Colonialism is not merely about occupying nations. It’s a project of mass violence, part of which involves total erasure and the widespread theft of some of the most culturally significant artifacts in the world. Even today, colonizing nations proudly display stolen artifacts, acting as peacocking robbers under the guise of tourism. See, for example, the […]
The woods in Reanimal are full of surprises. You will encounter human cadavers that slither like snakes, gigantic talking pigs, and, at one point, a forlorn, supersized whale who seems resigned to an agonizingly slow death. These variously monstrous beings inhabit a realm that, though it looks like our own, seems to defy spatial logic: […]
A postmodern surrealist tale of geopolitics. An otaku’s hellbent journey to become the top-ranked assassin. A high school cheerleader who kills zombies with a chainsaw and pompoms, with a story co-written by James Gunn. Every project under the Grasshopper Manufacture umbrella sounds like an unlikely anecdote. The Japanese video game studio founded in 1998 by […]
I’m an awful rock climber. Being scared of heights probably doesn’t help. But when I’ve tried it, I’ve loved the slow, methodical work of moving from one ledge to the next. It reminds me a lot of why I love running; in both sports, you achieve goals that seem insurmountable by taking them one step […]
When a video game series goes on for a long time, it raises a question for newcomers: Just where is the best place to jump in? In the case of Dragon Quest, there are nearly a dozen mainline titles, not to mention copious spinoffs and ports that span four decades of history. Of late, though, […]
It’s no secret that Cassette Boy is inspired by the classics. It’s a top-down adventure game in the vein of a retro Legend of Zelda, while your home base is a small town like in an older Pokémon game, complete with a mom who is constantly wishing you well. The game’s blocky 3D graphics evoke […]
There’s a lot about Perfect Tides: Station to Station’s Mara that I find relatable. Like me, she’s recently moved to a place simply called “the City” from the middle of nowhere, and like me, she’s an avid writer. But these biographical details aren’t the important thing; it’s the way she’s painted by the game’s incredibly […]
We’re living in a pretty great time for detective games. Over the last few years, developers have been experimenting with all kinds of different ways of turning the act of investigation into a compelling game, which has led to the likes of Her Story, Return of the Obra Dinn, and the Golden Idol series, to […]
While playing Big Hops, a new 3D platformer starring an adorable frog, I kept feeling like I was breaking the game – and, like with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, breaking it is kind of the point. In Big Hops, you play as a frog named Hop. Early on, Hop is taken […]
Diora might be the most ambitious game I’ve played on the Playdate. It’s all about perspective: You turn the handheld’s crank to rotate your viewpoint of the bite-size 3D landscapes, which lets you peek around corners to find solutions to various puzzles. On a device with a 1-bit, black-and-white display, the miniature worlds feel miraculous, […]