Nostalgia Archives - Unwinnable | Unwinnable

The Brutal Legend game box art reworked as a vinyl record sleeve rests on a wooden counter. Two hands point at a sticker on its face which reads "PRESS START."

Nostalgia²

By Phoenix Simms • April 11th, 2025

There’s a curious folding of time and space, or at least our personal perception of time and space when it comes to ludic memory.

A pile of various old media formats including a CD, cassette tape, game boy cartridge, 3.5" floppy disks, and more

Physical Media and Collective Nostalgia

By Paige Eldridge • January 30th, 2025

But even though discs can be seen as outdated, they’re not out of style yet.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

Close-up of the cover for Scooby-Doo The Board Game with the whole gang sitting in the front of the Mystery Machine van. From left to right we have beatnik poet, anxious dog, rational map-reader, equally smart friend, and ascot driver

Wacky Hijinks: Similarities and Differences in Scooby-Doo: The Board Game

By Orrin Grey • July 6th, 2023

It is also ironic that, in many ways, Scooby-Doo: The Board Game feels less like Scooby-Doo and more like a board game than Betrayal at Mystery Mansion, which was already repurposing the mechanics of another game and yet managed, in so doing, to create an almost perfect evocation of a Scooby-Doo episode.

A crop of the arcade cabinet artwork for Jr. Pac-Man as a cartoon illustration of the round boy with a helicopter beanie painting his own name on a sign while a ghost crushes on him from behind the sign.

A Personal Account of Jr. Pac-Man, the GOAT Maze Chase Game

By Jed Pressgrove • April 12th, 2023

Jr. Pac-Man has shown me what a maze chase should be – and reminded me of game history’s countless unexplored corners.

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.

Evil Genius is a Rotting Colossus

By David Shimomura • May 25th, 2020

Let old things die, kill them if you have to.

Sears Wish Books, 1982-84

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • December 24th, 2018

Happy Holidays! This episode, the guys look at the Sears Wish Book catalogs that contained Dungeons & Dragons products.

Robbing Banks Like We Never Stopped

By David Shimomura • November 19th, 2018

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” -Heroclitus

Silkscreened Horrors

By Astrid Budgor • November 2nd, 2018

The horror t-shirt has become an institution.

More Like RAD-narok

By Sara Clemens • November 30th, 2017

Thor Ragnarok taps the best kind of nostalgia – for a time and place, rather than for a piece of merchandise.

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