I’ve been playing a lot of RUST lately, and it’s left me reflecting on both the works of Joseph Conrad and the various interpretations they’ve inspired. We talk a lot in games about how the subject of violence deserves far more scrutiny in whatever form it takes- Jingoism, Gore, Abuse, but we have a strong tendency in critical analysis to overlook the systematic violence that is perpetuated through the context of the material itself.

If Metal Gear Solid and Spec Ops: The Line are anti-war critiques, then I would wager that the likes of Far Cry 2 or Cryostasis are more in line with the original thesis of Conrad’s subtext, one also found within the core of Coppala’s interpretation: the prevailing focus on the liminal and transformative nature of warfare. One cannot go through war, either as an individual or a society, without drastically altering one’s super-ego (the self-critical consciousness) and their general perspective on life and the world at large.

Read the rest of this article »

It’s a recent trend in online folk horror to rapidly adapt those whispers from social media aggregates like Reddit, imageboards, and forums into short films and games. The Backrooms are a famous example, still palpable in the current zeitgeist, now blossoming in horror game jams or bespoke developer catalogues, such as PuppetCombo’s newly announced entry.

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in
God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you”

– Anonymous /x/ board user, source: Knowyourmeme.com

Read the rest of this article »

Darting between overhangs, I’m desperate to put distance between myself and the security drone on the other side of the road. Raining, again, but I need space. My battery is running low already, but I can see batteries just one more building away. Not wanting to risk it draining while waiting for the rain to subside, I choose to sprint from this dilapidated sanctuary to the next. The rain proves too corrosive, however, and spells my end. I collapse in the street before my vision goes dark. Time to try again.

Read the rest of this article »

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Can Androids Pray and features discussions of derealization and suicide.

Across the war-torn battlefield, mechanized corpses lay smoking, holding bodies inside like metal sarcophagi. Craters scar the wastes, reminders of the convulsions of humanity sparring for unnamed ideations. In a pocket at the edges, two Venusian Confederacy fighters lie locked up and damaged. Servos burnt out, they stare at each other alongside the wreckage of a Mercury Protectorate soldier, a reminder of who caused their downfall. Here, in their last moments, a momentary rest is found between these two in their solitude.

Read the rest of this article »

Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for! The list of the contributors to the meditations project who reached out to us with their details. We encourage you wholeheartedly to give the list a thorough look, the developers here are doing fantastic work, and we think you’ll find more than one or two projects that’ll just brighten up your day!

Read the rest of this article »

We reached out for comment from Rami Ismail and Jupiter Hadley regarding their thoughts on the meditations project and how it’s been handled. Here are their thoughts.

Read the rest of this article »

We’ve been very interested in the actual workings of the meditations.games project, how the crediting system put in place came to be, and the level of social media reception that developers involved with the project experienced, so we reached out to multiple developers involved with the project for their input. Below you’ll find the second batch of interviews we conducted with the developers who did not opt to be included in the partial credits list for the project, and what they had to say.

Read the rest of this article »

We’ve been very interested in the experiences of the developers involved with the meditations.games project, how they felt about the crediting process and controversy surrounding it, and the level of social media reception that they experienced, so we reached out to multiple developers involved with the project for their input. Below you’ll find the first batch of interviews we conducted with the developers who did not opt to be included in the partial credits list for the project, and what they had to say.

Read the rest of this article »

We’ve been very interested in the experiences of the developers involved with the meditations.games project, how they felt about the crediting process and controversy surrounding it, and the level of social media reception that they experienced, so we reached out to multiple developers involved with the project for their input. Below you’ll find the second batch of interviews we conducted with the developers who asked to be credited upfront for the project, and what they had to say.

Read the rest of this article »

We’ve been very interested in the experiences of the developers involved with the meditations.games project, how they felt about the crediting process and controversy surrounding it, and the level of social media reception that they experienced, so we reached out to multiple developers involved with the project for their input. Below you’ll find the first batch of interviews we conducted with the developers who asked to be credited upfront for the project, and what they had to say.

Read the rest of this article »