022

The horror of videogames, and a lot of horror more generally, rests on the fear of time.

WHPA-13: Weird Heroes of Public Access

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • October 3rd, 2022

Click that switch over to the UHF dial!

I Played It, Like, Twice...
Crop of the cover of Monster Mayhem, a painting featuring your classic mosters like Sexy Ghost, Necktie Werewolf, Dog Collar Dracula, Too Many Teeth Mummy, and Jock Zombie

Offensive Stereotypes: Monster Mayhem Rises from the Crypt… But Maybe Shouldn’t

By Orrin Grey • September 30th, 2022

Despite its cartoony demeanor, Monster Mayhem is no different from White Wolf’s RPGs, and its approach is… not exactly sensitive, even for 2007.

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