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Skeleton flower’s mystery plays out in an obsolete 1990s operating system
The bit of you left behind in your desktop.
freeware
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A videogame that teaches you the basics of CPR
“You know all this shit,” shouts Conan O’Brien, “but you don’t know who our second president was!” This outburst happened during Conan’s early look at Super Smash Bros. last year. He’s amazed that his partner for the video, Aaron Blair, knows who all of the 50-plus characters in the game are, but do
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The Meeting captures the surreal bliss of falling asleep at work
The Meeting by Matt Bethancourt is a simulation of the secret ritual of the office gathering. It plays almost uncannily similar to those HR-mandated “hang outs” that kick off your work week, where Cindy airs her unending grievances about the break room bandit and everyone votes on when to have the o
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The loving horror of Let the Right One In lives on in this vampiric videogame
“Let the right one in Let the old dreams die Let the wrong ones go They do not They do not They do not see what you want them to.” -Morrissey In the past decade or so, the young vampire romance genre has inspired a couple of foreign films that speak to the classic motif while also seeing beyond
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Knossu finds the horror in non-euclidean architecture
Knossu‘s wall textures sizzle as if they’ve been half-cooked on a frying pan. It’s like someone went nuts with the spray paint tool in Microsoft Paint and the most garish colors they could find. Have you ever bitten into something that was way too sour? Imagine that vigorous and unbearable taste car
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Need more Panoramical? Check out this ethereal interactive journey
With new album Yume, ambient electronica musician Helios seems to recall the beauty of lazing underneath a sun-crested sky. The music soothes by letting high notes drift out to a gold horizon. It seems to lift off from the soft fringes of grass and get carried out on a hot puff of wind. More precise
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Try (and fail) to impersonate a feline and win all the cat dollars in Cat Show
Combat the feline take over by impersonating one in Cat Show
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Foggy Shore asks you to contemplate even the smallest decisions
Cold, grey beaches are my favorite. When the mist rolls in, they can feel disconnected from the rest of the world, an isolated plane of white sand, water, sky. Sights and sounds stand out against the emptiness, turning every piece of driftwood or seaweed into a landmark along the shoreline. In Foggy
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Become the manager of Nice Dudes modeling agency, manage all the nice dudes
Often, women are treated as commodities in videogames. Whether they’re the player’s reward or used as background decoration for the world, players are accustomed to seeing the female body bought, sold, collected, consumed, and traded. Of course, this isn’t exclusive to games: advertisers often use p
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Pippin Barr alludes to the creative possibilities of games by breaking Breakout
The possibility and fragility of videogames.
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Fire Dance With Me turns Twin Peaks into an everlasting jive
Of the many peculiar clues that the dwarf in the Black Lodge gives Agent Cooper throughout Twin Peaks, dancing is one of them. Not just any dance, an awkward 1940s-style jazz step with a machine-like sway and disjointed rhythm, all of it operating from the elbows and shoulders as if his arms had min
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The Walls Have Ears is security theatre with a side of voyeurism
The Walls Have Ears is security theatre, but what isn’t? Body scanners at airports, metal detectors at sports stadia, fancy uniforms that imply nonexistent authority—it’s all a big show. The Walls Have Ears is about that show, but you’re a performer. More accurately, you’re a desk jockey at an unnam