The Crate and Crowbar

Chris, Jamie and Marsh get tux’d up and shimmy into the pseudo-sandbox soirees of 007 First Light. Our predictions for the future of this game and its developers are then immediately chomped to mince by the pit of alligators that is the wider game industry. Marsh has released Gold Teeth! The trailer for Clutch, which [...]

Chris and Jamie are joined by Mike Cook to talk about his uneventful recent life as an academic specialising in AI. Then, Slay the Spire 2 summer begins at last and we pay tribute to Marathon’s weird little robo-goblin, the Rook. It’s Mike Cook! And it’s Next Level, Mike Cook’s new book! The book Chris mentions [...]

Jamie and Chris convene from the palatial purple of Quincy Jones’ recording studio to tell tales of indentational trauma, BP garage psychogeography and also some games! Chris has been cutting people’s legs off in Halfsword and thinking fondly of Marsh Davies. Jamie has been rejoicing in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s crystal meth extravaganza Mewgenics. Chris has been playing [...]

Marsh is joined by Graham to chat about Jank, a hot new website for cool people, the best games of the decade so far, deduction game TR-49, frenzied shmup Sektori and joyous platformer Big Hops. Jank!!!!!!!!!!!! Jank.cool!!!! Visit Jank! Wow! Read Jank’s list of the best games of the Decade so far! TR-49 Sektori Big [...]

Jamie and Marsh throw themselves into the depths of Ball X Pit, launch themselves into toilets in Bloodlines 2, and dive cinematically from exploding balconies in Battlefield 6. Show notes: Join Jamie in person on Saturday 29th November at Birmingham Comicon for a chat about getting into games. Ball X Pit Into the Breach Vampire: [...]

Chris, Jamie and Marsh discuss what the f Silent Hill f is about, get systemic in Sword Hero, jump ship in Jump Space, try to pronounce “photogrammetry” correctly while discussing Mind Diver AND take a cathartically large dump on Alien: Earth. Silent Hill f Big-time ambiguity intertext: Henry James’ Turn of the Screw I’ve always [...]

Marsh and Jamie dishonour their families in the oddly quaint Mafia: The Old Country, soak sands in Sword of the Sea, and synergise to the max in Merge Maestro, Kill the Brickman and Raccoin. Show notes: Mafia: The Old Country Sword of the Sea Merge Maestro Raccoin Kill the Brickman You can hang out with [...]

Jamie and Marsh join together to talk sad boys, roguelike birds and frenzied bananas. Birdigo Donkey Kong: BananzaMarsh is making Gold Teeth. You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us via the Questions sub-channel on our Discord [...]

Chris and Marsh are joined by Paul Canavan to talk about draining men (halleluja), the not-so-shy huluds and space-nun zoomies of Dune: Awakening. We do not talk about Donkey Kong Bananza. Dune: Awakening Paul is making Pale Tides. Marsh is making Gold Teeth. Chris is one of the most extraordinarily talented and versatile people I’ve [...]

Jamie and Marsh get pumped, pepped and revved up for the summer games marketing onslaught, and then enjoy the more tangible pleasures of demos in the Steam Next Fest, including: Ball X Pit, Morsels, Bits & Bops, Consume Me, Dispatch and Baby Steps. In this episode, I, Marsh, misremember Peggle’s mascot as Bookworm Adventures’ mascot, [...]

Jamie and Marsh whoosh blueily through Doom: The Dark Ages, find real big fish in South of Midnight, experience the fraying bonds of marriage in It Takes Two, and feed children to a giant worm in Nidhogg. Doom: The Dark Ages South of Midnight It Takes Two Nidhogg Kirby’s Air Ride Rhythm Heaven Fever “You [...]

Click ‘Use’, then click ‘Pod’. Success! You have unlocked access to an episode of adventure game discussion from the steamy podding lairs of Jamie and Tom! First we turn our attentions to the fine timeline-twisting futuristic adventure game, Old Skies. We’re enjoying it greatly, along with Unavowed and the rest of Wadjet Eye Games collection. [...]

Jamie, Tom and Marsh head out into the wild blue yonder (without headphones on like some kind of smug Japanese writer) and talk about 3 open world games, somewhat alike in dignity. Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is the brand new tiny-sword-up-my-sleeve ’em up, has peerless breezes, great killings, but boy is there a lot of it! [...]

The distant troglodyte descendants of Jamie and Marsh relive memories of the before-times and the joyous videogames that were once played, namely: 1000xResist, Type Help and Pathologic 3: Quarantine. Pathologic 3: Quarantine is the demo for a larger forthcoming game, and is harrowing in about every way it can be. 1000xResist is a brilliant game [...]

Tom S joins Marsh to be baffled by BAFTA noms, enjoy the chaotic departure from military fiction in Black Ops 6, put on a purple frenzied bone hat in Monster Hunter, and bolster our collection of severed tongues in Avowed like the nimdoots we are. The BAFTA website has been designed by maniacs. You can [...]

Jamie and Marsh wallop their way through a sea of fascists in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and enjoy the peaches, pots and permadeath of Shiren the Wanderer 6. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is made by Machine Games, also known for the Wolfenstein reboot, its sequels and some brilliant level packs for [...]

Chris, Jamie, and friend of pod Paul Canavan squat doon in a cundie with a bottle of buckie and some (probably vegan) haggis tae blether aboot Scottish games and games that aren’t Scottish. We talk the excellent thrills, chills, and repeated drops off of oil rigs of fab walking sim Still Wakes The Deep, the [...]

Chris, Senior Tom and Marsh convene to talk Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Diablo 4, Rise Of The Golden Idol, Xenotilt, Destiny 2 and then Chris talks about Dragon Age: Veilguard non-stop for about 45 minutes and it’s kind of incredible. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a game about cutting robots into many bits, or just [...]

In which Tom Senior, Marsh Davies and Jamie Brittain convene on a perfectly normal and entirely non-epoch defining night in early November 2024 to discuss God Of War: Ragnarök at length, as well as providing various witterings about trailers good, names bad, books read and John Wayne movies for some reason. At one point Jamie [...]

Tom S, Jamie and Marsh gather, like a drift of dead leaves, to discuss some seasonally spooky games: Alan Wake 2 and Mouthwashing. Also mentioned: Arco and Grunn. Painshill Park. The crystal grotto is closed on Mondays. Alan Wake 2 Remember Quantum Break? My sympathies. Garth Marenghi is a better writer than Alan Wake, and [...]

Marsh, Jamie and Chris convene to navigate the bouncy balls of Peglin, the less bouncy but surprisingly solid shooty-bangs of Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, before failing to enjoy UFO 50 as much as they probably should. Games Discussed: PeglinWarhammer 40K: Space Marine 2UFO 50 Back Gold Teeth here! You can hang out with us [...]

Jamie kindly permits Marsh to talk about Gold Teeth, the tabletop roleplaying game he’s Kickstarting, which is just an excuse to ramble at length about roleplaying games more broadly with excellent chums Jim Rossignol and Chris Lackey. Gold Teeth! It’s a game of piracy and occult horror! Strange Studies of Strange Stories – an excellent [...]

Chris, Jamie and Marsh return to explain where the hell they’ve been, before launching into discussions of effervescent pie-em-up comedy game Thank Goodness You’re Here, following that with some entirely unbiased discussion of glorious turn based tactics game Tactical Breach Wizards. We also discuss cosmetic etiquette in the grimdark future hellwarscape of Warhammer: Space Marine [...]

Jamie and Marsh reel from Microsoft’s latest layoffs, mismanage time in Hades 2, paddle in the uncanny, chlorinated waters of Pools, devour the bite-sized city-building triumphs of Against the Storm, and indulge their flaws in The Thaumaturge. The last lay offs of 2024. Thankfully there won’t be any more of those! Phew!! Nathan Brown’s Hit [...]

Jamie and Alex show their cards in deck-builders Balatro and Cobalt Core (poker- and space-flavoured respectively), before descending into the chaotic, cavernous depths of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and finally wrangling Dead Red Redemption 2 into completion. Balatro Cobalt Core Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Red Dead Redemption 2 You can hang out with us and [...]