In Calm Down Stalin, great vodka comes with great responsibility

The Cold War was as much a war of personality as it was a war between nations. For more than 60 years, everyday tensions for U.S. and Soviet leaders risked boiling over into nuclear war. It took hordes of advisors on both sides to talk down leaders like Reagan and Gorbachev when faulty intel or empt

Fear of a videogame dystopia

Some weeks ago, a piece of news shook my world. It wasn’t the primary election results, nor was it Muhammad “The Greatest” Ali’s passing—even though that one was really, really sad. Nope, it was a parrot. CBS reported on June 10th that Bud, an African grey parrot who kept repeating the phrase ‘don’t

The creator of Off-Peak is making another uncanny museum

Early last year, independent game maker Cosmo D came bursting onto the scene with Off-Peak (2015), a bizarre exhibition of artifacts that is museum, musical, and story all at once. It threw you into a train station on the very edge of reality and gave you a task to do, begging you not be distracted

A museum is trying to reunite people with their old game cartridges

“Did you ever write your name on game cartridges?” That question greets you at the top of the Museum of the Preowned Games Collections’s (MPGC) homepage. It is, at first, a bizarre ask of an adult, complacent with their belongings that rarely leave the house or pocket. But its meant to bring back me

Winter’s pretty low-poly world hides a dark story

Each person in Winter‘s world is given a choice right before the moment they’re to die—life or death. Time is frozen in the one second before the outcome. Winter creator Happy Volcano calls this place The One Second World. It’s where the game takes place, across a series of beautiful dioramas. More