Japan

The story behind Downwell, one of this year’s most delightful surprises

Downwell might be a perfect game title. Not only is it short and pithy, but it serves as a perfect summation for what developer Ojiro Fumoto has created. It’s a game in which a young boy is continuously falling down a well, avoiding enemies and purchasing upgrades along the way. But it’s not a hopel

A Japanese artist’s venture into the uncanny through cityscapes

In videogames, cityscapes are often the most interesting types of environments. From Jet Set Radio’s neon-colored, ever-grindable Tokyo-to, to Mirror’s Edge’s parkour-ready, futuristic city, cityscapes in videogames emit the uncanny, but not quite in a Freudian way. Fictional cityscapes are instead

This photo series captures the sublime horror of nuclear disaster

Despite—or perhaps because of—the horrifying nature of nuclear disaster, something of the sublime tends to emerge from out of the plumes and ashes. Creators have been trying to make sense of this ungodly power that we’ve wielded ever since the nuclear bomb was first invented, only to lay waste to it

The tortured existence of the town that supposedly inspired Silent Hill

A new victim of the Silent Hill mythology has been uncovered, and it is neither in the form of a new game or a new movie (thankfully, for the latter at least). A recent addition to The Campo Santo Quarterly Review, a journal curated by the ombudsman of the small yet star-studded game studio of forme