This Is My Costume explores life with a non-binary gender identity and its parallels with performative attire. It’s a short point-and-click adventure that was made by game design team Pride Interactive for a recent Ludum Dare, in which the theme was “You Are The Monster.” It begins with the protagon
For a character who has already died, Dracula sure is a chill dude. In Hotel Transylvania, the 2012 children’s movie that has a sequel coming out this month, Dracula is clumsily adjusting to domesticity. In Mel Brooks’ 1995 parody of traditional vampire stories, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Dracula
There isn’t much Jurassic World gets right about normal human behavior, but the desire to feel connected to the planet’s prehistoric past is one of them. “Jurassic World exists to show us how very small we are,” says the dinosaur park owner to the dinosaur park director. Of course, the desire for th
I didn’t find the monster in The Howl, but I knew it was there: a looming silhouette out in the blinding white of the forest’s sparse horizon. I’d get a glimpse in the corner of my eye and ready my bow, but then the violent winds would start up, casting a layer of snowy fog to obscure my vision agai
You wake up to a series of missed messages on your phone. Shit, today’s going to be horrible. Today is taking place in Open the Door and Smile, an entry in the 33rd Ludum Dare game jam, and it does indeed look like it’s shaping up to be horrible. There are messages on the phone from your partner, s
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E. E. Cummings Looking in the mirror can feel like an assault as a teenager. Your reflection—something that used to be dependable—only brings new horrors with each morning. Some days, it’s an eruption of pustules. Others, its straggly, n
I watched the movie Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles in a film class during college and it brought me to the brink of insanity. For those who are not familiar with the three-and-a-half-hour Belgian movie released in 1975, it predominantly consists of the mundane activities of a si
File some junk mail for the devil in Unsolicited With Unsolicited, Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope turns his attention to corporate America Lucas Pope, creator of Papers, Please, turns his bureaucratic attention to junk mail
Don’t let their ostensible cuteness fool you: Tamagotchi, like babies and pets, are evil little monsters. That may not be an empirical fact, but it is the worldview of Hitogochi, a game that reimagines the Tamagotchi-human relationship from the perspective of the toy. A new human arrives in your lif
In the interest of full disclosure, let me start by confessing to my carnivorous ways. I enjoy eating meat, and lots of it please and thank you. Braised, roasted, grilled, cured, tartare, barbequed, sous-vide—you name it, I’ll eat. I cannot present you with a compelling ethical argument in defense o
A feline contract killer waits outside the door of her target’s apartment at sunset, smoking a cigarette. Her gun is loaded, but she’ll need to think a bit more outside the box if she wants to get paid. Once our feline protagonist finds herself inside the target’s apartment, she decides the best met
They say confession is good for the soul, so let’s start with this: I killed a human in three seconds. Before keeling over he had just enough time to say that he felt funny. You don’t say? He doesn’t say anything anymore, and so I sit alone with my conscience waiting for Seal Team 6 to monetize my m
In the wild west, anything can get you killed, even a game of rock-paper-scissors The classic western standoff meets rock-paper-scissors Become the deadliest hands in all the west in The Rock The Paper and The Scissors
???????? brings the lethal fun of Nidhogg to a pillow fight Fight for your right to sleep comfortably in B E D ? H O G G In the battle to defeat a B E D ? H O G G, no pillow is safe
Key to acquiring mastery of a foreign language is putting what you learn into practice. The red-faced pressure that overcomes you when trying to speak, say, French to a perplexed native speaker forces your brain to spew out something French-like. Eventually, with enough of this traumatic practice un
What ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu emphasized throughout his influential military strategy book The Art of War was the importance of information. He wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” His argument is that being in the know puts
You’re walking down an alley alone at night when a hoodlum—a hoodlum with exposed biceps, no less!—demands that you hand over your money. What do you do? The obvious answer is to just hand over the money. It isn’t worth risking your life for a small portion of your net worth. But, as a million Batma
The most convincing argument for playing a Mason Lindroth game is increasingly becoming “because it’s a Mason Lindroth game.” Although you cannot predict what his next videogame will involve you can, at least, guess that it will be made of clay. Everything from hanging overgrowth coiled up into thin
The invading army carried selfie sticks, or maybe those were just their arms. At this point, aren’t all arms just selfie sticks anyhow? Aren’t all arms just selfie sticks anyhow? In Selfie Assault, an entry to the Ludum Dare 32 game jam, your army of one is armed only with a cellphone. You walk aro
Geisterblut is fucking nuts. Being “fucking nuts” appears to be its raison d’etre—its final screen, which you can reach in just a minute or two, hammers this home—but it’s not “trying to be fucking nuts” in the manner of, say, a Russell Brand bit. It is, rather, a free-jazz skronk, a noisy freakout
What do aliens see when they look at One Direction? Do they see, a musical monstrosity straight out of Simon Cowell’s fever dreams, a band that can melt your heart with sincere ballads like the sublime “Gotta Be You”, or a blank cultural canvas that can be used to take over the world? use your boy
Part of me wishes that Dick Poelen had gone further. His Mini Ludum Dare #68 game jam entry PACAPONG comprises four classic arcade games: Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Pong, and Donkey Kong. But why stop there? The disruptive child in me begs for more and more to be added. I want this mash-up to be taken
Forsaken is a game that posits a creeping question: what do your dwelling and possessions reveal about your character? It employs you as someone who is sent to declutter and clean up abandoned houses. The one you get to mouse over is an omnishambles; a putrid disarray of residential flotsam. As you
