Exploits Feature The Rehearsal By Yussef Cole • September 1st, 2022 “In trying to control your life, you wind up creating fiction.”
Revving the Engine Creative Constraints in Unbound: Worlds Apart By Ben Sailer • August 29th, 2022 Unbound: Worlds Apart looks like a typical puzzle-platformer. However, thanks to some creative design decisions, it’s much more than that.
Feature Story Team Unwinnable Fireside Chats By David Shimomura • August 26th, 2022 This month, David chats with Unwinnable co-owner and vice publisher, Sara Clemens.
Feature Excerpt The Horror of Finding a Home By Andrei Filote • August 25th, 2022 Path of Exile doesn’t end when the story concludes but when the player’s will to imagine the next character fails.
Feature Excerpt The Chaos Detective By Daryl Li • August 24th, 2022 The Return of the Obra Dinn supports a detective fantasy by casting the player into the role of textual interpreter who seeks to organize the chaos into coherent solution.
Exploits Feature Ape Out and Value By Griffin Shufeldt • July 31st, 2022 The money spent/playtime ratio is no match for this freedom-seeking ape.
Revving the Engine Happy Place By Melissa King • July 28th, 2022 The co-founders of Bluecurse Studios, wife and husband Erisa Liu and Jordan Gonzalez, want to give you a cozy digital getaway – their upcoming game, Snacko.
Feature Excerpt Misremembering DOOM By Ben Sailer • July 27th, 2022 In this revised reprint from 2018, Ben revisits the SNES version of DOOM, and destroys part of his childhood in the process.
Feature Excerpt Blue Keys on a Red Planet By Hilver • July 26th, 2022 An excerpt from Hilver’s cover story for our special all-DOOM edition of Unwinnable Monthly.
Feature Story DOOM Retrospective By David Shimomura • July 25th, 2022 DOOM didn’t invent the first-person shooter. But DOOM did invent the Doomclone. Without DOOM are we certain we’d see the advent of so many imitators?
Exploits Feature An Ode to Videogame Jumps By Jordan Havlik • July 1st, 2022 Even a bad jump is better than no jump.
Revving the Engine The Accessible Soul of Thymesia By Ben Sailer • June 23rd, 2022 OverBorder Studio’s Epic MegaGrants-winning action-RPG Thymesia offers new twists on a tested formula for alchemical hack-and-slashery.
Feature Story A Chat With the Publisher By David Shimomura • June 22nd, 2022 Editor in chief David Shimomura sits down with Publisher Stu Horvath to reflect on the state of Unwinnable past and present.
Revving the Engine Network Effects By Phoenix Simms • May 26th, 2022 Pull Stay is personal, pulling from solo developer Nito Souji’s experience as a hikikomori, his unique sense of humor and his favorite genre of beat ‘em ups.
Feature Excerpt Why Aren’t There Treasure Chests in Demon’s Souls? By Jon Thumas • May 25th, 2022 Not having treasure chests is a provocative decision for a Japanese action RPG to have made in 2009, but it was far from a transgressive one.
Feature Excerpt Cyberpunk 2077 is a Haunted House By Alma Roda-Gil • May 24th, 2022 Just because death permeates Night City doesn’t mean it’s a privilege afforded to everyone.
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 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.
Exploits Feature Putting the Beast to Bed By Bryn Gelbart • March 31st, 2022 If there’s gotta be an ending, why not make it a happy one?
Revving the Engine Night in the Museum By Ben Sailer • March 24th, 2022 Mukti is an upcoming first-person narrative adventure title that sheds light on human trafficking and the plight of its survivors.
Feature Excerpt Imagine the Possibilities By Noah Hertz • March 23rd, 2022 How a college course in Second Life taught me everything I needed to know about the Metaverse.
Feature Excerpt Missing Mediocrity By Van Dennis • March 22nd, 2022 The extinction of regular cars in racing games.
Exploits Feature The Absurd Pleasures of Atari 2600 Box Art By Alexander B. Joy • February 28th, 2022 Unrepresentative box art once formed a key pillar of classic gaming.
Revving the Engine Bringing Back the Good Times By Melissa King • February 23rd, 2022 The On3D Studios development team chats about their upcoming indie game D.A.N.G.E.R. Team, an action thriller borrowing its style from classic spy films.
Feature Excerpt Hell is Other Shooters By Andrei Filote • February 22nd, 2022 If we organize our play to prepare for the demands of later life, then is it possible to create a new set of values simply by the games that we choose to play?
Feature Excerpt Comfort in the Abyss By Luke Rotella • February 21st, 2022 My relationship with That Night, Steeped By Blood River.
Exploits Feature What We Never Saw By Orrin Grey • January 31st, 2022 Where the Saw franchise didn’t go, but maybe should have.
Revving the Engine Mean Streets: Project Haven By Ben Sailer • January 24th, 2022 Watch the trailer for Project Haven and you might assume you’re seeing something from a large studio. Its actual origin story is rooted in humble beginnings.
Feature Excerpt Become Cursed: Doubt By George Umbarger • January 21st, 2022 Slaying uncertainty via an unusual in-Spire-ation.
Feature Excerpt Children of the Night By Alma Roda-Gil • January 20th, 2022 Vampires, blood libel and Midnight Mass.
Exploits Feature The Radium Age By Noah Springer • January 10th, 2022 Science fiction from the early 20th century is often neglected. The Radium Age series seeks to fix that.
Exploits Feature D(E)fiant Love By Melissa King • January 3rd, 2022 The world may be fucked, but we have each other.
Revving the Engine Surviving the Near Future in Phobos Subhuman By Ben Sailer • December 27th, 2021 There can be something especially empowering about feeling as though you can shape and survive whatever is around the next corner.
Feature Story The Unbearable Lightness of Deathloop By David Shimomura • December 23rd, 2021 In the moment it is easy to love Deathloop but, upon reflection, it feels as though it was barely even there.
Feature Excerpt The Sixties That Weren’t, or, How Psychonauts 2 Forgets Politics By Christian Haines • December 22nd, 2021 Double Fine’s videogame Psychonauts 2 draws on the experimental energies of the 1960s only to mute that decade’s political fervor.
Feature Excerpt This Is My Favorite Shop in the Citadel By Emma Kostopolus • December 20th, 2021 The ethics of Mass Effect roleplay.
Revving the Engine Mods & Mythology By Melissa King • November 24th, 2021 The Australian Writers’ Guild Award-winning and critically acclaimed The Forgotten City had humble beginnings as a Skyrim mod.