Here's the Thing On The Legend of Korra and Imperfection By Rob Rich • November 4th, 2020 Korra’s way of bringing some particularly significant character flaws to light through the eyes of their children makes them feel even more like human beings.
Forms in Light Some Things Last Some of the Time By Justin Reeve • November 3rd, 2020 Why are some buildings taken apart and recycled while others are simply renovated?
Always Autumn There Are Many Ways to Apocalypse. By Autumn Wright • November 2nd, 2020 As much as it is about the extraordinary ways in which people live their normal lives, Adventure Time is comprised of endings.
Another Look Sing It Out By Yussef Cole • October 30th, 2020 Lovers Rock, one of the films in Steve McQueen’s brilliant new “Small Axe” anthology about the UK’s West Indian community from the 1960s through the 1980s, is full of a palpable and irresistible energy.
Rookie of the Year It’s Complicated By Matt Marrone • October 29th, 2020 After five years, my original Series 0 Apple Watch broke.
Letter to a Heroine Dear Krile By Melissa King • October 28th, 2020 Dear Krile, While you might not get as much attention as your fellow Scions of the Seventh Dawn, you’ll always be my favorite member.
Checkpoint Colin Kaepernick, Madden NFL 21 and the Football Future That Wasn’t By Ben Sailer • October 27th, 2020 After punting on social justice for years, Electronic Arts recently patched Colin Kaepernick back into Madden NFL 21. Don’t rush to pat them on the back.
The Fail Cycle Write Your Own Pendragon Review By Declan Taggart • October 26th, 2020 Pick your path to the fall of Camelot.
Revving the Engine Robot Champions: Fight! For Your Life! By Stu Horvath • October 26th, 2020 We seldom have a clear view on how difficult it is to make videogames. Partly this is our own fault – most folks will always suspect that making games isn’t “work” the same way that digging ditches is.
World Tour Indonesia By Oluwatayo Adewole • October 23rd, 2020 That’s why Gone With the Wind is/was revered and why we’re inundated with period pieces that refuse to meaningfully interrogate the class/colonial violence that this splendor is built upon.
Traces Ghost Stories By Diego Nicolás Argüello • October 23rd, 2020 In fact, you could consider it an anthology of sorts – one on my relationship with horror games, and on ghost stories. I’ll let you decide if they’re fictional or not.
The Beat Box Noteworthy Hip Hop – October 2020 By Noah Springer • October 21st, 2020 Last year, I was overwhelmed by all the quality drops over the full season, and this year, September 25 seemed to mark the beginning of the season with an amazing selection of releases I just can’t do justice.
Feature Excerpt Dungeons & Dollhouses By Orrin Grey • October 20th, 2020 I’m not going to claim that society didn’t yet have those concepts, but I hadn’t been exposed to them. I came up in small towns in the Midwest; gender norms were pretty rigid.
Feature Excerpt A Friend at the End of the World By Adam Goodall • October 20th, 2020 But what space do you and your camera occupy in this city? You’re far from an observer, an outside eye; rather, Faulkner positions the player as a site of tension in this world falling apart.
Feature Excerpt Death is Not the End By Nicholas Straub • October 20th, 2020 The inhabitants of the Dark Souls universe seek a hero to rekindle the first flame, for without it, they believe, all life will cease. But they are wrong.
Letter From the Editor Unwinnable Monthly – October 2020 By Stu Horvath • October 15th, 2020 This issue is packed!
No Accounting for Taste Patterns in the Ivy By Adam Boffa • October 9th, 2020 What can city-building games tell us about climate change?
Here's the Thing Alone in Duskers By Rob Rich • October 8th, 2020 Rob reminisces about his favorite roguelike, which is also one of his favorite horror games.
Forms in Light Architectural Improvisation By Justin Reeve • October 7th, 2020 A look at the repurposed architecture of Metro: Exodus.
The Heavy Pour With Friends Like These: A Wasteland Verse of TrickyPixie83 By Sara Clemens • October 6th, 2020 “I take damage, I take damage!”
Another Look Tragedy Erased By Yussef Cole • October 5th, 2020 “Bury my mother, pale and slight, bury my father, eyes shut tight! Bury my sisters, two by two, and then when you’re done, let’s bury me too!”
Rookie of the Year Neighborhood Must-Watch By Matt Marrone • October 2nd, 2020 “I was both there and not there during a gunfight that both did and did not tear through my quiet slice of Astoria.”
Collision Detection We Can’t Afford to Log Off By Ben Sailer • October 1st, 2020 Twitter isn’t just a time-wasting hellsite. It’s also the world’s worst multi-user dungeon.
Revving the Engine Project Witchstone: The World is Yours By Stu Horvath • September 30th, 2020 Has the day finally when a videogame that can rival the narrative freedom of a tabletop roleplaying game?
This Mortal Coyle Roach from The Witcher By Deirdre Coyle • September 30th, 2020 Roach is always there for me.
The Fail Cycle Looking Back While Moving On By Declan Taggart • September 29th, 2020 Family lives for nostalgia, but it’s not saying that things used to be better in the good old days.
Traces There’s No Youth Anymore By Diego Nicolás Argüello • September 28th, 2020 Deadly Class, the thrill of lying to your parents and the fading of freedom.
Letter to a Heroine Isabelle By Melissa King • September 28th, 2020 Melissa King appreciates Isabelle from Animal Crossing.
Self-Insert Niche Interests By Amanda Hudgins • September 25th, 2020 “Sometimes, in fiction, you write about your experience so vividly, so precisely, that it could not have come from anyone but you.”
World Tour Finding the poetry in The Burial of Kojo By Oluwatayo Adewole • September 24th, 2020 An existential wail, followed by a look at Ghanaian film The Burial of Kojo.
The Beat Box Noteworthy Hip Hop – September 2020 By Noah Springer • September 23rd, 2020 In honor of the new old Tony Hawk game, we’ve got hip hop to grind to.
Feature Excerpt Watching Myself Die By Phillip Russell • September 22nd, 2020 On Blackness in The Last of Us
Feature Excerpt Four Brief Discussions of Cultist Simulator and Planescape: Torment By Violet Adele Bloch • September 22nd, 2020 A sketch.
Letter From the Editor Unwinnable Monthly – September 2020 By Stu Horvath • September 21st, 2020 Your guided tour to this month’s table of contents.
Here's the Thing That $70 Sword of Damocles By Rob Rich • September 14th, 2020 With an impeding ninth video game console generation looming on the horizon, people have begun buzzing (read: arguing) about a proposed game MSRP of $70. Now Rob wants to weigh in.
Always Autumn Fall is an Ending and it is Ending. By Autumn Wright • September 11th, 2020 “Autumn is the ending of things and we are in its third stanza.”
Rookie of the Year Parallel AIs By Matt Marrone • September 10th, 2020 Person of Interest > Westworld
The Fail Cycle GeoGuessr: A Travelogue By Declan Taggart • September 9th, 2020 “This would be so much easier if we just Googled the restaurant,” I say. She nods, slowly, sympathetically. “But we’re not filthy disgusting cheaters, are we? Declan?”
Traces The Ones Who Understand By Diego Nicolás Argüello • September 8th, 2020 “It turns out that no matter how much you’ve written in your lifetime, very few people will consider your work if it’s in a foreign language.”