Bookwarm Games

Discussing the first half or so of Chrono Trigger, we continue the patient work of scholarship, moving towards an upcoming deadline for the outline to be delivered this week. Thanks for listening!

The moment of truth: Lucette departs, Demon discovers, Van and Ada jump forward in time. Thanks for listening.

The Crystal at the back of Memoria, past the elemental chaos monsters and Hades in his synth shop, where the voice of Garland runs out. We fight three final bosses, enjoy the ending, and sing the Melodies of Life theme once more. Thanks for listening! Up next, an abbreviated Chrono Trigger run, and then FF Tactics...

Five years later, we pick up where we'd left off discussing the SNES classic, the Dream Project, Chrono Trigger. In the run-up to completing outlines for the Psychgeist essay collection, we talk about dream motifs, purgatory, and resurrection this time; next time, we'll range over the first half or so of the game; and next week, once Alex's dissertation defense is dantesquely dispensed...

From the video description over on Prof Schmid's channel: https://youtu.be/F8exnw4wHdU?si=3fl3jIHSyFeBOPbO In this special discussion with Dr. Otto Lehto of New York University's Center for Bioethics, we consider (1) our initial experiences with Final Fantasy VII and the ways technology and its growth affected our future lives; (2) the impact Final Fantasy VII had on each of us and whether...

Time passes, Van writes, Lucette visits, Ada pays the photographer kitchen boy's blackmail; comparing the brothel scenes, incest, and narrative in this Family Chronicle with that of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez. Thanks for listening.

On The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman Ch 8: The League of St Alexander & 9: Anticlockwise Recommended reading: Pullman, How to Be Cool and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ Saints' Lives - Lucy, Catherine, Brigid, and Alexander of Alexandria Thanks for listening

"But I feel a strange affinity to it." "Everyone is back, we have new friends, Bobby Corwen is here... So many great things happened all at once!" Into the Shimmering Island, through Terra, and back to the Black Mage Village and start of Disc 4. Thanks for listening.

On The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman Ch 6: Glazing Sprigs & 7: Too Soon Recommended reading: Pullman, Let's Write it in Red - essay in Daemon VoicesChristie, Poirot Investigates (maybe, since The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb is the one by her that Pullman chooses to include in the Detective Stories/Whodunnit book he edits?) Hoffmann, The Strange Story of the Quantum -...

Leaving Ardis at last, Van fights a duel and outlives his rivals.

Into the inverted Ipsen's Castle, abrupt Amarant abandonment, and elemental mirror duos, towards the end of disc 3. For more: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-ix/ Thanks for listening.

On The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip PullmanCh 4: Uppsala 5: The Scholar Recommended reading and listening: The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie https://www.agathachristie.com/stories/the-body-in-the-library A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofti0000hawk Pullman's Introduction to Detective Stories (1998; published as Whodunit 2...

Fallout from the bombing and flashbacks. Thanks for listening

Dinner with Demon Veen. Thanks for listening.

We look at the new version and its predecessors, as well as the as-yet-standalone Episode 33. See Prof Noctis' playthrough for more in-depth commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1LF4fZYQfg Thanks for listening.

Light and shadows in the Desert Palace and the candle-lit Esto Gaza; Mount Gulug, where Eiko gets a Ribbon; Lindblum, where the party gets an airship; Cid's transformation back to a human with his wife's forgiveness; and Garnet's recovery of her voice at her mother's resting place. For more: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-ix/ Thanks for listeni...

"Coming of Age with Philip Pullman" - https://www.publicbooks.org/coming-of-age-with-philip-pullman/ The Aesthetics of Middlebrow Fiction - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137523952#about Many thanks to Dr Perrin - https://www.huntingdon.edu/directory/dr-tom-perrin/

On The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip PullmanCh 2: The Acornand 3: LyraRecommended reading and listening: On the name Lyra: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/01/how-philip-pullman-lyra-won-the-world Jesus Christ is Risen Today (Lyra Davidica): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9zIGc2bWvc The Path Through the Wood, essay in Daemon VoicesJohn Rogers on Milton: https://oyc.yale.edu...

Complications arise in the form of sisters and Scrabble, and flowery long sentences and frank conversations conceal a key piece of the truth. Thanks for listening!

More on the uses of ellipses, magical barriers, spirals, and holographic images and text, plus an adorable Chocobo-Black Mage interaction and frog-based mini-games not involving Quina! From the quicksand to the Forgotten Continent and Oeilvert (pun on oeil-ouvert?) For more: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-ix/ Thanks for listening!

First impressions of the feted/infamous game of the year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and thoughts on the legacy/genre in which it has suddenly come to feature so prominently. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wRVNWkEmhY Thanks for listening!

Out of the Ground: Reading The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman Course page: https://newschoolnotes.blogspot.com/2026/01/out-of-ground-reading-book-of-dust-by.html Episode 1: A Philosopher's Apprentice https://youtu.be/UBYHI-bNf14 Discussing La Belle Sauvage front matter and Chapter 1: The Terrace RoomSnow, by Louis MacNeice - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/91395/snow-582b58513ffae &quot...

Pursuing the butterflies and other beasts in Nabokov's late work. Play and games, FF9's dual worlds--a crossover with the Video Game Academy seems imminent. Adding a chapter to the modernism book outline as we speak! Thanks for listening.

(Cards, voice, boat...) Garnet's lost her powers of speech, but we do our best to make up for it. For more: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-ix/ Thanks for listening!

Nabokov's Van and Ada, "dangerous cousins" long before Arrested Development and whatever French art films it was directly spoofing, prefigure also Woody Allen's and Wes Anderson's predilections. What are readers supposed to make of the nonagenarian narrator's loving descriptions of acts whose moral impact the precocious youths seem to overlook, whilst making anagrams of i...