Infinite Cities

If the forces of industry ruin art, and this goes double for the games industry, then by the inverse failures are allowed the greatest artistic license. I'm not sure how Marathon came to exist like it does - someone somewhere made a series of bewildering, bizarre decisions - and then a whole team of people went about fucking cooking. Hopefully they'll be able to get to dessert, but if not, I can't...

In 2002, Ecuador qualified for the world cup for the first time. This moment was so affecting, (future) game designer Julián Cordero became consious. This is a semi-autobiographical telling of those six wild months, and it works near flawlessly, transporting us back in time and across place. It's a wonder - but we've all kicked a ball around, and in this all humans are more alike than different. I...

Karp gets to indulge himself in his favourite type of game: exploring weird-ass spaces. Join us in turning over every rock and checking behind every mushroom in this immersive sim-like retro-throwback. In this episode: don't pick Charmander, neuron stars, setting the setting, money sink, lockpicking minigames, first-world problems, drawing a map. ~~~ Our theme music is Glass Half Full by the incre...

CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER: Feather: loud and flighty. Special move: a take so bad all enemies on screen have to engage. Karp: stable and strong. Special move: has already beaten the game, so he can skip ahead to when he already won the fight. Will: fast and has bonus reach. Special move: crashes a bike into enemies for massive damage, hurting them as well as himself (but not the bike!) Gary: fun and s...

For a game that is credited with popularizing the roguelike deckbuilder genre, Slay the Spire is surprisingly stripped down compared to everything that came after it. You build your deck, you fight monsters, you keep pushing onward. After our time with Inscryption and and Wildfrost, it almost feels strange going backwards to a game most of us have played, and half of us have beaten, before. This e...

Gary's on the move so we take the chance to play something they absolutely loathe (/j): racing games. This is like an oasis in a WipEout-less world. In this episode: why did WipEout die, podracers, racing line, braking game, "one-and-a-half good games", ancient fox girl, "nightcar dubstep". ~Shoutout zone~ Redout OST - Pipe Down ~~~ Our theme music is Glass Half Full by the incredible Cliff, you c...

This is the best worst game we have played so far. What a glorious mess. In this episode: jank jank jank, ska, categorizing rhythm games, legibility issues, mapping left and right to up and down, peak, the sewer level, poco and apoco are here! posters, petty band drama, incoherence, conspiracies, homestuck. ~shoutouts zone~ The best trailer of all time Two Tone Army 2 Mello - Twist Sound ~~~ Our t...

It's a mark of praise that KRZ so frequently ends up compared with our favorite narrative games -it it's in the same space as Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper, Night in the Woods. Just because it frequently comes off worse in those comparisons doesn't mean it's not secretly great. It's just tired, and all out of answers - and maybe that's the only way this story could be honest. In this episode: no...

Kentucky Route Zero wants to be art so badly, and it genuinely succeeds - this is a beautiful game, both visually and artistically. But a game that is art is less revolutionary in 2013, and our relationships to rural Appalachia have changed as well. Is this game a ghost of the past? Is that the intended outcome, from the very beginning? There are no answers but the ones in your heart. In this epis...

You think you got a sense of rhythm? You think you can shoot good? You think you know roguelites? What about all of them at once? Now make the game monochrome and don't tell the player anything. I kid, there is a good game here if you look under the jank. In this episode: big pile of enemies, absolute friendslop, hypebeast GOAT, hexapod (look it up), fire on the quarters, reload on the eights, DOO...

Pentiment is a game that is good. I might even argue that it's very good. But it's a game with fussy mechanics. It's a murder mystery that isn't interested in the answers. It's vague about it's truths. Pentiment is a tale about how history is preserved; about how truth is obfuscated. It's a tale about heritage and oral tradition and art. It's absolutely about art. Feather, Will, and Gary are finis...

This episode wound up a bit of a fever dream disaster, but honestly - it couldn't have ended up any other way. The game is a fever dream disaster, about a disaster having a fever dream. While it sounds like we're just making things up as we go along, I promise this isn't Shrekisode II - everything we mention actually happens in Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines. I think. Maybe. Ok, I did start...

Feather is away which means we're getting up to shenanigans with a weird little game again! Keeper is a gorgeous, vibes based puzzle game about a creepy lighthouse and his bird pal, uhm, saving the world?? I think?? Don't worry about the plot, just enjoy the experience.  in this episode: immediate complaints, the evil goo, achievement lore, time shit, creepy little lighthouse creature, bad camera...

2025 was absolute butts! Heck, even a lot of the games in 2025 were pretty butts! That doesn't mean there weren't some absolute masterpieces though, and we sit down in our annual look back to talk through the games that affected us the most: games that were wonderful, surprising, heartbreaking, and sometimes just stupid (positive). In this episode: movie of the year (it's kpop demon hunters OBVS),...

It's the end of the year and we (apparently) played so many bird games this year that we gotta finish on one too. Join us for a rhythm-dating sim with deceptively deep writing. In this episode: Bumbird, birdenize 'em, I'm not into birds but..., competitive dating, how to get Gary to play TF2, guller sac. ~~~ Our theme music is Glass Half Full by the incredible Cliff, you can find him on Bandcamp!...

This week, we gotta go fast, because we're racing baby! From the snow banks of Finland to the mountainous curves of Japan, we're all over the map this week as we speed around in knockoff rally cars alongside many questionally stereotypical navigators! It's #DRIVE Rally! in this episode: making it salty, legally distinct cars, finishing the finnish campaign, sims vs arcades, problems with handling,...

Pentiment's existience feels like a miracle. It's a game that has the deep, super-niche obsession to a specific detail, created by an established double A studio with the backing of Microsoft. A game that wants, more than anything else, to be a portrait of a time. A desire to show an art form (illuminated manuscript) not as the flat, tattered, and dated museum piece but as representative of a livi...

Things are a little hectic, schedule-wise, so we're taking some time to chat through games that aren't podcast games! Gary has infinite stories from Outer Worlds 2 (plus Nikke: Goddess of Victory, although gachaslop gets exiled to the shoutouts zone), Karp's holding hands with Swordcraft Story 2 (and still playing Grandblue Fantasy) and Feather's lost in the Noita sauce while also getting absolute...

Get ready for a short but unhinged episode where we discuss clowns and their impact on the ecology /j. In this episode: clown-likes, clown-cil, clown music, James Franco's brother, paintbrush plush, "magic fights", Now You Don't See Me, top left ear: Redline ~~~ Our theme music is Glass Half Full by the incredible Cliff, you can find him on Bandcamp! Want to shout about the episode? Join us in the...

This title could easily have been "Where the Jigsaw?" because this puzzle game is doing mostly anything but jigsaws. It's quirky and delightful, and broken precisely where it needs to be.  in this episode:  define jigsaw, no spoilers, it's all spoilers, the hint system, the game is a physical space, everything on the table, this space intentionally left blank, two realizations in order, this part...

Absolum is a kinetic, weighty beat 'em up in which it feels so good to build combos and try out different characters. It's also a very delightful, Hades style roguelite, with lots of options for progression and some really cool routing choices across the map. I don't really think I've ever played anything quite like it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go play more right now.    in this episo...

Noita is amazingly singular. A game that is fractally deep, yet instantly understandable in its incomprehensibility. A game that is massively frustrating, something that relishes in how little it cares about you, while also letting you impact the entire world down to each precision-modeled grain of sand. There is nothing like it, and honestly, that's probably a good thing because god damn it's pas...

Happy 5 year anniversary, us! Do you like speedrunning? Do you like replaying stages until you get the platinum medal? Do you like Neon White (gameplay, not story)? Then you should take a listen to our thoughts on this fps-runner that chose to release on the same day as Silksong. In this episode: cool New York sewers, punching walls, Nina White, vaulting, apologizing, 35 minute silver, grappling h...

Baba Is You aba Is You B ba Is You Ba a Is You Bab Is You Baba s You Baba I You Baba Is ou Baba Is Y u Baba Is Yo Baba Is You In this episode: feather is defeat, horse-sized baba, mobile suit baba, the allure of physical media, feather's thesis, solution refinements, sokoban, the importance of waiting a beat, game as code, playing on other devices, fractally nested babas, Baba is Kaizo ~shoutout z...

Born too late to be a popcap brain rotter incremental. Born too early to reach "18.254 quattuordecillion". Just in time to be a perfect ipad game for the Wii U. In this episode: The Tomorrow Corporation, 6/10, retro-indie, flash comparison, feather is a genius who's brain is enormous and also she is cool and even very pretty and you can definitely trust this description which is written by someone...