• The header image is from this launch trailer for Process.

• The digital edition of Process, to be totally clear, comes with both a more-or-less text-only ebook file and a PDF with digital versions of all the graphical and typographical skullduggery from the physical edition.

• As I say in the outro, Matthew did bring me and Sam Kulchin in on the the soundtrack to Kaizen: A Factory Story.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Nobody's Business If I Do" by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins, performed by Bob Geddins' Cavaliers.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

• Here's Richard Terrell's A Defense of Gameplay, and his two-part appearance on the show.

• And here's Richard's curation project about Starseed Pilgrim (his among others), the Starseed Observatory. The project's Wall of Quotes includes a piece Drew wrote about the game.

• Drew misquoted William Blake, as one does. The actual line, from Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, is: "I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create."

• Mutual Aid is available for free online. It's also probably in your local bookstore, and your local bookstore would even more probably order it for you, in the quite likely event that your local bookstore is cool.

• David Graeber wrote about consensus a lot, but this is probably the single-best entry point.

• We did get to have Arvi Teikari on to talk all about Baba Is You a few years back.

• As droqen says, Brendan Keogh's The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist is a great way to reframe "the videogame industry" as one part (and probably not even the most important part) of the larger cultural field of videogames.

• Christopher Alexander's The Nature of Order is a tricky work track down (because not just any library or bookstore will have it on hand, and also because it exists in multiple volumes, each fairly voluminous).

• droqen's notebook/forum has some notes on those Agnes Martin and Don Potts interviews (both of which are linked in full from said notes pages).

• The morning this dropped, droqen posted this video, connecting The End of Gameplay with his series of #droqevers, which themselves refer to this unusually useful definition of games:

What is a game? Professor M. Mouse?of Texas, America claims that the word game denotes "the historical process by which the term game has been characterised and understood". Easy for you to say, Professor!!

Those of us with a more down-home approach to codifying the various aspects of a nebulous and unbearable human condition prefer to go by a simpler definition, thus. A game is some combination of the following indivisable elements: - skeleton - red key - score thing - magic door

If you see something that looks like a videogame but isn't, you should notify the Police.

• droqen also posted some notes on this episode in his "forum-shaped notebook." Infinite recursion.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "romantic," "gameplay (forever)," and "machine lover," from The End of Gameplay (new moon OST) by droqen.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is on YouTube in its entirety, at least some places.

• The talk that Barney did for Game Audio Boston doesn't seem to be online, but we'll add a link if it does show up in the future.

• That said, here's Barney talking about recording loud sounds that go bang. And here too.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Rev Up Your Arithmetech!" (the menu music) from the Add Astra OST by Emerson Boatwright and Drew Messinger-Michaels. Some gameplay audio from Enotria: The Last Song, which has music and audio design by Aaram Shahbazians and additional audio by Barney Oram.

As Drew says in the intro, Add Astra is on Steam, Chemistry Set is available directly from COINCIDENCE, and The Tower and the Circle is available through Alexander.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

• Here's the New Yorker Radio Hour interview with Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Khalidi also semi-recently did a much more substantive, equally accessible interview with Adam Conover.

• H.R.9495 didn't pass, but we should expect to see more bills like it once the second Trump Administration begins in earnest.

• For the moment, Farha does seem to be back on Netflix in the US.

• Here's Rasheed's #1ReasonToBe talk at GDC 2017, if you want to hear some more from him about being a Palestinian game developer (and being extremely funny).

• This article is a great starting point on musical traditions in Palestine before the Nakba.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Sefnon bekalbi," performed by Hag Abdul Fattah El-Kabbani.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Nightmare Kart will be out for free on May 31. You can see more of Lilith's work, including Bloodborne PSX, on Itch.io. You can also follow Lilith (or rather, Bunlith?) on Twitter, and see her stream on Twitch. She's also got a Patreon, a Ko-Fi, and a Discord. ——— • Here's the Noclip documentary about Bloodborne PSX. We'd also point highly recommend this Gayming interview, which is the source of that quip about intellectual property law being eldritch—"Capitalism is terrifying. That's our cosmic horror"—and also the occasion for Lilith saying that the original Bloodborne

kind of talks shit about the people in power, and the protagonist is an outsider, and all your friends are disabled people and sex workers and other outsiders. Then a lot of the enemies are the upper-class people responsible for the plague who trapped all the lower-class people into central Yarnham and closed the gates — who then die horrible deaths anyway from their own creations. It?s a direct response to a lot of the problems with gothic horror as a genre. It's incredible, and it's probably why it's so transgender.

• Melos Han-Tani and Marina Kittaka from Analgesic have been on the show twice, first to talk about Anodyne 2 and then to talk about Sephonie. Both interviews get into the topic of older design tropes worth recovering (and new ones worth jettisoning, or at least bemoaning).

• The Rock Paper Shotgun Electronic Wireless Show recently did an episode on free games.

• Drew was drawing on David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years, though he did misquote it. Graeber's phrase is not "basic communism" but "baseline communism," which he defines as

the understanding that, unless people consider themselves enemies, if the need is considered great enough, or the cost considered reasonable enough, the principle of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" will be assumed to apply.

He goes on to say that, "in fact, communism is the foundation of all human sociability" (emphasis his). This is obviously true on the level of giving someone directions if you know the way, or (as Drew says in the episode) handing someone a tool they've asked for. Just as obviously, we sometimes operate on other principles, such as hierarchy, exchange, or (as Lilith says in the episode) reciprocity. As Graeber says:

All of us act like communists a good deal of the time. None of us act like a communist consistently. "Communist society"?in the sense of a society organized exclusively on that single principle?could never exist. But all social systems, even economic systems like capitalism, have always been built on top of a bedrock of actually-existing communism.

• Ah, and anyway, here's Add Astra.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Pthumerian Cup" from the Bloodborne KART April Fool's joke, the Bloodborne PSX OST and the BBKART Soundtrack, by The Noble Demon.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

So let's dig into the details, and along the way let's talk about monetization, opera, high art, low art, and how Dragon's Dogma II is like a D&D campaign where all of the other players are dogs.

This episode contains discussions of death, dying, and mourning. ———

• Dia Lacina has written a bit about Dragon's Dogma II, and a bit about Dark Arisen.

• Podcasters helping podcasters, here's a good summary of the weird relationship of dogs to Octavia Butler's work.

• Here's Alexis Ong's piece about pawns.

• And here's Dan Olson's video about Fortnite.

• You can hear the Met's Saturday Matinee Broadcasts on lots of still-extant terrestrial radio stations and their websites. My mom and I usually go with KUSC.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Messa da Requiem by Guiseppe Verdi, performed by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, conducted by Yannick N?zet-S?guin, featuring Leah Hawkins, Karen Cargill, Matthew Polenzani, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. Recorded September 27, 2023. Broadcast March 30, 2024.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

The music makes you feel like a hero as you do your space violence on behalf of Super Earth, and let's be honest, the capes are rather dashing. Here's a game that wants to have its cake and eat it too, and we're inclined to say it pulls it off. So let's dig into how it's doing what it's doing, and the slipperiness of making art about fascism that isn't useful to fascists. ———

• The clip about Super Earth is from this Helldivers II ad. The in-game propaganda and advertising are fairly consistent in tone, and so far, in terms of world-building as well.

• If you'd like to keep entirely Joel mysterious in your mind, then we can respect that—but if you'd like to know more (to coin a phrase), then Aftermath has you covered (kind of).

• Here's my piece on moon, and one where I talked more about "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" in contrast to "Springtime for Hitler."

• Here's Umberto Eco's essay on "Ur-Fascism" and Ruben Ferdinand and Elliot Trinidad's essay on Attack on Titan (a classic pairing).

• We use bits of Lindsay Ellis' video on Mel Brooks, F.D Signifier's video about Hajime Isayama's New York Times interview, and Mark Brown's recent video on Spec Ops: The Line.

• We don't think there's anywhere to (legally) hear the full Starship Troopers commentary other than the physical releases of the film, unfortunately.

• The Freud quote is from The Ego and the Id, and the Truffaut quote is from this interview.

• The intrusive thought at the end is from this clip.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Guren no Yumiya" by Linked Horizon, from the first season of Attack on Titan. "My Heart Leaps Up" from Mack and Mabel by Jerry Herman. The extraction and victory music from Helldivers II.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

So at the risk of being eternally behind the viral content curve (as though we've ever feared that around here), we're going to take a little time to think through the breakout successes of this year, starting with Palworld. We'll also be talking about Last Epoch and Helldivers II (which got so popular that they ceased to function) in future installments. ———

• I mention the episode of Experience Points about Palworld, in the context of positing a possible public domain Pikachu.

• Jack Saint's video brought the fan design issue to my attention, and also got me thinking about which pal designs work better than which other ones. (Those would be the more original, less chimeric pals).

• Here's that much-discussed Hbomberguy video about YouTube plagiarism.

• And here's OpenAI telling the UK's Parliament that they would have no business model if they had to respect anyone else's intellectual property rights.

• Astra Taylor pointed out that full automation is still an aspiration and a threat, a pipe dream and a nightmare, rather than a reality, when she coined the terms "fauxtomation." I learned about this concept from Brian Merchant's thoroughly excellent Neo-Luddite book about the original Luddites, and about what we can learn from them, Blood in the Machine.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Pal of My Lonesome Hours" by Abe Lyman and Walter Hirsch, performed by Abe Lyman and His California Orchestra.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Speaking of, spoilers for Remnant II from 40:53 to 44:21. ———

• We've talked before about playing games, including but not limited to Destiny 2, wrong.

• Guilty Gear -STRIVE- does not, at time, of publishing, have a simplified input option for supers.

• Here once again the Bartle taxonomy of player types.

• The curling documentary in question is "Stone Cold," which is the fourth episode of the Netflix series Losers.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "If It Wasn't For You" by Buddy Rose, Gene Rose, Harold C. Berg, and Herb Wiedoeft, performed by the Crystal Orchestra.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can play the Sunken Stones demo on Itch.io, and wishlist the full game on Steam. You can find Chase's work on his own website, as well as on Spotify and Bandcamp. And you can find Glen's work on the Spritewrench website. ——— • Here's Glen's previous appearance on the show.

• And here's our conversation with Tanya X. Short, wherein we talked a bit about Five Strategies for Collaborating with a Machine and On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots.

• For more about why Drew will take every opportunity to defend and ere's Blood in the Machine and a great recent interview about it.

• And here's Chase talking a bit about his process, including the more technical side thereof.

• LucasArts made some intensely impressive music tech for the Monkey Island series specifically, including iMuse.

• In Pirate Enlightenment, David Graeber gives us this useful assessment of the centrality of freedom for the actual, historical pirates of the Golden Age:

Perhaps the best that could be said of them is that their brutality was in no way unusual by the standards of the their time, but their democratic practices were almost completely unprecedented.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Luck Don't Live Out Here" and "Pugnacity in Port Royal" from the Sunken Stones Soundtrack by Chase Bethea.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can find Ezra's games on his Itch.io page. You can also follow Ezra on Cohost, Mastadon, Twitter, and Bluesky. ——— • Ezra's Guide to Magic and Otherwise Significant Objects has Ezra's name on it in part because of Bennet Foddy and Zach Gage's 2019 GDC talk, "Put Your Name on Your Game, a Talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage."

• Here's my piece on the hypothetical No Berlin Roguelike, as well as my Babycastles talk about masocore platformers, and about how Celeste fits into that tradition and also my article about the history of asking machines to lie to us.

• Be Honest is indeed featured in Tiny Mass Games, which you can hear more about in our talk with Matt Brelsford. We should note that Ezra also worked with recent guest Ryan Canuel, who himself is currently working with other recent guest Ichiro Lambe.

• Here's the SCP Wiki (which is intensely creepy, as discussed), as well as a great video essay on why VHS is such a great format for horror.

• And here's Ezra's appearance on Party of One.

• Ezra's studio co-founder is Fergus Ferguson, with whom he also collaborated on Radio Tower.

• Here's Edward Ongweso Jr. arguing for the outright abolition of venture capital.

• And worst of all, here are Snolf and Snolf 0.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Prom" by The Spookfish.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can play JOUNCER PX (as it's called now) on itch.io. You can find a bunch of Eric's work on his Linktree, and specifically on his Itch.io. You can also follow Eric on Twitter. ——— • Here's our conversation with Jerry Belich about, among other things, Alt.ctrl.

• Drew has absolutely been referring Big Bad Beetleborgs as Bad Bad Beetleborgs, charmed by the misremembered repetition, for decades.

• Eric says "this the season" for witchy vibes, which indeed it was when we spoke. And of course, in a very important sense, it always is.

• Here's that scene from Jurassic Park, recreated in Dreams. And then there's this.

• This recent episode of This Machine Kills has a good summary of the labor actions taking place throughout, specifically, the US.

• If you have a few spare bucks, consider donating a few to Medical Aid for Palestinians, Palestine Legal, or If Not Now. There is also lots you can do, especially if you're in the US.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music that may or may not end up in Bounce Box, by Scott Lindeman.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can get the Mythic Realms demo in Quest App Lab. You can wishlist AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Remastered and play its demo on Steam, where you can also play Operation DogFight for free. And you can find a whole bunch of Petricore Games' work on their website.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. The music from the Mind the Arrow trailer, by Aaron Lin. "After the Rain" by Francis Canaro, performed by Harry Fryer and His Orchestra.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

High on Knife is out now on Steam, Epic, Xbox, and Playstation. You can find Jerry's work on this pretty comprehensive page of his website. A Masterpiece in Disarray is available wherever you get books. You can also follow Jerry on Bluesky. ——— • Here are our past conversations with Megan Fox, Robin Baumgarten, Adriel Wallick, and the bit comedy devotee himself, William Pugh.

• And here's the Experimental Gameplay Workshop where Jerry talks about Please Stand By.

• Arvi Teikari was indeed a student at the University of Helsinki when he started working on Baba Is You—and he also made the initial prototype for Nordic Game Jam. So that's (at least) two villages that one might say it took.

• Drew mentions at the end that his music is on Bandcamp, which it is, for now.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the Dune Swede that Jerry mentions. "Mack the Knife" by Kurt Weil, performed by Ted Ferrer with the Klaus Alzners Orkester.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can learn more about Altered Gene and Radical Forge on their websites. You also can wishlist Forever Lost and The Analyst, and preorder The Analyst: Redacted. ——— • This interview with Joe Russo contains the clearest explanation we've gotten of just how, and just how much, the direction of the MCU is pre-determined: Disney makes ambitious, semi-longterm plans about which projects they plan to make, but then they're intensely flexible and reactive about the business of actually making them. That interview is the main source for that one Screen Rant piece, and that one other Screen Rant piece, both of which hinge on this quote:

The way it works at Marvel, and I'm sure at some point somebody will talk in detail about this, but part of Kevin [Feige]'s brilliance is that there isn't really a plan. There's an idea, but you can't have a plan if the movie you're making tanks. There's no plan after that, right? So, it's really about, as the movie succeeded, there was sort of an enthusiasm about well, what else could we do? [...]A lot of the stuff was made up in between the movies. And some of the best call forwards or callbacks were thought of after the fact.

• Here's our talk with Anton Hand about simulationist tendencies, and the limits thereof.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Effugere" from the Forever Lost OST by Richard J Moir.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can find Tiny Mass Games on itch.io. You can also find Betty & Earl and Retro Wing Prime on Steam. ——— • Here are our interviews with Tijmen Tio from Sokpop, Arvi Teikari of Baba Is You fame, and Andrew from Indiepocalypse, as well as with Star St. Germain.

• What the Internet calls Biblically Accurate Angels are indeed more properly called Ophanim.

• The "David Foster Wallace piece" Drew was referring to is Infinite Jest. (He overcorrected, not wanting to assume that all notable David Foster Wallace quotes were from Infinite Jest).

• And here's that Sasha Chapin piece about David Foster Wallace and "the gift of sight," which I've mentioned previously in the context of Death Stranding and Breath of the Wild.

• This conversation does sort of conflate games that are small in scope or short in duration with games that are smaller works, in the sense of being less polished, or made more quickly. There are, of course, hyper-polished, commercially released, "real" games that are, nonetheless and purposefully, quite short. Venba is a recent example. Portal is a less recent, oft-cited one.

• Here's a decent summary of what in the hell has been going on with Unity.

• Dave the Diver was made by Mintrocket, which is a subsidiary of Nexon, which has somewhere between 6,500 and 7,100 employees.

• As far as we can tell, the Supergiant team is 24 people. (They had "fewer than 20 people" when Hades launched into early access on the Epic store ).

• Here's The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist.

• And here's my piece on how weird it is that we want computers to lie to us.

• We should also note that the infinite Seinfeld episode didn't, like, end super well.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Womb," from the Betty & Earl OST by Matt Brelsford.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

This ends up being a conversation about expectations, about the actual moment-to-moment experience of playing games (especially strange and/or complicated ones), and about the push-and-pull of stepping outside our comfort zones, and then right back into them.

• "We'll do Beholders another day" was Drew channeling "We'll do blood another day."

• As ever, let us praise elegant design, but let us also praise messy design.

• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is the one that L recently played. It's on Nintendo's Switch Online quasi-virtual console Game Boy thing.

• L's new project is the Four Buds Floral Collective.

• Remnant II and Baldur's Gate 3 both prominently feature multi-classing: As in, you can be a Bard and a Barbarian, a Summoner and an Archon. This wildly increases the sense of player agency, and of build diversity—counter-intuitively enhancing the sense of free play by piling on more and more rules and mechanics and systems.

• Why do we say that's counter-intuitive? Well, in The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, David Graeber says:

D&D, as its aficionados call it, is on one level the most free-form game imaginable, since the characters are allowed to do absolutely anything, within the confines of the world created by the Dungeon Master, with his books, maps, and tables and preset towns, castles, dungeons, wilderness. In many ways it’s actually quite anarchistic, since unlike classic war games where one commands armies, we have what anarchists would call an “affinity group,” a band of individuals cooperating with a common purpose (a quest, or simply the desire to accumulate treasure and experience), with complementary abilities (fighter, cleric, magic-user, thief …), but no explicit chain of command. So the social relations are the very opposite of impersonal bureaucratic hierarchies. However, in another sense, D&D represents the ultimate bureaucratization of antibureaucratic fantasy. There are catalogs for everything: types of monsters (stone giants, ice giants, fire giants …), each with carefully tabulated powers and average number of hit points (how hard it is to kill them); human abilities (strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution …); lists of spells available at different levels of capacity (magic missile, fireball, passwall …); types of gods or demons; effectiveness of different sorts of armor and weapons; even moral character (one can be lawful, neutral, or chaotic; good, neutral, or evil; combining these produces nine possible basic moral types …). The books are distantly evocative of Medieval bestiaries and grimoires. But they are largely composed of statistics. All important qualities can be reduced to number. It’s also true that in actual play, there are no rules; the books are just guidelines; the Dungeon Master can (indeed really ought to) play around with them, inventing new spells, monsters, and a thousand variations on existing ones. Every Dungeon Master’s universe is different. The numbers are in a sense a platform for crazy feats of the imagination, themselves a kind of poetic technology.

Still, the introduction of numbers, the standardization of types of character, ability, monster, treasure, spell, the concept of ability scores and hit-points, had profound effects when one moved from the world of 6-, 8-, 12- and 20-sided dice to one of digital interfaces. Computer games could turn fantasy into an almost entirely bureaucratic procedure: accumulation of points, the raising of levels, and so on. There was a return to the command of armies. This in turn set off a move in the other direction, by introducing role-playing back into the computer games (Elfquest, World of Warcraft …), in a constant weaving back and forth of the imperatives of poetic and bureaucratic technology. But in doing so, these games ultimately reinforce the sense that we live in a universe where accounting procedures define the very fabric of reality, where even the most absolute negation of the administered world we’re currently trapped in can only end up being yet another version of the exact same thing.

• Here's Xalavier Nelson Jr.'s important thread on Baldur's Gate 3 and our present, highly volatile era of "megagames". The thread has, unfortunately, been covered really badly and dishonestly, partially as a symptom of the closely-related phenomenon of "orbital decay" in mainstream games journalism.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "When the Fire Comes Down" by Wally Fowler, Tommy Harrell, and Curly Kinsey, performed by Milton Estes and His Musical Millers.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

OXENFREE II: Lost Signals is out now on Steam, Switch, Playstation, and Netflix. You can follow Bryant (and Night School) on Twitter, remarkably. ——— • The Boss Fight Book about Majora's Mask goes deep into Zelda's production pipeline, and into Yoshiaki Koizumi injecting narrative verve into these gameplay-first designs, and also into the prickly, paranoid nature of fan theories.

• Here's the interview in which Eiji Aonuma contrasts the (remarkably fast) development cycle of Majora's Mask with the (remarkably not-fast) development cycle of Tears of the Kingdom.

• Here's Meg Jayanth's GDC talk about giving NPCs agency.

• And here's one of Bryant's many ambitious TotK flying machines.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Arcadia Station" and "To The Island" from the OXENFREE II: Lost Signals OST by scntfc.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here Jaku tells the full story of Turnip Exchange for the first time. It's the story of a small project becoming enormously popular ridiculously quickly, and all the commercial, social, and technical implications that follow. More broadly, it's a story about attention, and what it means to be the next big thing here at the end of the end of history, in these waning days of "Web 2" social media, these halcyon days for grifts, rug-pulls, and jank-ass cloak-and-dagger.

Here are links to CrowdControl and Turnip Exchange. You can also follow Jaku on Twitter, for now at least, and see his streams on Twitch. ——— • Here's Flash Boys, Michael Lewis' book about the demonry of flash trading.

• The Nookazon folks are making a game called Galactic Getaway.

• Drew became familiar with "the end of the end of history" thanks to Kohei Saito's Marx in the Anthropocene.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Turnip Greens," performed by Steve Gibson and the Red Caps, vocal by Romaine Brown. "Tulip or Turnip" by Don George and Duke Ellington, performed by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, vocal by Ray Nance.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here she talks about why that works so well for a fighting game, with the genre's focus on over-the-top personae (and just as importantly, over-the-top performances of gender).

We also talk about Mortal Kombat and ClayFighter, as one ought.

You can follow the development of Drag Her! on Discord, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. You can also follow Jessica on Instagram and see some of her aerial work on YouTube. ——— • Here's a semi-recent roundup of LGBTQ-friendly touring and travel agencies, and here's another, slightly older, partially overlapping one. Drew was also thinking Gay Travel, which is more in the general advice and information lane, as are Autostraddle's travel posts.

• And here's Ruben Ferdinand's piece about Yoko Taro and "weird feelings for weird people."

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the Drag Her! OST by Markaholic.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can follow Good Trouble on Discord, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Bluesky. And you can follow Harris on Twitter and Bluesky. ——— • Drew did edit the first part of this episode in the air, but then finished it up on a train from Dublin to Belfast (for those interested in the host's mild globe-trotting; it does add flavor).

• The many-buttoned fighting game that Harris mentions is Centenntable.

• As Harris says, we had Sarah and Colin Northway on recently and talked about I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. We also had Ricky Haggett on to discuss Wilmot's Warehouse.

• Finji's new community manager is Aster. They're currently on Twitter, which currently exists.

• And here's the the etymology of inspiration.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Memories of Memories" from the TUNIC OGST by Lifeformed ? Janice Kwan.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can wishlist Million Monster Militia, along with Monster Loves You Too! and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, on Steam. You can find Ichiro on Twitter, and see his work on his website and Dejobaan's. ——— • It's real, real hard to find reliable numbers on power consumption in LLMs other other "AI." Most existing research focuses on BLOOM, simply because its operations are so much less opaque than what's going on at OpenAI or Google. M?l Hogan, whose past work has focused on the environmental impact of data centers more generally, recently discussed the specifics of "AI" energy consumption with Sasha Luccioni, one of the authors of the paper linked above. (We should note, as they both do, that we're not just talking about energy here, but also water, "AI" being a driving factor behind the escalating demand for industrial-scale liquid cooling).

• As Ichiro points out, these issues are specific to enormous, corporate run "AIs" such as GPT-4, Bard, DALL?E 2, and Midjourney—as distinct from models you can run on your own (beefy) PC.

• Drew once again mentions Emily Short's Five Strategies for Collaborating with a Machine and Lily Alexandre's video essay on "post-human" content.

• And here's Ichiro's Totally Human Rapper.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the Million Monster Militia OST by Job Bellini.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can buy or subscribe to Indiepocalypse on Itch.io and Patreon. You can also follow Andrew on Twitter, and find all things Indiepocalypse on its website. ——— • Here are our previous talks with Megan Fox, Tanya X. Short, and Sarah and Colin Northway, as well as with Indiepocalypse alums Esther Alter, Damien Crawford, and Glen Henry.

• Here's "Deadgames and Alivegames," as well as our interview with Melos Han-Tani and Marina Kittaka (and our other interview with them).

• And here's Andrew's Local Scene Showcase.

———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Apple Blossoms" by Vernon Geyer. Some music from I'm Hungry! I'm Healthy! I'm Human! by lintilion, the commissioned game from Indiepocalypse #41.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

PRETTY BIG SPOILERS for I Was A Teenage Exocolonist from 24:30 to 30:10.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is out now on Steam, Itch.io, Switch, and Playstation. You can find the Northway Games catalog on their website, and the MoR on its own site. You can also follow Colin and Sarah on Twitter. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Exocolonist Theme Redux" by A Shell in the Pit, from the I Was A Teenage Exocolonist OST.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

———

• Here are our conversations of varyingly recent vintage with Santiago Zapata, Star St. Germain, Esther Alter, Chris Hanney, Anita Tung, and Emma Kinema.

• And here's Emily Short's Five Strategies for Collaborating with a Machine.

• We didn't get too deep into Emily M. Bender's work, but Tanya did make reference to a paper Bender co-authored, On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? And this recent interview contains some of Bender's thoughts on present-day so-called AI.

• The video essay Drew referenced, about humans being neither the artist nor the audience for a lot of current content, is Lily Alexandre's Everything Is Sludge: Art in the Post-Human Era.

• No one has really written a definitive history of Boyfriend Maker, unfortunately. For a related but largely distinct ethical nightmare, you could check out this other video essay, on Replika.

• We will indeed be looking into One More Multiverse.

• Regrettably, we didn't get a chance to talk about that Kitfox blog post about messy design?but it's something worth considering: elegance maybe being over. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Whipped Into Shape (feat. Madeleine McQueen)" from Boyfriend Dungeon: Secret Weapons, the DLC addendum to the Boyfriend Dungeon OST, by Marskye.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

The Last Clockwinder is out now on Steam, Quest, and PSVR2. You can see what positions Pontoco has available on their jobs page. You can also find lots of Anita's work on her website, and follow her on Twitter and Mastodon.

———

• Here's our conversation with Joel Corelitz.

• Gathering Sky really is lovely, and it commits to the peculiarities of touch interfaces in about the same way that The Last Clockwinder commits to the peculiarities of VR.

• Here's Matthew Blair's GDC talk about The Last Clockwinder, as well as John Austin's.

• We've known about the role of seawater in Roman concrete since 2017 or so.

• We'll also link this fairly recent piece about Roger Morash and Shard.

• For more on studio sustainability, we'd recommend our episodes with Megan Fox, Glen Henry, Anya Combs, and William Pugh. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Gardeners: Bomb Berry Laboratory" from The Last Clockwinder OST by Joel Corelitz.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

In this interview, Chris talks about the past, present, and (in his view, extremely exciting) future of VR. Along the way we discuss the technology's many strange tributaries. For the first time in recorded history, two bearded white dudes talk on a podcast.

Space Pirate Trainer DX is out now on Quest. Shredders is out now on Steam, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass. You can also follow Chris on Twitter, whatever that currently is.

———

• This review contains some really useful descriptions of what Space Pirate ARENA even is on a nuts-and-bolts, logistical level.

• The Bigscreen Beyond really does look like swim goggles when compared to the Quest 2 (though not quite so much when compared to, say, swim goggles, if we're honest).

• Here's the Twitterthreadization of Chris' GDC 2023 talk about Steam forums and reviews.

• And here's our episode with Anton Hand. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Seventy-Four" from Nowhere, Now Here (music from the video game Shredders) by Jennifur.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

That experience, in turn—the experience of getting to collaborate across disciplines, to be a bit of a generalist despite having been hired with a specialized skillset in mind—is what he's now trying to recreate at his studio, New Avalon.

You can also follow Paul on Twitter, and do likewise for New Avalon. Likewise with Odyssey Interactive and Omega Strikers.

———

• Here's that excellent Dan Olson video, which is something of a sequel to this one. Later in the conversation, his video on Fortnite becomes relevant as well.

• And here's our conversation with Greg Haynes from AbleGamers. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Go Strike! (Karaoke Version)" by James Landino, the theme from Omega Strikers.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Backerkit's new crowdfunding section is live, as so often is the music of Funkrust. You can also find Anya's socials on her Linktree.

———

• Drew was referring to a premium (as in paywalled, and also as in excellent) episode of the 5-4 podcast, with that bit about having more culpability as one ascends a big company's hierarchy. • Here's Someone Has Died.

• This talk is a great introduction to Anya's thoughts on the nuts and bolts of crowdfunding. We'd also highly recommend Anya's episode of What Else Do You Do? ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Riptide" from Dark City by Funkrust Brass Band.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Which means that the time is right for TTRPGs that parents can play with their kids?including very young kids, and including parents who didn't play D&D back in the day & day. Irwin Chen, Nathan Dummitt, and Ed Chung developed their Ampersand RPG system to fulfill precisely those needs. Int his conversation, they talk about how their approach emphasizes tactility, creativity, collaboration, "classroom management," and investment without self-seriousness.

Snakes and Sarcophagi, the newest Ampersand RPG adventure, is now on Kickstarter. You can also follow the project on Twitter, and learn more on the Ampersand RPG website.

———

• The Satanic-panicky made-for-TV movie in which Tom Hanks joins a cult because of Dungeons & Dragons is indeed, somewhat pitiably, called Mazes and Monsters. (They didn't even use an ampersand. Amateurs).

• The reason that Drew defaulted to videogames when when he started talking about instrumental play was that this Dan Olson video popped into his head. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Buckin' the Dice" by "Fats" Waller, performed by "Fats" Waller and his Rhythm. "Snakes' Hips" by Spencer Williams, performed by the Original Memphis Five.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here Esther talks about PROĆEMON in terms of its inspirations, its tech, and how it fits into her broader artistic practice—which spans tabletop RPGs, non-game technical experiments and tools, and short-form fiction (much of it profoundly and unmistakably Jewish).

PROĆEMON: You Must Catch Them is out now on Itch.io and Steam. You can follow Esther on Twitter, and find a whole bunch of her work on her website.

——— • The secondary antagonists who want to liberate Pokémon (those jerks) are Team Plasma from Pokémon Black and White (on the DS).

• It's true enough that you wouldn't have read about MissingNo. in Nintendo Power at the time?though a year later, the hundredth issue did cover the Minus World in Super Mario Bros (a glitch that was then about a decade old).

• Here's Esther's talk about the life and death and slippery definiton of the indie game.

• Here's the collectable card game version of Pro?emon.

• And here are Other Covenants and "Cultureship." ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some (genuinely procedural!) music from PROĆEMON: You Must Catch Them by Esther Alter.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

DEAD SPACE is out now on Steam, Epic, The EA App, Xbox Series X|S, and Playstation 5. Physical Collector's Editions are available at Limited Run Games. You can also follow Trevor on Twitter, and find a whole bunch of Trevor's work on his website.

———

• Here's the episode of Right on Cue where Trevor talks about his time working for Philip Glass.

• The Crowded Room is due out on AppleTV+ sometime this year. ———

"All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Make Us Whole" by Trevor Gureckis, from the score to DEAD SPACE. "Seracs" from CORT? by Trevor Gureckis.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

FORSPOKEN is out now for PC via Steam, Epic, and Xbox.com, and for Playstation 5. You can learn more about Garry's rather large body of work on his website.

———

• Viola d'amore is a rad instrument indeed, with an awfully evocative sound to it.

• Here's a bit more from Garry and Mikolai on the Metamorphosis score.

• When Drew refers to music "theory," do always hear it in scare quotes. To say that "all theory comes from Bach" is obviously wrong on its face, but just as obviously right if you understand "music theory" as a synonym for the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians.

• Relevant videosmith Adam Neely would, by the way, probably refer to the triadic, sometimes jazz-adjacent dissonances we're discussing as "spicy" intonation.

• As per Wikipedia, "the game's writing team includes Gary Whitta, Amy Hennig, Allison Rymer, and Todd Stashwick."

• To be emphatically, pedantically clear, "nobody knows nothin" is a guiding principle for art, and even a wryly humble aphorism about reality generally?but when it comes to climate change, we actually know sort of a lot. "Nobody knows nothin" is about being suspicious of professed authority and received wisdom, but it shouldn't curdle into spitefully ignoring genuine expertise.

• Here's the story of how a cancelled DLC for Final Fantasy XV became Project Athia, which eventually got retitled as (you guessed it) FORSPOKEN. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Junoon (Junoon World 1)" by Garry Schyman, from the score to FORSPOKEN. Le Sacre du printemps, I. "Adoration de la Terre," by Igor Stravinsky, performed by the Walther Straram Concerts Orchestra, conducted by Igor Stravinsky.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

So join us once again as Drew plays some clips from the shows we've done this year, some lovely bits of music from the games we've talked about, and some scratchy old 78s besides.

——— • "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. • Some music from the Neko Ghost, Jump! OST by Alec Weesner. • "Apartment (Vodka Mix)" from the HoloVista Original Soundtrack by Mariode. • "Mid Morning" by Oscar Brittain, from the Kardboard Kings OST. • "Tea Time" by George Schwartz, performed by the Ray Linn Orchestra. • "You Are a Memory" by Message to Bears. • "Assault on Valor" the Questlike: Pocket OST by by Chase Bethea. • "Pulse of Sephonie Island" from the Sephonie Original Soundtrack by Melos Han-Tani. • "C?est la Chanson sur La M?mory Zone (en Fran?ais)" by Alina Johann, Titouan Millet, and William Pugh, from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe OST by Tom Schley (a.k.a. Silkersoft). • "Found" from the forthcoming Cook Serve Forever OST by Jonathan Greer. • "SEALED ENVELOPE" from the Purgatory Dungeoneer OST by rj lake. • "Mountain Time" (ft. Sarah Hubbard) from the EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: BOUND BY ASH OST by Josie Brechner. • "Escape Gladiator" from the Escape Academy OST by Doseone. • The Sawayama Solitaire BGM, from the Last Call BBS OST by Matthew Seiiji Burns. • "Auntie Chandra?s Theme" from the Thirsty Suitors OST by Ramsey Kharroubi. • "Zugspitz Station" from the Rollerdrome OST by ELECTRIC DRAGON. • Some music from the Moustachevania OST (as it currently exists) by Aaron Nemoyten. • "Get Thee Behind Me" from Talking Union by The Almanac Singers. • "Crystal Paradise" by Joseph Sussman, performed by The Stardusters with Phil Napoleon and His Orchestra. • "Fairy Dance" performed by Teddy Edwards, Robert "Iggie" Shevak, Roy Porter, Hampton Hawkes, and Herb Harper, supervised by Morrie Rapoport. • "I Wish You Joy" from the This Way Madness Lies OST by Joshua Queen. • "Meat Hunter" by Joe Kataldo, from the Hot Dogs, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades OST. • "The Lack of Color Out of Space" from the Shadows Over Loathing OGST by Ryan Ike. • "Talking Boogie" by Cliff Stone, performed by Tex Williams and His Western Caravan.

Header image from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

SPOILERS for the ending of the first rebooted God of War from 25:22 to 26:28. Some structure-level SPOILERS for Pentiment from 50:33 to 52:18.

——— • The header image is from Pentiment. (Drew really likes Pentiment, if that wasn't clear).

• Potion Craft is not yet on Switch, nor is it on Playstation, but it's coming to both.

• Here are some details on the $520,000,000 Epic will have to pay for their various evil monetization shit (our verbiage, not the Federal Trade Commission's).

• Here's Drew's piece of about Dad of Boy, and Mark Brown's video about Dadr?k.

• L talked a bunch about Arceus in our first Quarterly of 2022.

• Here's Josh Sawyer's thread about all the folks who worked on Pentiment.

• Drew threw some money at a Digital Eclipse investment campaign earlier this year?and the day after we recorded this episode, Digital Eclipse revealed that Atari 50 was the first game they'd developed using the money from that campaign. Drew's praise for the game was sincere, but we did want to go ahead and be transparent, this being the golden age of shilling and all.

• Additional to-reads for Drew include NORCO, Citizen Sleeper, Tinykin, Chained Echoes, Steelrising, 古剑奇谭三, Heavenly Bodies, and Butterfly Soup 2. Because we're continuing to do the quarterlies, we can give these the attention they deserve when the time is right.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "People Are Talking" by James Sheppard and William Miller, performed by The Heartbeats with Al Browne's Orchestra.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

The thing is, I don't usually start out by Googling the guest, in this fallen age of SEO-optimized hyperspam. Rather, I start by seeking out their other podcast appearances on ListenNotes, and then their conference talks on YouTube. I read as much of what they've written as I can (which can be a lot of material, especially for someone like Zack, who's been exorbitantly online for about two decades). Most importantly, I play through the game we're going to talk about?in this case, a pretty long game, which I squeezed in while visiting family over the holidays.

None of this is an excuse for missing something that was and is both important and obvious. Nor is the fact that I'm a one-person production team, nor that I was working on the show during a busy time. All of that is, obviously, on me.

The point is just to make it clear that I simply, genuinely, fucked up. I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable being associated with the show as a result of my doing so, and I've taken the episode down.

In this episode, Anton physics-flops on by to talk about how his studio RUST LTD. came to be, what they're saying with their expansive, lushly simulationist VR opus about guns and hot dogs, and why they're not working with Facebook (like, ever).

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades is currently in Early Access on Steam. You can also follow Anton on Twitter, which still exists, and see his devlogs on YouTube.

———

• It's sort of correct to say that you can get Overwatch 2 skins faster by playing World of Warcraft instead, as Polygon reported.

• The most recent Science Vs about gun violence has a good summary (with sources) of what objectively works, gun control-wise, and why the U.S. almost certainly won't do any of it.

• The John Brown Gun Club is worth knowing about.

• Here's the absolutely fucking ridiculous cover of Time Magazine featuring Oculus founder Palmer Luckey posing on a pretend beach with faux-balletic physical implausibly. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Meat Hunter" by Joe Kataldo, from the Hot Dogs, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades OST.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here Robert talks about his long history in the indie JRPG space, and his longer history with the JRPG genre—he once endeavored to play them all, back when that felt possible—as well as comedy in games, and the the unique all-ages appeal of what he calls "wholesome horror."

This Way Madness Lies is out now on Steam. You can also follow Robert, and Zeboyd Games, on Twitter. (Twitter exists at time of posting).

———

• Here's Let's Mosey: A Slow Translation of Final Fantasy VII.

• There is indeed a fan translation of Bish?jo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story for the SNES.

• Steam Coupons? Totally still a thing, technically.

• It was indeed Erick Wolpaw who said,

So I'd really like to make a really credible comedy game. People seem to be skipping straight to the pure art, and yet nobody's made the Caddyshack in games yet, right? So I'm like, woah woah woah, let's put on the brakes — let's make Caddyshack, and then we can make Anna Karenina or whatever.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "I Wish You Joy" from the This Way Madness Lies OST by Joshua Queen.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Path of Wuxia is currently in Early Access on Steam. Marvel Puzzle Quest is out now on PC, Playstation, Xbox, iOS, and Android. Sword & Fairy 7 is out now on Steam and Playstation, and coming soon to Xbox. You can get the original 1995 release of 仙劍奇俠傳 as freeware, with a fan translation. You can also follow Johnny on Twitter, and see his archived Twitch streams on YouTube.

———

• Uma Musume: Pretty Derby is indeed a trip.

• Here's that piece that Drew mentions, about the history of Chinese RPGs.

• Between the Internet Archive and ROMHacking.net (two of the finest sites to ever exist), you should be able to get the original Sword & Fairy running in English with minimal effort and Johnny's Let's Play videos do indeed make for great supplement, filling in the nuances that the (nonetheless commendable!) fan translation will tend to elide.

• Here are our referred-to talks with Jessica Gonzalez, Aaron Nemoyten, and Aidan Moher. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Fairy Dance" performed by Teddy Edwards, Robert "Iggie" Shevak, Roy Porter, Hampton Hawkes, and Herb Harper, supervised by Morrie Rapoport.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Ah, but the main event just might be the Drew and Lucio losing their minds (all over again) at the ill-advisedly twist-centric narrative of A Way Out—so MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF A WAY OUT FROM 0:55:55 to 1:02:21, and a callback thereto from 1:13:54 to 01:14:26.

——— • The latest Tim Rogers mega-review (of Boku no Natsuyasumi, which we mentioned in the show notes last time as well) does include an aside about the Animal Crossing series, and a (surreal, nightmarish) foray into the original game particularly.

• At time of posting, you can in fact just go ahead and order a Steam Deck. The Playdate still involves a waitlist, however.

• You can hear L eating babka at a few points in this episode. In her defense, Drew makes truly superlative babka. (Here's what she was referencing at the end, by the way).

• Here's our streaming series with Lucio and Drew playing It Takes Two.

• Dr. Holmes, the kinky, unwieldable lategame paramour-armament in Boyfriend Dungeon (designed by Ikumi "It's Spooky" Nakamura) is in fact a whip. Drew was conflating them with Rowan (who is a Scythe, and a bit spooky besides). The ETAO Podcast regrets the error.

• Also! Drew wrote a bit about camp-adjacent appreciation of games a while back.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Way Out There" by Bob Nolan, performed by Sons of the Pioneers.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can get FIGHT, MAGIC, ITEMS, both physically and digitally, all the places listed here. You can also follow Aidan on Twitter, one of the places you can subscribe to Astrolabe.

———

• Here's Aidan's Astrolabe post about "pre-release jitters".

• FIGHT, MAGIC, ITEMS tells the full story of The Portopia Serial Murder Case, but in short: It was one of Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii's earliest games, and it was first released for the NEC PC-6001 was a visual novel controlled with a text parser. That wasn't going to work on the Famicom, both for storage reasons and for interface reasons—and in reworking the game for button-based menus, Horii laid the groundwork for the menu-based JRPG interfaces to come.

• Here's Legend of Etad, which was built for the Playdate.

• The remastermeisters at M2 were involved in Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana (Square Millennium Collection), so at the risk of being reductive, that's probably why it's a good'n.

• For a look at why the Dragon Quest games didn't come West for a while there, here's a lovely Paste piece looking back at Dragon Quest V these 30 years on.

• Here's the Action Button review of Boku no Natsuyasumi that discusses, among a great many other things, the radically combat-free opening hours of Dragon Quest VII.

• And here's Aidan's first piece on "weaponized nostalgia" in Final Fantasy VII Remake. He talks about the game's remarkable highs and equally remarkable lows, and about the oddness of trying to write about or think about or even just engage with a work that's so ever-incomplete.

• Yoshi-P recently said that he "decided to position FFXIV as a fan service title, and because it belonged to the MMORPG genre, I was able to run with an idea nobody had ever tried before and create a sort of Final Fantasy theme park." That's one half of Final Fantasy's relationship to its own past. The other half, Drew has written about in the context of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Drew and Lucio have also talked about remake culture generally, and Drew has thought a bit about remakes seeming simultaneously pious toward, and embarrassed by, their originals.

• Here's that Digital Foundry video on DOOM for SNES.

• And here's Aidan's article for Wired about using CRTs to play games here in the modern era.

• Atlus' deeply anti-preservationist lawsuit against a "gray" Shin Megami Tenei Imagine Online server is a pretty good example of why preservation often has to be, you know, extralegal.

• If these ideas of genre (and sharing, and anti-gatekeeping) are intriguing to you, then do check out our conversation with Santiago Zapata. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Crystal Paradise" by Joseph Sussman, performed by The Stardusters with Phil Napoleon and His Orchestra. "Draggin' the Dragon" by (W.C.?) Handy, performed by the Cotton Blossom Orchestra.

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The Weekly Standup Podcast is on Twitter, and the show itself is on Twitch and YouTube. For Jessica's activist work and sundry social media mabobs, check out her Linktree. You can also follow Jessica on Twitter, along with ABetterABK, GWA, and CODE-CWA.

———

• Jessica was going by Jessica Gonzalez at the time of this interview.

• For those unfamiliar with Grandma's Boy.

• When we talk about in-fighting on the left, we have to acknowledge that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism all occur in leftist spaces, and that such spaces need a way of dealing with them. The issue comes when we focus more on dunking than on resolving the issue at hand?and Twitter is particularly good at making the former feel like the latter.

• Here's Fight Like Hell.

• Here's the report Drew was referring to about Nintendo, though as Jessica pointed out, the issue of contractors being treated abysmally is by no means unique to Nintendo of America. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Get Thee Behind Me" and "Union Maid" from Talking Union by The Almanac Singers. "Boom Went the Boom" (lyrics by Joe Glazer, to the melody of "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay") performed by Joe Glazer and Bill Friedland, from Songs of the Wobblies.

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Also Brazil, MDK, and naturally, DOOM.

You can see a while bunch of Aaron's work on his website. You can also follow Aaron on Twitter.

——— • City Wave (probably more properly called City Pop) rules. "Plastic Love" is probably the one that YouTube most famously surfaced to people algorithmically. Personally, Drew is partial to "Someday." That bassline! Mariya Takeuchi and Tatsuro Yamashita are sort of the first couple of of the genre. And like a lot of people, Drew likely wouldn't have known much about any of the above if not for algorithmic curation.

• Sandwiches of History is also on YouTube, for us olds. Roll for Sandwich, not so much.

• The Art of Game Design (also known as The Book of Lenses) is a foundational text to the way game design is currently taught in academia, and one that's weirdly unknown outside of it.

• Here's Aaron's talk on game design, and his essay on Mafia Wars and Team Fortress 2.

• And here are his postmortems on Heroes of Dragon Age, and on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Oh, and let's not forget his Doom 2 level (or for that matter his Portal 2 levels).

• Since we talked, Aaron did release Idle Overlord, and also published a bunch more write-ups, including on Superhero City, Starbeard, that one Madagascar game, and the unreleased Dungeon Keeper Social.

• The Action Button review of DOOM clocks in at three hours, thirty minutes, and twenty-two seconds, for the record. (Svelte, by what turned out to be Action Button standards).

• Why did Drew say As You Like It? He clearly should have said Hamlet: Citizen Kane didn't get to be Citizen Kane by trying to be the Hamlet of movies.

• The eternal problem of shiny new tech making games less flexible, less open, and perhaps even less uniquely games—that came up in a wonderfully weird way in the recent episode of The Video Games History Hour about Toonstruck and Siliwood. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the Moustachevania OST (as it currently exists) by Aaron Nemoyten.

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You can get Rollerdrome on Steam and PlayStation. You can learn more about Limit Break on their Twitter, their Instagram, and their website. And you can follow Anisa on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

——— • We cite our sources around here, so here's where I got that pull quote.

• "The Dice Punks go Meatpunk!" is here, and everywhere else you want podcasts to be.

• Here's Anisa's episode of What Else Do You Do? wherein she talks about her skate crew and their specializations and such.

• Neo Cab is another game with a comic-booky visual style, albeit one with some more shading, and therefore distinct from Rollerdrome or Sable.

• Here's that joyful video of Anisa watching the Rollerdrome reveal. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Zugspitz Station" and "Kara's Theme" from the Rollerdrome OST by ELECTRIC DRAGON.

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MINOR SPOILERS for THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS, of all things, at 1:12:55.

You can wishlist Thirsty Suitors on Steam. You can get Falcon Age on Steam, Epic, Oculus, Playstation, and Switch. You can also follow Eka (and Outerloop Games, and Take This) on Twitter.

——— • Here's the example Drew mentions of AZO using himself as a reference for the animation in Thirsty Suitors.

• Here's our conversation with Megan Fox about SkateBIRD, as well as our conversation with Shawn Alexander Allen about Treachery in Beatdown City, and while we're at it, our conversation with Greg Kasavin about Hades.

• For those who haven't seen Venba.

• And for those who'd like to check out Eka's keynote at GCAP, replete with a cutlet recipe. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Auntie Chandra's Theme" from the Thirsty Suitors OST by Ramsey Kharroubi.

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Also: What have Lucio's kids been playing? What are the kids into these days, we ask, sounding as old as we've ever sounded, and embracing it. (The kids are into mods, hearteningly!)

——— • The game Drew and Lucio couldn't think of was Bendy and the Ink Machine, and the mod Drew mentions puts Bendy into Poppy Playtime.

• Here once again is the People Make Games investigation into Roblox, and their follow-up about the Roblox folks trying to get them to take the original video down.

• Kirby Your Enthusiasm, basically as Drew described it? Totally a thing.

• Zach Barth's most recent appearance on the show was in fact his eighth.

• For those who don't know, the Bryant in question is the Director of OXENFREE II: Lost Signals, so we do not claim that our excitement for that game is entirely objective.

• We didn't really get to in it on the show, but the doubling of identities in Elden Ring isn't just about being confusing. It's thematic. It's about people playing different roles over long lives, to say nothing of eternal lives. (That said, it is also tremendously confusing).

• The Teddy in question was Teddy Dief.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Pluckin' the Bass" by Roy Eldridge and Joe Eldridge, performed by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, featuring Milton Hinton.

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You can get Last Call BBS on Steam and on Game Pass for PC. You can see the whole Zachtronics catalog on their website. You can also follow Zach(tronics) on Twitter.

——— • When Zach came on the podcast previously, he talked primarily about Möbius Front ?83, about MOLEK-SYNTEZ, about EXAPUNKS, and about Opus Magnum?and before that, we had a trio of conversations about Infinifactory, focusing on puzzle design (and whether it's right to call Zach's "anti-puzzles" puzzles), then the narratives that people tend to ignore in non-Eliza Zachtronics games, and then how Zachtornics came to make TIS-100.

• As Drew mentions in the in intro, there's also this live interview from GDC 2019. (The crowd was there to learn how to be Zach, which was not what Zach was there to teach, but hey).

• Drew refers to flatgames generally and Hypnospace Outlaw specifically, so for more on that, check out our conversation with Jay Tholen.

• Episode 7 of The Zachtronics Podcast is the one where Zach and company play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and for which Zach originally made Dungeons and Diagrams.

• Here's the interview where Zach first talked about Last Call BBS being the last Zachtronics game, and also about teaching (if it's still there; Twitch is very weird and kind of bad that way).

• And here's the Kotaku piece (which presumably is sticking around) where Zach goes into more detail about the decision to close the studio.

• Zach mentions Logic, which rules.

• Zach also mentions Seeing Like A State and The Case Against Education.

• Here's the mook about expensive Japanese PCs from back in the day.

• And here's the stop-motion animated Last Call BBS trailer.

• The artist whose name we couldn't remember is Zdzisław Beksińsk.

• And the podcast Zach mentioned is Louder Than A Riot (not really a pun), which uses the catchphrase "Rhyme and Punishment" (an excellent pun). You can hear about the drama here.

• Thanks to The Mysterious Ian K. for the header gif (and the good conversation about the Japanese-style model-making in Last Call BBS). ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. The ending music from the original arcade version of HACK*MATCH and the sole BGM from Sawayama Solitaire, both from the Last Call BBS OST by Matthew Seiiji Burns.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here they talk about making the switch to at-home digital games, the importance of social play, and the tricky balance between exploring novel ideas on the one hand, and on the other, having your idea make instant, gut-level sense to players (including distracted and/or drunk ones).

You can get Escape Academy on Steam, Epic, Playstation, and Xbox (including Game Pass). You can see more of Coin Crew Games' work on their website. You can also follow Mike, Wyatt, and Coin Crew Games on Twitter.

——— • Here's Mike's really excellent talk on the process of building, and installing arcade games.

• And here's Two Bit Circus!

• For more on arcade games (in and out of the time of COVID) check out our interview with Nik Mikros and Josh DeBonis of Killer Queen fame.

• Yes, Chuck E. Cheese (the character) is properly named Charles Entertainment Cheese, and yes, Drew will bring this fact up at any opportunity. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Top Floor Feeling" and "Escape Academy" from the Escape Academy OST by Doseone.

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Brief spoilers about a major villain in the MEATPUNKS sourcebook from 0:28:45 to 0:29:28.

You can get the free quickstart edition of EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER right now, and the full game soon, over at Sinister Beard Games. You can get the MEATPUNKS videogames, Powered by Blood and BOUND BY ASH, on Itch.io. You can also follow Heather and Aura (as well as Oli from Sinister Beard) on Twitter.

——— • The header image is from Paulina Ganucheau's rather excellent cover art for the TTRPG of EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER.

• Here's Quietus, and here's Singularity.

• Here's our conversation with Spenser Starke about Alice Is Missing.

• And here's what the hell Drew meant by "the Mormor thing on Sherlock." ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "CRASH QUEEN" (ft. M Gewehr) from the EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: Powered by Blood OST and "Mountain Time" (ft. Sarah Hubbard) from the EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: BOUND BY ASH OST by Josie Brechner.

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It's a strategic RPG, a roguelike-like, and a townbuilder. It sees Damien staking out some new territory, both mechanically and narratively, while also building on the classes fae started exploring in It's Six Random Characters and a Single Floor Dungeon, That's the Whole Game.

Here Damien talks about the game in detail for the first time, and also reflects on more than half a decade of making RPG Maker do things it almost certainly shouldn't be able to do.

You can wishlist Purgatory Dungeoneer on Steam. A bunch of faer other games are on Steam and Itch. You can also follow Damien on Twitter.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the forthcoming Purgatory Dungeoneer OST by rj lake.

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You can wishlist Cook Serve Forever on Steam. The Vertigo Gaming catalog is on their website. You can also follow David on Twitter.

———

• If you want some more from the mind of Xalavier Nelson Jr. (and who doesn't?) then do check out our interview with him, mostly about An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs.

• Likewise, if you want to hear about Masao Kobayashi's exploits on TikTok, in podcasting, and of course in game design, we had him on late last year.

• Here's us talking to Nils Deneken about the (long!) development process of Mutazione.

• And here's Spenser Starke talking to us about games never being more important than players.

• Do check out this year's Charity EP Jam as well!

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "We Don't Want the Dream to End" and "Found" from the forthcoming Cook Serve Forever OST by Jonathan Greer.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

SPOILERS FOR THE STANLEY PARABLE: ULTRA DELUXE BEGIN AT 0:21:55.

You can get The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe on Steam, Playstation, Xbox, and Switch. Crows Crows Crows has a website, a Discord, and again, about the finest newsletter there is. You can also follow William (and Crows Crows Crows) on Twitter.

———

• For more on the 2013 version of The Stanley Parable, you can listen to our conversation with William's partner in all this Stanley, Davey Wreden. Drew also wrote about that version, and the spoiler-avoiding striptease attendant thereto.

• We also had Brendon Chung on, along with Laura Michet, to talk about the past and future of Blendo Games (among, of course, myriad other topics). Do give that a listen if William's talk of Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving intrigued you.

• A bunch of Justin Roiland's early "punk cartoons" are still findable. Lucio and I once watched House of Cosbys straight through, and emerged from that experience changed.

• Tanya Watson is COO at Bad Robot.

• Drew was trying to get at just how much of The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, as it currently exists, was reflected in the initial pitch documents. That remains a partial mystery, for now.

• Here's the interview with TrueAchievements that Drew mentions.

• Here's a good example of William's press appearances trending toward performance art, and here specifically is the what Drew was referring to when he mentioned The Witness.

• Here the hell is Cat Burglar.

• And here's Davey Wreden talking about the removed gag from the 2013 Stanley Parable, which remains removed in Ultra Deluxe (Let the record show that Davey is not the one who used that all-time hall-of-famer in the weasel-nonsense lexicon, "racially charged").

• It was indeed People Make Games who did a fairy scathing investigation into the exploitative aspects of Roblox, and then a follow-up on the attempts to shut them up.

• Game Maker's Toolkit is really good too, though.

• Just about last and definitely least, here's DJ Khaled's appearance on Hot Ones.

• Actually-last, here's Issue #37 of the Crows Crows Crows Newsletter, which is auditory-like.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the OST to The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe by Tom Schley (a.k.a. Silkersoft). Sounds of breaking glass and sirens from Freesound.

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We begin FLIRTING WITH SPOILERS for Sephonie at 36:16. We then get into UNAMBIGUOUS SPOILER TERRITORY at 40:15.

You can get Seponie on Steam, GOG, and itch.io. You can get the soundtrack on Steam and Bandcamp. You can follow Marina, Melos, and Analgesic Productions on Twitter, and join their Discord.

———

• This Elden Ring speedrun prominently features "zipping," and is also notable for having a pinned comment that explains how exactly the zipping works in some detail.

• Melos did in fact post the code for player character movement in Sephonie!

• Here's the interview where Marina and Melos talked about double-jumping.

• Here's NitroRad's YouTube channel.

• And here's 20th Century Frog on MyAbandonware.

• This is the Everything Everywhere All At Once interview that I was remembering.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "ONYX Link Connected," "Pulse of Sephonie Island," and "Chasm of Towering Oak," from the Sephonie Original Soundtrack by Melos Han-Tani.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Elden Ring is not a major topic here, but it does sort of haunt all of the other topics.

——— • Here's the Jimpressions video about Arceus that L mentions.

• If you do want to hear Drew and Lucio lose their minds about It Takes Two, here's the stream (with, once again, apologies for the first episode being more or less lost to time).

• And here's Drew tidying his inventory in Destiny 2.

• Here's a roundup I did about you-monstering, and the history and effect thereof.

• And here's that Noah Caldwell-Gervais megavideoessay on Dark Souls, as well as the time Lucio and I played through Dark Souls III and mused on things.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Wood Nymphs" by Eric Coates, performed by Reginald Burston and The London Coliseum Orchestra.

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Here he talks about that role—and also, of course, about his own growing catalog of games, which take an experimental approach to genre, and to combinations of genres, in service of making things that his ten-year-old self would have found cool.

You can get Questlike: Pocket on Android, and the rest of the Spritewrench catalog on Steam. You can follow Glen (and his podcast, and the Jamaica Game Developer Society) on Twitter.

———

• Here's Glen's panel at PAX Online East 2021, as well as his co-presentation with Graham Reid and Zane Francis for the IGDA.

• For those who want to follow (and/or support) the development of Street Boy.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some intro music by Chase Bethea, from the Questlike: Pocket OST.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can get the digital version of Alice Is Missing on Roll20 and DriveThruRPG. You can get the physical version at Renegade Game Studios.

——— • Here's the first live-recorded playthrough of Alice Is Missing, at Gen Con 2020.

• "Type 2 Fun," for those who don't know, refers to those kinds of fun that aren't fun in the traditional sense, but are still rewarding—experiences that are engaging in other ways in the moment, and/or that prove valuable and meaningful in retrospect.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "You Are a Memory" by Message to Bears.

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You can follow Osama on Twitter, and listen to The Habibis wherever pods be cast.

——— • Here's Osama's GDC talk about Muslim representation.

• The Video Game History Hour is definitely one of our favorite podcasts. Their recent episode about different forms of preservation is what I had in mind while talking to Osama.

• Here's a decent summary of the DAO that bought a copy of the preproduction book for Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade Dune film. If that sentence only confused you more, which would be more than understandable, then here's a documentary about said unmade film, and here's an explanation of what DAOs (or Digital Autonomous Organizations) even are.

• And here's the story of that unauthorized id Software PC port of Super Mario Bros. 3 coming to light. (That Video Game History Hour episode linked above touches on it a bit as well).

• The Nice Games Podcast also recently reposted their interview with Osama, which is almost entirely about making games with his kids.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Té Para Dos" by Irving Ceasar and Vincent Youmans, performed by Richard Himber and the Studebaker Champion Orchestra, featuring Joey Nash. "Tea Time" by George Schwartz, performed by the Ray Linn Orchestra.

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You can get Kardboard Kings on Steam starting February 10. You can see the entire Akupara Games catalog on their website.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Mid Morning" by Oscar Brittain, from the Kardboard Kings Original Soundtrack.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can get HoloVista for iPhone and iPad in the Apple App Store. You can also follow Star (and Aconite) on Twitter.

——— • Here's Star's episode of Eggplant about HoloVista, as well as the episode about Inscryption that she guest co-hosted.

• Nick Tierce and Steve Peters are indeed genuine luminaries of the ARG scene.

• Tender Claws' Tempest has more or less come and gone, as Star says.

• Our conversation with Jordan Thomas about The Blackout Club doesn't touch on the game's theatrical/mixed reality elements, because those hadn't started —but it does offer an interesting look of what the game looked like before it became what it eventually became.

• Our talk with Russel Quinn is definitely closely related to Star's more expansive, tech-and-medium-agnostic definition of mixed reality.

• Here's CAGES, which Wolf and the Wondershow is currently putting on in Los Angeles.

• And here's Rami Ismail's thread about dice.

• Monographs, the precursors to NFTs, were indeed created by Anil Dash and Kevin McCoy as a solution to the quite specific problem of wealthy art collectors wanting to "own" digital art.

• Thinking though that notion of commissions on aftermarket sales of the NFTs associated with artworks, yeah, that's absolutely something that we could achieve without the blockchain, using ordinary contracts, royalties, and chains of trust—but it's also an example of a potentially useful idea that could get normalized in the course of our current, NFT-crazed market moment.

• Dan Olson's truly excellent video on NFTs wasn't out at time of recording. Drew did however have his then-recent conversation with Matt Condon and Jonathan Mann in mind. (Also, the Foldable Human himself had already read a draft of the script for his video on stream).

• Generative Adversarial Networks are utterly fascinating, and they have enormous potential.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Underwater (ft. Star St. Germain)," "Apartment (Vodka Mix)," and "Art Room" from the HoloVista Original Soundtrack by Mariode.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can get Neko Ghost, Jump! now on in Early Access on Steam and Epic. You can also follow Victor (and Burgos Games, and the game itself) on Twitter.

——— • Here's that recent GDC talk about Spelunky 2, wherein Derek Yu talks about "spikey" games.

• One could of course argue that making a game that is both 2D and 3D is less an example of spikiness and more an example of shagginess.

• For those who missed that fathomlessly bleak New Year's letter from Yosuke Matsuda.

• Here's that "GameJam and Now" version comparison for Neko Ghost, Jump!

• Here's that interview that Victor did during the Neko Ghost, Jump! Kickstarter.

• When Drew made that comment about marginalized people being especially susceptible to unjust social consequences, he definitely had "Hot Allostatic Load" in mind. This is not to say that what Victor is describing is the same as what Porpentine went through, but simply to reiterate: "Don't be part of spaces that place an ideal or 'community leader' above people."

• For more on the genuine difficulties of building an inclusive community that makes room for people to learn and improve, and for conflicts to get resolved, here's our talk with Rami Ismail.

• We'd also direct you to Anisa Sanusi's episode for more about healthy community dynamics, and to Emma Kinema's episode for more about fostering democracy in every area of our lives.

——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the Neko Ghost, Jump! OST by Alec Weesner.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

2021 has truly been the sequel no one asked for, from the protracted coronavirus crisis, to the Cambrian explosion of crypto-scams, to all the usual stuff (like neoliberalism being both unwilling and unable to do much about climate catastrophe, rising authoritarianism, or even the stuff it's supposed to be great at and indeed organized around, like supply chains and shit).

But there've been games! Great ones, and in abundance. As we take stock of the stupidest year since last year, let's also take stock of the vibrant art form that this here podcast was built to celebrate, explore, and explain. Will the team be as slap-happy as they were last year? (Yes).

——— • The header image is from Solar Ash, and the body image is from Sable.

• There are in fact 900 Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild.

• The Luigi's Mansion 3 DLC did come out in 2020.

• NieR Replicant does also contain a not-insubstantial quality of literal egg delivery.

• There are in fact 1,400 unique foley sound effects in Unpacking.

• Here's that People Make Games episode on the intersection of outsourcing and crunch.

• You can indeed still play the demo to A Musical Story, as well as UNBEATABLE [white label] and the Linda & Joan prologue, "Four Months Earlier."

• Do consider playing moon.

• We didn't get into the TTRPGs that Drew played this year, but those were Reign, Nobilis, Psionics, Flying Circus, and Tricks, Treats, and Spooky Streets. If you want to heat him playing those, and get a lovely story or two besides, then you can check out Dice Punks.

• I did in fact miss Skin Deep, so thanks to Franny for catching that. I should also mention Sephonine, the next game from the creators of Anodyne, Anodyne 2, and Even the Ocean.

• And since we did long ago abandon any pretense of being comprehensive here, we'll note here that Drew's to-read pile does also include Unsighted, Eastward, The Forgotten City, The Artful Escape, Moonglow Bay, Wild at Heart, Serious Sam 4, and (once it has co-op) Halo Infinite.

• Jorge and Scott at Experience Points were sourer on the back two thirds of Inscryption than we were, and they did a thorough, thoughtful breakdown of why. (We should also note that we recorded our roundup before the publishing of this year's Gameys).

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "Apple Blossoms" by Vernon Geyer. "Muskrat Ramble" by Kid Ory, performed by The Lion's Jazz Band.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

This is of course also a golden opportunity to feature a whole lot of incredible music from the games under discussion, so see below for the list (with a few copyright limbo-dwelling 78s thrown in where the guest didn't have a music-bearing project to share right at the moment).

——— • "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. • "Cream Tea" from the OnlyCans Hot and Steamy OST by Chel Wong. • "Never Settle" (with lyrics and vocals by Marcus Abundis)" by Camilo Velez. • "Atomichron (Clockzone)" from the 30XX OST by Cityfires. • "Roller Coaster" by Delugg Busch, performed by Henri René & His Orchestra. • "Stuck Together" from the Ikenfell OST by aivi & surasshu. • "Nice Day for a Walk" by Jeremy Warmsley, from Linda & Joan Prologue: ?Four Months Earlier.? • "Landlord's Super (Theme)" from the Landlord's Super OST by Jeremy Warmsley. • Some exploration music from the NovaMundi: The Spear of Chaqu?n Original Soundtrack by Juan Carlos Garcia (a.k.a. Quiet Gecko). • "Groovy Drive" from Yadu Rajiv?s collection of Mini Loops. • "definitely marinara sauce (not blood) (marinara trench game loop version)" from DOG MUSIC (An Album Made by a Human Currently Named RJ Lake That Makes Up the Official Soundtrack for a Game by Strange Scaffold Called ?An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs? and is Good Music for Humans Who Like Music That Sounds Like the Kind Dogs Would Make If They Did That Kind of Thing) by RJ Lake. • "Crimson Skies" from the Umurangi Generation Macro OST, by Adolf Nomura (a.k.a. ThorHighHeels). • "Sweet Home Sargasso" from the Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart OST by Mark Mothersbaugh and Wataru Hokoyama. • "PROPER RHYTHM" from UNBEATABLE: DEMO TAPES by peak divide. • "Pinewood, Here We Come" and from the A Musical Story soundtrack by Charles Bardin and Valentin Ducloux. • "Skymelt" from the Black Future ?88 OST by Don Bellenger. • Some music from the Fighters of Fate OST by Gary Kuo. • "Strut" from the SkateBIRD OST by Nathan Madsen. • Some boss music, from the Whisker Squadron OST by Chel Wong. • "ChefSquad" from the ChefSquad OST by Jonathan Greer. • "The Secret in Paradise" from The Mechanical World of Dr. Gearbox OST by Bill Bressler. • ?The Old Blues? by The Three Bits of Rhythm. • "Sunrise with Rings" from the soundtrack to The Eternal Cylinder by Patricio Meneses. • "For No Rhyme or Reason" by Cole Porter, performed by Kay Kyser and His Orchestra.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here Carlos talks about the game's themes (and multifarious fan interpretations thereof), its slow-boiling narrative, and the absurd, ambitious tech behind its core conceit of a world that is lush, credible, and entirely describable, indeed doomed to be destroyed.

You can get The Eternal Cylinder on Epic, Xbox, and Playstation. And you can find the rest of ACE Team's catalog on their website. You can also follow Carlos (and ACE Team, and Clash: Artifacts of Chaos) on Twitter.

——— • You can watch Carlos' livestreams on the Good Shepherd Entertainment YouTube channel.

• Here's that blog post by Jonas Kyratzes, who wrote The Eternal Cylinder's story.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "The Mathematician" and "Sunrise with Rings" from the soundtrack to The Eternal Cylinder by Patricio Meneses.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here he talks a bit about all of that, but just as much about the sheer surreality of late stage capitalism, with some perhaps-inevitable attention to the hypebeastly griftstravaganza that is the current NFT bubble—as well as the (sometimes only magically) less insane world of investors and studio structures.

You can learn more about Cut to Bits on their website. You can find the What Else Do You Do? podcast where pods get cast. Also, you can follow Masao (and Cut to Bits) on Twitter. Oh, and you can watch Masao open bottles with things other than bottle openers on his TikTok.

——— • If you're looking for an explanation of gold bricking (and other olde-timey scams) and of how they get run in the context of NFTs, this thread is a good place to start.

• As far as I can verify, Grand Theft Auto V cost about $265 million to make and market, and has now brought in more than $6 billion in revenue. If it's not both the most expensive and the most profitable game of all time, then it certainly does occupy a high spot on both of those lists.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "Bronzeville Jump" and "The Old Blues" by The Three Bits of Rhythm.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can wishlist The Mechanical World of Dr. Gearbox, and play the demo, on Steam. You can also follow Mike (and Flamehawk) on Twitter.

——— • The future (or a part of it) will certainly look a little something Minecraft Education Edition and/or Zachtronics' Zachademics initiative.

• We talk a fair bit about Magic Wheelchair.

• For more on AbleGamers—as well as on the idea of many disabilities being invisible, and on the importance (and limits) of representation, and on the harmful trope of disabled folks supposedly wanting to "escape" their disabilities—do check out our talk with Greg Haynes.

• And for more on the character of Gustav in Spiritfarer, and on listening to feedback as an artist, you can give a listen to our conversation with Nick Guérin.

• There do indeed seem to be no notable videogame characters with cochlear implants (hype about how various versions of Hawkeye might be hearing impaired notwithstanding). Hayley from the recent Miles Morales game does bear mentioning, though, since she uses a hearing aid, talks to Miles in ASL, and (says the text) is very cool while doing so.

• Sarah Chayes calls infinite-acquisitiveness-for-its-own-sake "the Midas disease" in her book On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake.

• For those interested, here's the Dice Punks Spooky Streets spectacular.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "Magmadon's Moment," "Snow and Ice," and "The Secret in Paradise," from The Mechanical World of Dr. Gearbox OST by Bill Bressler.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

ChefSquad shares some DNA with David's Cook! Serve! Delicious! trilogy, but as much as it's a spin-off of those, it's also a foil to other stream-only games—games that, in David's view, pretty fundamentally misunderstand the technical peculiarities and cultural priorities of Twitch.

What does it mean for a game to be built not just for streaming but on the relationship between streamers and their audiences? In asking that, we also ask what kinds of games are better suited for a stream-centric media ecosystem in the first place, how developers can try and thrive in that brave new world, and how to even talk about the value of games nowadays.

You can play ChefSquad on Twitch. If you're a streamer, you can download the game for free on Steam and Itch. And don't you dare forget the Cook! Serve! Delicious! trilogy. You can also follow David on Twitter.

——— • David talked more about the Cook! Serve! Delicious! trilogy last time he was on the show.

• That game about a starship bridge is Artemis.

• Here are WhatifJulia's Twitch and Twitter.

• It does seem like The Bell Is Right is all but lost to time, sadly.

• For those who haven't heard about hate raids, or the massive Twitch leak.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "ChefSquad" and "Intermission" from the ChefSquad OST by Jonathan Greer.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here Aaron talks not only about Flippfly's completed and in-progress projects, but also about some of the ones that didn't work out, including an open-world, physics-heavy romp about a cat flying a helicopter. Why did cats flying space fighter-ships work when a game about a single cat flying a single helicopter didn't? The answer turns out to answer a lot of additional questions about scope, collaboration, and how and why studios build on their previous work.

You can wishlist Whisker Squadron on Steam. You find most of Flippfly's catalog on their website, with the notable exception of Twelvesmith?which you can find on its own site, as well as in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. You can also follow Aaron (and Flippfly) on Twitter.

——— • For more on the history of roguelikes, and specially the emotional importance of metaprogression (or lack thereof), check our talk with Santiago Zapata.

• For more on character-based metaprogression (and how that can be not merely cosmetic, but also not strictly an escalation in player power), here's our talk with Don Bellenger.

• And for more about what we mean by "chunks," and more on the rigors and rewards of level editors, you are hereby cordially invited to dig our talk with Chris King.

• And for more on Whisker Squadron—as well as her other work on Kine, Watch This Space, and OnlyCans: Thirst Date—do give a listen to our talk with Chel Wong.

• I can now confirm that Twelvesmith too is a good time.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. The main theme, and some boss music, from the Whisker Squadron OST by Chel Wong.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

We don't talk much about Glass Bottom Games' previous works (the cat-rescuing auto-runner Jones on Fire, the first-person brawler/roguelike Spartan Fist, and the comedy-noir adventure game platformer Hot Tin Roof: The Cat that Wore a Fedora). But that makes a certain sense, given how close to SkateBIRD's launch we were speaking. Megan was (and is) in it.

You can get SkateBIRD on Steam, Switch, Itch, Luna, and Xbox (where it's on Game Pass). You can hear the game's soundtrack on Spotify, Steam, and Bandcamp. You can also follow Megan (and Glass Bottom Games, and SkateBIRD) on Twitter.

——— • Here's prototype maestro KevKev on Twitter.

• Here's the Kitfox crew on the baggy, the shaggy, and the craggy in game design.

• If you haven't already, do check out our talk with Xalavier Nelson Jr.

• And for more about how Blendo Games is operating these days, here are Laura Michet and Brendon Chung talking about Skin Deep.

• Meanwhile, our talk with Laia Bee covers the topic of why small studios generally can't juggle two games at once was not (among a whole lot of other topics).

• We didn't get to talk about Ultima, even though I wanted to. So regardless, here's Megan talking about Ultima VII.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "Atlas' Gospel" and "Strut" from the SkateBIRD OST by Nathan Madsen.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here she talks about the process of launching a game—a multiplayer game, no less—as a team of three, the cooperative spirit of game development in Uruguay, and her approach to moderating #1ReasonToBe at this year's GDC.

You can get Fighters of Fate on Google Play. You can also follow Laia (and Fighters of Fate, and Pincer Games) on Twitter.

——— • You can hear more about NovaMundi: The Spear of Chaquén in our conversation with Santiago Zapata, and more about Ghost of Tsushima in our conversation with Ilan Eskeri.

• Ironhide and Pomelo are two notable Uruguayan game studio success stories.

• Here's a video on Pincer Games' time at the Google Play Academy.

• The #1ReasonToBe panel that Laia moderated this past year is free to all in the GDC vault.

• You can hear more about the previous phase of #1ReasonToBe in our talk with Rami Ismial.

• And I mean, yeah, The Simpsons on how Americans see the world.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. Some music from the Fighters of Fate OST by Gary Kuo.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

You can get Black Future '88 on Steam and Switch, and the OST on Steam and Bandcamp. You can also follow Don on Twitter.

——— • Here once again is that Yoko Taro "Philosophies of Violence" video.

• That incredible power pop album I mentioned is Alright by Zzuf.

• When Don mentions "the Ghost Ship fire," he's referring to this absolutely horrific event.

• Like I said, before this conversation, I only knew of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality from Elizabeth Sandifer's analysis of it (and of Eliezer Yudkowsky's influence more broadly) in Neoreaction a Basillisk: Essays on and around the Alt-Right.

• That book also contains a thorough explanation of Roko's Basilisk—but if you're looking for something shorter and more focused, this Thought Slime video covers it pretty well, too (albeit with absolutely no attempt (like, whatsoever) to be charitable to Yudkowsky's overall project).

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Carpe Demon. "Skymelt" and "Intruder in the Dark" from the Black Future '88 OST by Don Bellenger.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

In this interview, Charles Bardin talks about A Musical Story both as a game and as a larger art project—and about his longstanding love for 70s rock, his soundtracking work on other games like Overloop and Stellar Overload, and the undersung genius of the Rhythm Heaven games.

You can wishlist A Musical Story, and play the demo, on Steam. And you can wishlist Overloop on Steam too. You can hear a bunch of Charles' music on his website. You can also follow the team, and the game on Twitter.

———

• After Bit is a wonderful channel across the board if you're a French-speaker—and if you're not, then hey, there are English subtitles on their excellent Fez video.

• Game Maker's Tool Kit did a fine essay on what Charles refers to as "the Nintendo way."

• You can, if you're so inclined, check out the When This Ends on Bandcamp.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Drew Messinger-Michaels. "Dream When You Can't" from the Overloop soundtrack by Charles Bardin. "Pinewood, Here We Come" and "Back on Tracks" from the A Musical Story soundtrack by Charles Bardin and Valentin Ducloux.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

In this episode, to get at some of those truths, Andrew Tsai, RJ Lake, Rachel Lake, Jeffrey Chiao, TJ Maddux, and Mireille Arseneault from D-Cell games all stop by to talk about UNBEATABLE (as well as [white label], the side story/demo/OVA that goes along with it).

You can play the UNBEATABLE [white label] demo on Steam, and back the full game on the Slacker Backer section of the UNBEATABLE website. You can get the Demo Tapes for the music in [white label] on Steam and Bandcamp. You can also follow Andrew, RJ, Jeffrey, Mireille, Rachel, and TJ (as well as D-Cell) on Twitter.

———

• That game about entropy and suchlike is Cruel World (blame everyone else).

• I am not aware of a non-one-shot version of RUNONCE (remember me).

• Truly, madly, deeply, and from the bottom of my heart, fuck Led Zeppelin.

• If you want more nuance than "fuck Led Zeppelin," then fair enough. Here's a bit of that.

• Osamu Sato's Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou is, um, a trip.

• Here's that article about burnout.

• Here are the basics of that whole ugly business that happened at Respawn.

• Here's Sonic 2 in PICO-8, and also DOOM in PICO-8 (also known as POOM).

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Drew Messinger-Michaels. "Apple Blossoms" by Vernon Geyer. "PROPER RHYTHM" and "EMPTY DIARY (instrumental)" from UNBEATABLE: DEMO TAPES by peak divide.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Rift Apart is a game about blowing stuff up and about difficult friendships. It's wacky and warm, at once a relentless sugar rush and a contemplation on who else we could have been, and who we might yet be. That's quite a balance to strike, and in this conversation, Lauren talks us through the process of striking it.

You can play Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PS5. You can hear the soundtrack on Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. You can also follow Lauren (and Insomniac Games) on Twitter.

———

• It was Keza MacDonald in The Guardian who said that Rift Apart is "the video game equivalent of eating an entire packet of Haribo at once, or reading a book written entirely in all-caps."

• For more on latter-day Telltale, do check out our conversation with Juan Vaca.

• Here's where Dia Lacina said that "this is a game about friendship and games about friendship fucking rule. Rift Apart is better than action figures."

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Drew Messinger-Michaels. "Ode to Nefarious" and "Sweet Home Sargasso" from the Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart OST by Mark Mothersbaugh and Wataru Hokoyama.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

How screwed are we, in fact? What do do, given that? Where's hope, and just as importantly, in what seemingly obvious places won't we find it? How do we make a better new world rather than a worse one now that the old world is gone for good in any case? Umurangi Generation tackles these themes through (of all things) a loving, reverent, technically rigorous simulation of DSLR photography. The game takes creativity and bearing witness seriously as radical acts.

You can get Umurangi Generation on Steam and Switch. The base game soundtrack is on Steam and Spotify, and the soundtrack to the "Macro" DLC is on Steam, Apple, and Bandcamp. You can also follow Veselekov (and Umurangi Generation) on Twitter.

———

• Robin Enrico's Game of the Month Club presentation on The Flame in the Flood and the history of survival games (especially weird ones) is a fine thing indeed.

• For those unfamiliar with what posterizing does in Photoshop.

• Umurangi is an ultimately untranslatable Te Reo word. It literally means something like "red sky," but contextually means something more like "witnessing the end of the world." (The word also refers to the Huia, a bird that was hunted to extinction).

• I found this episode of On the Media to a really good summation of Fox News as it currently exists, from the ways it does harm to the ways it makes money.

• Here's the Life After Hate organization, which was indeed founded by Christian Picciolini.

• Here's Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds, and the audiobook thereof.

• And here's that paper on respectful design and Indigenous Knowledge.

• The other authors/academics Tali mentioned in the context of Indigenous Knowledge were Lyndon Murphy, Mary Graham, and Norm Sheehan.

• Here's that stream that Tali was recently on, on which he mentioned his recent conversation with Super Bunnyhop, who in turn just did a video on Umurangi Generation.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Drew Messinger-Michaels. "[katikati] Toad Savage" from the Umurangi Generation OST, and then "Vermillion Sun" and "Crimson Skies" from the Umurangi Generation Macro OST, by Adolf Nomura (a.k.a. ThorHighHeels).

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Why do we replay games? What kinds of play aren't quite replaying, but are closely related? Certainly there are lots of games wherein you're expected to never stop playing, or to come back frequently, but that's a bit different—or is it? Where do remakes, remasters, and straight-up rereleases fit in? Is there something special about replaying a game without much of a reason?

———

• A bunch of the changes made in Super Mario All-Stars were arguably minor, but some weren't, and in any case there were a bunch of them.

• The handheld rerelease/remake of Final Fantasy Tactics was called Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. The biggest addition was multiplayer.

• Here's Robert Yang's piece on the textures in the Final Fantasy XII remake.

• And here's an example of uniquely bad stewardship that happened since we recorded, even.

• Nobody on the podcast crew has ever played the Electronica 60 version of Tetris. The GameBoy version is pretty gettable, albeit not my straightforward, fully legal means.

• Here's the Game Discoverability Weekly newsletter.

• The interview with Jordan Thomas on this here podcast took place right at the beginning of The Blackout Club's Early Access period.

• The very Jewish tabletop RPG I referred to is A Great Miracle Happened Here.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Drew Messinger-Michaels. "If I Love Again" by J.P. Marry and Ben Oakland, and "I'm in Love Again" by Cole Porter, performed by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Just this past week, he unleashed (sorry-not-sorry) a ridiculous, beautiful adventure game called An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs. The game is exactly what it says on the tin, but it's also a lot more thoughtful, heartfelt, and political than its goofy premise might suggest.

In the course of discussing his dog airport sci-fi opus with us, Xalavier talks about the sometimes-competing goals of consistency and continuity, how his interest in dogs is really more existential, and what Drew has been missing about Solo—not to mention the utopian impulse behind the Dog Occupied Galaxies (D.O.G. for short), and perhaps most importantly, how to steep the development process in joy rather than in an unsustainable series of grinds.

You can get An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs on Steam and in the Microsoft Store. You can also wishlist Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and StakeBIRD on Steam. Hypnospace Outlaw and We Are the Caretakers come highly recommended as well, and a bunch of other Xalavier's other games and comics and such are on Itch. And you can follow Xalavier on Twitter.

———

• Xalavier's work at PC Gamer included the utterly wonderful series Inside Development (originally pitched title: Making Games Is Really Fucking Hard).

• Here's the "buck-wild launch trailer" for An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs.

• Andy Weir wrote The Martian (as well as, more recently, Project Hail Mary). The quote I was thinking of came from this episode of Imaginary Worlds.

• Xalavier's talk from WordPlay isn't available online, but, here's "Reuse Everything," from GDC 2019, and here's "KILL YOUR DREAM GAME AND USE ITS BODY FOR PARTS" from GDoC 2020.

• I know I'll be picking up the omnibus of Tom Taylor's All-New Wolverine, and Jeff Lamire's expansive series, The World of Black Hammer.

• Mr. Bucket Told Me To is part of the Dread X Collection.

• When I alluded to guests talking about making art without harming themselves, I was thinking primarily of Jeremy Warmsley and, even moreso, Anisa Sanusi (who put it so succinctly that we used her version of the idea in this clip).

• "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding" is worthy as hell for reasons well beyond its snappy, tweet-length title.

• We only talk a very little bit about Hypnospace Outlaw in this episode, so if you'd like to go deeper on that one, check out our talk with Jay Tholen.

——— "All The People Say (Season 4)" by Drew Messinger-Michaels. "dogtoggle" and "definitely marinara sauce (not blood) (marinara trench game loop version)" (and also the other version) from DOG MUSIC (An Album Made by a Human Currently Named RJ Lake That Makes Up the Official Soundtrack for a Game by Strange Scaffold Called "An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs" and is Good Music for Humans Who Like Music That Sounds Like the Kind Dogs Would Make If They Did That Kind of Thing) by RJ Lake.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Here he talks about what it means to wear those different hats, the unique pressures of running a community in times of isolation, and the odd, undeniable role of bootlegs and piracy in game history—as well as what it means for a game to be recognizably Indian, given both the cross-cultural nature of games as a medium and the extreme heterogeneity of Indian cultural identity.

You can find Yadu's work on his website, and the community he's building at gamedev.in. You can also follow Yadu (and BYJU'S) on Twitter.

———

• The header image is from Yadu's excellent development blog post, about SpellDown, and the body image is from Venba by Visai Games.