Kritiqal Care

Freya Campbell (she/they) is an interactive fiction writer, designer, and game engine combiner. Her games focus on small interactions in fantastical settings, emphasizing character voices and being incredibly queer. They joined me on this week’s episode to discuss writing interactive fiction, putting engines inside each other, and using engine constraints to inform pacing. In closing, I am shamed...

Elliot Herriman (she/her) is an interactive fiction author and developer who makes games about being queer and engines to help you not have to code. She spent some time chatting about falling into game dev, the struggle to get your writing in front of people, and the importance of accessible dev tools. We discuss many unspeakable games so make sure there aren’t any cops around before you pop this...

Shane Yach (he/they) is a game designer and musician whose work combines crunchy, low-poly visuals with surreal internet horror. We spend some time breaking down what makes the PS1 great for horror, how found footage could be adapted for games, and why falling asleep in Proteus is the highest compliment. In closing, Shane reminds us that games don’t die on release and we should allow ourselves to...

Kevin Wong (he/they) is a game designer, producer, and scholar who has worked on projects as varied as Chambara , Lucah: Born of a Dream , and Manifold Garden. On this episode he recounts his experience as a student game designer and how anti-hierarchal art movements and Twitch Plays Pokemon inspired the apocalyptic photography game, Dear Future . You can follow Kevin on Twitter @ThatKevinWong and...

Nathan Blades (he/they) is a tabletop designer, streamer, and voice actor with a particular love for queer cyberpunk. He sat down with me to chronicle his introduction to TTRPGs, the rewards and frustrations of running an actual play show, and finding the line between passion projects and accidentally making yourself a second job. Afterwards, Nathan reminds us that no amount of Twitter arguing can...

Kat (she/her) makes video essays on games and pop culture as Pixel a Day. Her work seeks to diversify games criticism by invoking her knowledge of art and psychology, interrogating unexplored aspects of games and games culture. In this episode we discuss what drew her to video essays as a form, the importance of looking outside of games, and the challenge of getting noticed as a smaller channel. Y...

Nilson Carrol (he/him) is an archivist, MFA student, and ROM hacker working to preserve obscure and queer internet culture. His thesis project, Video Games Have Been Queer , chronicles his history with games and the queer culture within and around them which is often ignored. We talk about his early experiences with ROM hacking, the importance of preserving digital culture, and the earnest, wondro...

Lena NW (she/her) is a multimedia artist, rapper, and game designer whose work touches on the messy, fraught, and darkly humorous effects of fringe internet culture. Her MFA project, Nightmare Temptation Academy (2020), crystalizes her experience growing up on the internet and becoming desensitized to shock content, while also exploring digital alienation and collage creativity. She joined me on K...

Cassandra Lugo (they/them) creates compact procedural games under the name prophet goddess. Their work explores the unique abilities of generative content, the lack of win conditions, and glitchy digital aesthetics. We discuss the origins of their interest in procedural generation, the frequent pitfalls with how it is utilized, and the sorts of games prophet goddess wants to see more of. In the cl...

Nem (they/them) runs the leftist tabletop studio and occasional publisher, Sandy Pug Games, creating games exploring anti-capitalism, alternative forms of interaction, and what it would be like if DMC’s Dante was in Dungeon World . Recently, they have helped facilitate the Our Shores Kickstarter , allowing members of the South-East Asian TTRPG scene (RPGSEA) access to funds and exposure they had p...

Colin (he/they) of melessthanthree makes crunchy action games about catholic guilt and queer acceptance. He joined me to talk about early adventures goofing off in coding class, bucking publisher marketability, and Lucah: Born of a Dream ’s intriguing and often confounding narrative structure. Later on we dig into the ethics of violent games and appreciate the eternal charm of Lord of the Rings ....

Indie game dev and co-found of Abyssal Uncreations, Hyacinth Nil (they/them) makes games about cosmic horror, broken technology, and how the internet manufactures identity. They took some time to walk me through their early efforts of longform LARPs as a kid, looking back on Transfer (Abyssal Uncreations, 2017), and the ways systematized morality reveals the empty politics of many games. You can f...

Content warning for this episode: brief discussions of surgery complications, suicidal thoughts, and misgendering Taylor McCue (choosing not to disclose pronouns) is a game developer whose work explores trans identities, bodily autonomy, and the dehumanizing impact of institutions. We discussed the flawed act of asking for pronouns, what led Taylor to make games, and the using Gameboy ROMs as a fo...

Kritiqal Care is taking a break for the holidays but I still wanted to put up one final episode to close out such a strange and intense year. Games took a lot of different forms this year and the way we approached them was even more varied than usual, so instead of a traditional games-of-the-year list I thought it would be fun to ask the guests of Kritiqal Care to look back on their favorite game...

Dave Gilbert (he/him) is the founder and head of Wadjet Eye Games, creators of numerous modern adventure game classics including Unavowed (Wadjet Eye, 2018) and the Blackwell Saga . Dave stopped in to discuss the studio’s history, moving into publishing, and the emotionally intense experience of closing out Rosa Blackwell and Joey’s story with The Blackwell Epiphany (Wadjet Eye, 2014). Come for th...

Kaile Hultner (they/them) created No Escape as a response to games media pretending video games are exempt from politics. They write about games as cultural objects, journalistic ethics, and the need to engage with the economic and labor forces which bring games about. Kaile joins me on this episode to dive into their philosophy of how to write about games, the need for games journalists to adopt...

DEEP HELL is a games crit portal focusing on the ways we engage with games and the troubling lessons games often teach us. I’m joined by the sites primary author, Skeleton (they/them), to discuss the site’s identity, our frustrations with the state of games writing (go away Kotaku), and the importance of building alternative media that is not embedded with advertising and a callous middle-class ae...

Oma Keeling (they/them) is an experimental game designer and critic. Their work explores queer history , poetry, and punk art in ways that are messy, inspiring, and often hard to explain. Oma joined me to discuss their early games work at art school, the complicated relationship games have to history, and how they seem to keep making games about falling in love with vehicles. You can follow Oma on...

The Off-Score Project is an interactive album released track by track that transforms singer-songwriter jazz into playable vignettes. I've been intrigued by the project since playing the opening track , Copy Machine , and was so glad to have the opportunity to speak with its dev team trio: YenTing Lo (she/her) whose music forms the basis of each game, Vanja Mrgan (he/him) who produces art and cont...

Maria Mison (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist and tabletop game designer based in the Philippines. They makes games exploring identity, trauma, self-expression, and doing difficult things, as well as the form games can take and our relationship to cultural symbols. They join me to talk about their prolific first year as a game designer, the way games help inform their theater and dance pra...

Girls Make Games is an annual summer camp that teaches middle and high-school girls how to create games. This year, due to Covid-19, they took the camp online and in doing so are reaching girls all across the world. I sat down with GMG’s communications director, Isra Shabir (she/her), to learn how the camp began, what the process was like shifting to online, and what they have planned moving forwa...

Matthew Pusti (he/him) makes synth-driven electronic music as Makeup and Vanity Set. He has produced numerous solo albums including Wilderness and 2020’s Endless Destiny , and his music has appeared in games like Brigador (Stellar Jockeys, 2015) and numerous podcasts from Tenderfoot TV ( Atlanta Monster , To Live and Die in LA ). He joined me to discuss how he began in music, the move to working i...

Nicolas O’Brien (he/him) is a researcher and experimental artist who recently released The Last Survey (2020), a “visual novel essay” which explores the myth of equitable capitalism and modern technocracies. He joined me to talk about the inspiration for the game, the challenge of making anti-capitalist art within established models, and the stress of our own culpability. You can follow Nicholas o...

Hannah Nicklin (she/her) is a writer and narrative designer now working as studio head at Die Gute Fabrik, known for her work on 2019’s mutant soap opera, Mutazione . She joined me on Kritiqal Care to discuss how she went from being a playwright to a games author, how Mutazione approaches domesticity and time, and how she is building a more diverse team for Die Gute Fabrik’s next project. It was a...

Melos Han-Tani (he/him) is a game designer, musician, and half of Analgesic Productions (together with Marina Kittaka ). On episode 22 of Kritiqal Care he joined me to talk making games that recognize the humans behind them, why he likes writing music for games, and some of the musicians he looks (listens?) toward for inspiration. Finally, we close out with a quick tease of what Analgesic is worki...