Despite being a child of ’90s clubbing and music television, the 2001 rail shooter Rez didn’t quite resonate with its majority audience as its visionary creators had hoped it would. A small niche of players got it—no, they really got it—but it didn’t have the impact of, say, a killer DJ set sending
It’s fair to say that we’re quite fond of Gone Home. It was our Game of the Year when it came out for PC back in 2013. And its mark has been left not only on our own minds, but in those of other creators, with Gone Home‘s intimate exploration of household objects manifesting in various game narrativ
Oh, I remember the halcyon days of 2010, don’t you? When we were all flabbergasted by some guy who had spent days and nights constructing a 1:1 scale model of Star Trek‘s Starship Enterprise. It was a one-man architectural feat and, actually, it’s as impressive today as it was five years ago. But we
Be warned: This article spoils all the surprise of Orchids to Dusk that is so crucial to the first-time experience, so it’s best played before reading. /// The fallen astronaut in Orchids to Dusk is not eager for adventure. You can see this in their hands, which are timidly held together, head shyly
The advert lady on Spotify just told me that, as music is so easily available now through streaming services, it doesn’t matter what you’re listening to any longer but how you’re listening to it. This is Spotify’s attempt to boast that it’s setup to let you listen to music how best suits you. You mi
Why are there huge brawny, hairy men? Why, oh why, are they acting so intimately (and hungrily) with disfigured pigs? And why are they so often seen screaming with heavy anguish into the sky? These are all valid questions about Cool 3D World that probably don’t have an answer. The one question that
When thinking about the black neighborhoods in Chicago‘s south and west side most people will probably see death statistics. This is what the media thrusts into the public’s face time and again. It’s hardly an isolated incident; while purported to be based in fact, these statistics are trumpeted aro
Proteus creator Ed Key and artist Nicolai Troshinsky of Twisted Tree Games have only talked abstractly about their upcoming experimental narrative game Forest of Sleep before. But now, a few months after its initial announcement, the pair have cut into the specifics of what they mean when citing “em
There’s no guessing as to where Letter To A Friend gets its look. The grey, flickering lights; the darkness heavy and consuming as miasma; everything out-of-focus, fuzzed and grainy as if seen through an old, dying lens. The creator needn’t say that its “visual references come from expressionistic s
I remember reading once that a good fiction writer will paint images in your mind. This is vital to the craft; not just stating “a tree” so readers imagine a tree, but describing it so that this is uniquely a tree of your creation, one that will be remembered with intense detail if, say, referenced
All images created by and belong to Sabato Visconti. /// In Sega’s absence, the 1992 undersea videogame Ecco the Dolphin has developed a perplexing life of its own. Back in 2010, musician Daniel Lopatin released a cassette tape limited to 100 copies that contained an album called “Chuck Person’s Ecc
When Patrick McDermott of LA-based label Ghost Ramp first told me that two tracks from Drift Stage‘s soundtrack would be available on a car-shaped vinyl I didn’t fully grasp the idea. It’s to be a “shaped picture disc 7″ that’s the shape of one of the race cars from the game,” he said to me eagerly.
Georges Méliès discovered filmmaking’s jump cut by accident. By cutting out some of the frames in a single, still camera shot and splicing the two separate parts, it seemed as if objects were teleporting through space when watched back in real-time. In his 1898 short The Temptation of St. Anthony, h
“The sequel no one asked for,” begins one user review of Uriel’s Chasm 2: את on Steam. It’s a solid thumbs-down verdict and it sums up the general sentiment surrounding the sequel to one of Steam’s most hated games. Uriel’s Chasm has around 2,500 user reviews and not even a fifth of them are positiv
Californium doesn’t have the look of a videogame about Philip K. Dick. We’re used to the somber, rainy cityscapes of Blade Runner when we think of the sci-fi author. Yet it may be the truest adaptation of the man and his work yet—the vibrant wash of summery hues included. It’s to be a first-person e
I’m struggling to eat bananas these days. It’s Facebook’s fault. The damn thing is ruining my diet. I logged on one day to an auto-playing video of a spider breaking its way out of a banana. The devil of a thing pierced the skin from the inside of its fruity carriage and crawled out of it, into my n
“Come, bunnies,” I announced to the empty room behind me. “Follow me, your glorious leader!” In Future Unfolding, you run around a forest that has the florid appearance of spilled paint, and you can talk to the animals. As if some glorified Pied Piper, you stride with great bounds across flower patc
With his upcoming game FAR, Swiss designer Don Schmocker says he’s looking to reinterpret the role of vehicles in videogames. It’s not anything outrageous such as making cars edible or turning planes into surfboards (although I’d happily give that game a try too). And it’s certainly not Transformers
Gardening has long been in videogames (I’m thinking Harvest Moon especially), but recently there’s been a sprig of interest in small, singular experiences that are concerned with nothing but the procuration of plants. This year alone we’ve had Viridi, Barmark, and Prune. Each of these find within th
Spawned from his background in photography, Ivan Notaros has come up with a beautiful way to explore a videogame world in his upcoming project Scanner. As the title reveals, it has you seeing through a first-generation robot’s eyes as it ventures into a post-humanity world, constructing 3D images wi
The iPhone may be eight-years-old, but with Apple reiterating on its design every year, adding new features to its tilt and tap core, it’s still a magic box full of tricks. Nevertheless, the experimental phase is kinda over for Apple’s smartphone—we know what works well and what doesn’t—and so we of
Mason Lindroth’s videogames have always appealed at first look. You may extend that to ‘first feel’ too, given that they’re usually made of squirming clay and chopped-up degenerated photos; time and again, uniquely and gloriously tactile. But let’s stick with that initial love at first sight idea. I
You do not answer a ringing phone. This should be one of the rules to surviving a horror movie if it isn’t already. Don’t pick up the goddamn phone. Don’t you remember Scream? Or When A Stranger Calls? If you pick up that phone the countdown on your death clock accelerates at a blistering speed. Don
