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An experiment in game cinema combines Twine and Tarkovsky
Treating humans like cyborgs.
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This game reimagines the glitch aesthetic as an emotional breakdown
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. WHAT NOW? (Browser) BY ARIELLE GRIMES Arielle Grimes has developed tremendously as an author of videogames over the past year. She has expressed grief, sorrow, kindness, and love through her
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Hecticube is a ’90s boardgame Thunderdome come to life
Minus all those little plastic balls that tried to kill you.
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A pair of Dutch artists have created 8-bit food
There’s obsessive portion control as a dietary practice, and then there’s millimeter-perfect portion control as an aesthetic statement. “Cubes,” the latest project by Dutch artists Lenert and Sander, falls into the latter category. The artists responded to a commission for a food spread in de Volks
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How do you measure the success of an autobiographical game?
What can be achieved by turning personal experiences into a game?
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Inside The Yearning Tree is an enchanting microcosm for our fears and desires
Creator Alexander Ocias calls The Yearning Tree “a quiet space for you,” the player. At first, the muted scene depicting a lonely flame in front of a tree does appear to be yours and yours alone. At the zoomed out angle, even the looming tree stands at a distance, accompanying you only at arms lengt
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Wander through a tranquil wilderness in these 3D painted worlds
In 1964, Julie Andrews jumped into a chalk drawing. Inside, she discovered a whole new beautiful world. The film was, of course, Mary Poppins, and ever since having watched it as a child, I’ve had the desire to take a similar leap. It’d be great to spring ourselves, both feet forward, into the soft
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The spirit of P.T. will live on after all
P.T. was a mirage. Thirsty for horror, we supped from its frightening wellspring, it sending shudders through our bodies and electric in our hairs. We were revitalized. Then it was taken from us. Konami shut it all down, both P.T. and the game it acted as a teaser for, the now vaporware survival hor
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Two grizzled skydivers used jetpacks to create high camp
This is not a joke; it’s a jetpack. Well, maybe it’s a joke, but it’s definitely a jetpack. More specifically, the object at hand is a wing that can be attached to a sort of backpack worn by the skydivers Yves Rossy and Vince Reffet. The wing is equipped with multiple small engines that can propel t
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The life and times of a Garbage Cat, and his human’s futile attempts to sleep
Cats: why do we worship their every judgmental glance and begrudging move? Perhaps its writ in our DNA to adore their disdain for us, and to, day in day out, pick up the stinky poops of a creature that (on a good day) barely puts up with your people crap. Ever since the Egyptians up and declared the
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Okhlos turns to Ancient Greece to explore the phenomenon of mob mentality
Coffee Powered Machine, the wonderfully named developers behind the forthcoming game Okhlos make only one promise: there will be angry Greek mobs. What more could you ask for? Before you start rampaging, a little bit of context: Okhlos is set in ancient Greece. Its 16-bit style feels loveably and su
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The hopes and fears of using a videogame as an online confession booth
The idea of a videogame acting as a confession booth is a distressing one. There’s a reason why the religious rite of penance is resolved in a two-person cubicle that can only be occupied by the sinner and a priest. This set-up allows for what is considered to be safe spiritual counseling. You can’t