“Most things in the world are broken,” noted RAD Game Tools owner Jeff Roberts in a 2013 vodcast with programmer Casey Muratori. Roberts was talking about the busted, often unusable state of technology in our every day lives. You’ve probably seen examples of this when you’ve simply tried to install
Emily Is Away was released just over a year ago, and since then, Emily has amassed a lot of friends—like, 1.5 million of them. Many of which will be excited to hear that early next year Emily Is Away Too, a sequel of sorts, will be released. Perhaps “spiritual successor” is a better word; Emily from
If you like the sound of a visual novel with both computer science puzzle and romance elements then Code Romantic is for you. So far, creator Pretty Smart Games has released two of the game’s chapters, with more to come a little further down the line. Unlike Zachtronics-style programming games—where
There are particular games that can only exist within the confines of the technological limitations of the time they were created. Missile Command (1980) feels anxious in its simplicity: the silence of surrounding the explosions of the missiles reminds you that, eventually, no matter how hard you tr
ASCII and the roguelike genre are practically inseparable. ASCII was there at the birth of the genre, bringing Rogue (1980) itself to life—and it’s stayed, with today’s most ambitious roguelikes such as Dwarf Fortress (2006), Ultima Ratio Regum (2012), and Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (2013) crafting
That Lovecraft’s infamous eldritch horror Cthulhu shares a similar appearance with a being from the deep only highlights a certain connection between the abyss below and the terror-filled void of science fiction works. While we’ve yet to discover extraterrestrial lifeforms, the sea floor is home to
Videogame dog saturation is at an all time high. Our goofy, dumb pals are in, and that’s not a problem. Destiny (2014) has dogs that you can’t pet, while the upcoming Watch_Dogs 2 has dogs that you can. Butt Sniffin Pugs has dog butts. Doggo has a dog park. None of these games, though, have dogs lik
GoNNER creator Mattias Dittrich—who goes by Ditto—describes his game as “tough as hell,” and he’s not wrong. It’s one of those games where I ask myself just why I keep clicking continue; death after death, I am thrown back to the beginning of the game. That is, unless I have enough currency to buy m
In high school, I played a game called Spent. This poverty simulator was a welcome distraction from an otherwise unbearable personal finance class. Spent begins by chiding you with the question: “You’d never need help, right?” From there, it’s a juggling act of rent, groceries, activities for your k
A gentle breeze rustles the tall grass that surrounds you, causing the blades to sway back and forth lazily to the soft rhythm of the wind. Up ahead lies a dirt path, leading to an unknown destination whose name was lost to time long ago. You’re curled up on a patch of soil near a bank of water, tak
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. Picky Pop (Windows, Mac, iOS) BY FROACH CLUB Some videogames are lambasted for their ostensible purposelessness. “Time wasters” is the term usually attributed to them by their critics. Picky P
The wonderful opportunity of videogames for an architect is that they allow for the creation of structures impossible to realize in the physical realm. Sure, for many years, pen and paper has offered the same deal, but not quite. Software lends itself to a virtual space that can be freely explored f
At last, several months after first revealing concept art and screenshots for its dreampunk game Figment, Danish studio Bedtime Digital has more to show. It comes in the form of a three-minute long video, which features not only the game in action for the first time, but also lead designer Jonas Byr
Like uncovering a spiral-bound notebook full of junior high poetry, Duke Nukem 3D (1996) is back once again to remind you of what passed for “edgy” in the late 90s. After a half-dozen repackaged versions over the past few years, a sizable anniversary is enough for Gearbox Software, the current stewa
Cuphead creator Studio MDHR was trying to get its game out exactly 80 years from 1936—the year when a Japanese cup-headed character in a short propaganda film turned into a tank to defeat a bunch of evil Mickeys. Now, however, Cuphead will be released 81 years after Cuphead’s grandpa was introduced
Originally scheduled to release on October 13, it appears the team at Drool decided to say, “To Hell with schedules,” and release Thumper a few days early for PlayStation VR, PlayStation 4, itch.io and Steam. For the uninitiated, Thumper is an insane “rhythm violence” game that puts players in contr
This is exciting: Ladykiller in a Bind is out now on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You’ll find the visual novel—by Analogue: A Hate Story (2012) creator Love Conquers All Games—on the Humble Bundle store. For now, Valve deemed the game too sexy for Steam, but writer Christine Love hopes to get it on ther
It’s probably too early in the day for me to playing Overwatch, being around noon. After all, I have work to do. But I’m ignoring that for now. For a fleeting hour or so, I’m taking a break, because Overwatch’s latest themed event is here. And oh buddy, it’s Halloween. A couple hours spent in Overwa
Archivist Jason Scott is attempting to preserve the inherent historical value of videogames. The Festival Floppies is part of this project. Years back, Scott acquired a load of floppy disks that a friend found in 2009 at the Timonium Hamboree and Computer Festival in Baltimore, Maryland. Back then,
Most dystopian media places you in the shoes and mindset of the individual realizing the horrors of their world, from 1984‘s (1949) Winston to The Hunger Games‘s Katniss. Even in the videogames that feature protagonists working for the governmental power such as Papers Please (2013), the tone is one
There’s an attractive quality to the crime stories of the first two Mafia games. Two protagonists down on their luck—Tommy Angelo in the first and Vito Scaletta in the second—find success through a life of crime, wanting nothing more than to rise through the ranks, to be wealthy, to be a “Made Man.”
One can only sympathize with Scott Cawthon. Once a struggling game-maker, he seems concerned that, just as unexpectedly as it arrived, his recent success might disappear. So he’s been working it while it’s hot—inside two years, he’s put out six different Five Nights at Freddy’s games. But 2, 3, and
In 1986, Metroid was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then, Hirokazu Tanaka, Metroid’s composer, has been revered for helping create the game’s iconic, eerie atmosphere. To up Metroid’s creeping feeling of loneliness some 30 years later, composer Luminist is rerecording the game
Those who’ve devoted their lives to the Cartasian Discipline in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (2008) are subject to rote memorization when they’ve broken the rules of their society. The book in which they’re to memorize from is filled with illogical nonsense, like nursery rhymes that don’t quite rhyme—a
You’re taking a walk in Central Park. The sun is shining down on you, a stark contrast to the cool autumn wind that tickles the back of your neck. It’s a reminder that change is coming. As you stroll past the row of chess tables, you see two elderly men hunched over and glaring at each other with an
