Less than four hours after its Kickstarter launch, the sequel to Failbetter Games’ dying-at-sea simulator Sunless Sea reached its funding goal of $126,635 (a simpler number, 100,000, in British pounds). Now, one day later, they’ve raised $215,942, achieving every stretch goal but the last. If things
Do you remember Sir, You Are Being Hunted for its breathtaking art and scenic landscapes? Or do you remember mostly harrowing chases through the moors as bemonacled automatons try to skin you for sport? We covered the studio’s newest game The Signal From Tölva last December, focusing on the stunning
We love Overwatch. So we assembled 22 of our best writers and set them to work—a writer to jump into the skin (or robotic shell) of each character. The result is 22 odes. You can use the “Overwatch odes” tag to leaf through them all, or use the handy list at the bottom of this post. /// Berlin, 1945
There was never a question of which faction I would be playing for my first run of Total War: Warhammer. The Vampire Counts were fun to dabble with, but their brand of corrupt-and-conquer worked a little too slowly for my tastes. The Dwarves, despite being the only race to master the helicopter whil
Virtual reality is absolutely everywhere at GDC this year. On the expo floor, a man strapped at the waist to a treadmill-like device runs in place. At the lunch tables, a woman’s jaw drops as she experiences some simulated haranguing of her sensory organs. Everyone is goggled up. Despite being my fi
Esteban Fajardo and his team have been devouring samurai films while crafting their competitive action game Chambara. They were particularly drawn to the work of Akira Kurosawa, the renowned Japanese director known for films such as Seven Samurai (1954), Yojimbo (1961), and Rashomon (1950). This las
When Dennis “Thresh” Fong was growing up, there was no such thing as a ‘professional gamer’. He was sixteen when he started playing DOOM (1993), but wasn’t competing for anything other than the thrill of victory. Aside from hustling chumps at the local arcade, nobody was making money by playing game
In The Church in the Darkness, you play a man looking for his nephew outside the borders of his own country. The lad has gone to a commune or cult in South America called the Collective Justice Mission, a group led by a charismatic married couple. The parallels to America’s third most famous cult—th
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. In the aftermath of one professional player’s admission to using Adderall, the Electronic Sports League (ESL) is cracking down on performance-enhancing drugs by instituting a new set of standards and tests, positioning the league as a role mo
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Fantasy entertainment once considered only for children has evolved into a social tool for diversity. LARPing inspires empathy and understanding for gender identity and oppression issues. When Anna Anthropy created Dys4ia (2012), an autobiogr
In 1947, French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut, or “raw art” when translated to English. It was used to describe, by his own definition, “Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses—where the worries of competition, acclaim and social
Boy, videogames sure do want out of the narrow, crate-filled corridors of their youth, nowadays! First-person hiking simulator Firewatch has been receiving critical praise all week, in no small part because of its beautiful renditions of the American Northwest. Now The Flame in the Flood, a game abo
“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the American Indians.” That quote belongs, unfortunately, to one of the greatest minds of our age, Stephen Hawking. It’s not an uncommon sentiment, of
Golf is the sport for people with far too much time and money. The average length of one round is 4 hours; the average golf course is so large, there’s a particular vehicle designed to carry you across the field of play. Its archetypal depiction, in the collective human unconscious, will eternally b
Last time we mentioned Necropolis, the gawp-worthy dungeon crawler wasn’t much more than a few entrancing gifs and a promise to sate our unending thirst for procedurally generated, spooky fantasy. Now there’s a set date at which you can start your death tally. Oh yes, Necropolis will release on Marc
“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human recklessness.” These are the words that Sunless Sea, the game of nautical exploration and cannibalistic mutiny, first chooses to present to its players. Creator Failbetter Games wants us to have no illusions of our
I don’t remember many of the places I was taken to between the ages of two to 10, but there is a sort of coalesced impression I have of the many backseats windows I saw the world through. That window is always safety-locked, for one, and won’t roll down past half-way. Usually, it’s raining outside,
The wait is finally over, Grimes fans—Kill V. Maim, the epic final chapter in the Art Angels trilogy, is finally here. And, boy, does Claire Boucher deliver. (A fair warning—the following contains spoilers, enthusiastic though they may be.) What more emotionally resonant opening could Kill V. Maim b
Space travel, alien babies, Justin Bieber—this and more has been the subject matter of the Sluggish Morss games, a series most known for the YouTube freakouts that occur when played by the uninitiated. Today, the co-creator of Sluggish Morss, Jack King-Spooner, has announced his newest project calle
There’s something existentially terrifying about driving at night. For my money, it has to do with that unpleasant combination of velocity and darkness. The swath cut by your headlights is only enough to catch fleeting images. Is that a hitchhiker you see on the side of the road, or an unnervingly c
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Initially known to many for their military use, drones have evolved quickly into tools for creating and enjoying new experiences. They have become flying extensions of the human desire to innovate, help people and have fun. Nearly four millio
Step into the bustling streets of Grand Theft Auto 5’s Los Santos, or one of the many sun-dappled, monster-rich forests in The Witcher 3. These worlds are so fully realized, and at their best so compellingly true-to-life, that it’s easy to forget that all games, when stripped of the bells and whistl
When he comes onstage in the second-to-last panel in Tribeca Games’ “The Craft and Creative of League of Legends,” Tanet “Jacky” Puangngoen is not an immediately imposing figure. He’s on the shorter side, with a kind face and polite demeanor. Nevertheless, when he throws a mock punch in demonstratio
If you liked what you read, why not back us on Kickstarter? Early last Friday, just before the opening remarks of “Tribeca Games Presents: The Craft and Creative of League of Legends,” I sat next to a young man named Will, who told me he had come all the way from Daytona Beach, Florida. I asked him
