Control, I’m Not Coming Back
A stranded astronaut meets Voyager 1 in a free Steam game
Control, I’m Not Coming Back is Desborde Games’ hopecore walking sim
walking simulator
Plum Road Tea Dream
Plum Road Tea Dream's grief sanctuary gains a mausoleum
Jira Duguid's level joins six other sanctuaries built by an avatar called S., in a game whose only verbs are walking, sitting and listening.
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Birthplace of Ossian explores the artificiality of videogame landscapes
The mountainous terrain in Connor Sherlock’s exploration game Birthplace of Ossian isn’t of this world. I don’t mean that rather than being real, it is virtual—its disconnection has many more layers than that. For starters, its colossal landscape is based on Glen Coe in Scotland, a place that Sherlo
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Photography project inspires a videogame about mountains
LA-based digital artist and photographer Carson Lynn is aware of the stigma behind the term “walking simulator.” It’s no coincidence that it’s the title of his latest project and also one of the most divisive terms in videogames. He knows that a lot of people shrug the walking simulator genre off as
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The influence of Blame! on videogame architecture is rising
Tsutomu Nihei's vast, wordless manga is quietly becoming one of the most influential blueprints for a new kind of spatial, architectural game design.
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Take in the sights of Trackless’s surreal sci-fi world
You might not have heard of Aubrey Serr but it’s possible you’re familiar with some of his work. For the past eight years, he’s been a designer over at Wolfire Games, mostly working on the still unfinished Overgrowth—the game with the ninja bunnies—but also helped contribute to the studio’s 7DFPS en
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Are relationships worth it or not? Find out in The Door
Your fingers hover above the keyboard, hesitating to type out a response to the enthusiastic bubble that pops onto the screen, asking about your day. It’s tiring, trying to keep up the charade. When did the shift occur? At what point did communicating become a chore as opposed to a treat? A lazy res
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Is it time to stop using the term “walking simulator”?
The history of the term “walking simulator” is short but heated. It’s only seen wide usage over the past few years and is often applied frivolously. There’s a lot of uncertainties around it but the one thing that’s for sure it it’s a divisive term. Some people see it as a useful way to bunch togethe
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Sacramento is way too darn pretty
Sacramento is a fleeting memory, a transitory moment for one to enjoy before life resumes its course. Creator Delphine Fourneau—who also goes by the name Dziff—describes the game as ephemeral; it’s the best word I could find to describe it, too. The scenes in Sacramento are snippets of Fourneau’s ow
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If a pixel-art kitty game doesn’t turn you into a cat person, nothing will
Let’s start off with a confession that’s sure to have my friends messaging me all day: I don’t really like cats. I know, I know—I’m nerdy, I’m introverted, I write about games on the internet, I’m queer. By all accounts, I should be queen cat over here. But ever since growing up with my adorable lab
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The Year in Feels
If we had access to some grand compendium filled with every single emotion that videogames make us feel, it would probably waste most of its words trying to describe fun. But as a concept, fun is primitive. Fun is escape. Like a dog chasing a tennis ball or a crow sliding down a tin roof, fun is int
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Brigador wants you to die with dignity
A walking simulator filled with guns.