Pixelated Playgrounds

In 2017, longtime console developer Ninja Theory decided to buck their normal trend of partnering with publishers and take a risk by self-publishing their upcoming project, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. The project was taking other risks as well: wading into the turbulent waters of portraying mental illness on screen, and taking big swings on new technology with their sound design. What emerged is...

Listen in as Bryan, Josh, and Clint unpack last year’s indie darling, Unpacking! Despite not having a central conflict or antagonist to speak of, Unpacking nonetheless tells a compelling story about growing up, moving out, and learning to live with others (and yourself). Combine that with absolutely gorgeous pixel art, a catchy yet subtle soundtrack, and a hefty dose of nostalgia and you have a sp...

Slowclap’s second major outing, Sifu, is a fascinating game. On the surface it is a kung-fu action brawler with choreography that makes you feel like you’re directing a martial arts movie. Then it layers in a more fantastic element where the protagonist is reborn a bit older each time they are defeated. The real grace note of the whole experience, however, is the the game’s ability to slowly train...

Hero’s Hour is a clever pixelated iteration on the Heroes of Might and Magic formula that sports some eye-catching pixel graphics and a manic, yet extremely satisfying auto-battler combat system. Created by Benjamin Haur of ThingOnItsOwn, this is part homage to a beloved classic and part thoughtful evolution on some of the core mechanics that make the series (now regrettably controlled by Ubisoft)...

Thanks to its arrival on the Xbox Gamepass platform, Bryan, Clint and Josh summoned their inner monster and played through the ‘reverse-horror’ metroidvania, Carrion! A great time was had by all as this interesting twist on a power fantasy encouraged creative play and invoked feelings of mischievous and sometimes sinister glee. Making your way through the sprawling depths of Relith Science Corps a...

In recent years the 'deck builder roguelike' has become a crowded genre unto itself. One that Josh and Bryan really enjoy! While cards make a great framing device for a roguelike, In this podcast Bryan and Josh look at the roguelikes that take their inspiration from other games at the casino in our first 'Casino Cast' featuring Dicey Dungeons and Luck be a Landlord! Three Word Reviews: Dicey Dunge...

For this podcast Bryan, Josh, and Clint don their best shiny green power armor and launch into a wide-ranging discussion of the entire run of the venerable FPS franchise, Halo! At first we thought we might revisit Halo: Combat Evolved since we were nearing the 20th anniversary. Then we thought we’d add in a discussion on Halo: Infinite since it has made waves with Bryan and Clint recently. Finally...

If you have followed indie games at all over the course of the past several years, then odds are you have played or at least heard of Outer Wilds. A school project that became a Seaumas MacNally Grand Prize recipient at IGF in 2015, and then went on to be one of the most critically acclaimed games released in 2019. The team at Mobius Digital deserve every bit of that praise they received, because...

Card games and the secluded wilderness seem like a natural fit. You’re out camping with your friends, the day is over and everyone is gathered around the fire. Someone pulls out a deck of cards… …or … after your long day of hiking you pass out and are suddenly awakened in a mysterious cabin with nothing but a strange glowing pair of eyes beckoning you towards your first hand of a card game that ma...

In 2021 when Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy launched for PC and current gen consoles, Bryan was experiencing a bit of Marvel fatigue. This made him initially skeptical when Clint urged him to play the latest Marvel video game property, saying it was one of his top games of the year. After learning more and seeing it was a linear 3rd person single player-focused action game (an increasingly rare...

In 2008, Turtle Rock studios brought a new kind of multiplayer experience to video gaming with Left 4 Dead. You and your friends took control of a group of four survivors and try to navigate a world overflowing with undead in a chaotic first person cooperative campaign. Thirteen years later and Turtle Rock are revisiting the idea with Back 4 Blood. We found that it iterated on the formula nicely i...

In 2019, Asobo Studio released A Plague Tale: Innocence, a story about a brother and sister navigating a plague and war torn 14th century France. Just months later the world would experience its own major pandemic event. For months after that Bryan and Clint had put off playing A Plague Tale, but during the Fall of 2021 they managed to play through and both are extremely happy they did. Providing...

Someone’s murdered Paradise and Bryan and Josh are on the case! Paradise Killer literally drops you into the shoes of Lady Love Dies, who is investigating one of the most bizarre and otherworldly mysteries that one could imagine. The game immediately sets you free to explore a city full of convoluted history and conspiracy, dripping in sun-drenched style, and set to the tune of a relaxing and evoc...

Join Bryan and Clint for a podcast on the latest game from Arkane Studios, Deathloop! It has all of their Arkane favorites: flavorful distinctive environments, a deep intriguing backdrop, and interlocking systems of stealth, combat and exploration to name a few, but it also brings plenty of new ideas all its own. Whether you’re breaking the loop or protecting it there’s plenty to love on the islan...

Its that spooky time of year and everyone playing games is looking for something to match the spirit of the season! The latest entry in Capcom’s long running, and often remastered Resident Evil series is Resident Evil Village. Clint, a longtime Resident Evil fan, and Bryan, a relative newcomer, both weigh in on the merits and shortcomings of this 2021 release. Sticking with the first person perspe...

The air is getting cooler, the days are getting shorter… and Josh, Bryan, and Clint are getting spooky with Pumpkin Jack! Pumpkin Jack is a 3d action/platformer with a ton of spooky-scary Halloween vibes. It’s a love letter to the 3d platformers of yesteryear and is absolutely dripping with character and some gorgeous visuals. To add to its impressiveness, it is largely the work of solo-developer...

If On A Winter’s Night Four Travelers by Laura Hunt and Thomas Möhring, who together make up Dead Idle Games, is a masterwork in terms of writing, art, and overall tone. Spanning three stories inside of a larger framing narrative, this (Free!) indie game delivers a punch of tension, suspense, and horror well above its weight class. Listen in as Josh and Bryan discuss what was so affecting about th...

Ahoy, Matey! Clint, Josh, and Bryan recently set sail on the Sea of Thieves and recruited fellow buccaneer and friend of the show, Andy, to reminisce on some of their most memorable mischief on the high seas. Sea of Thieves is a special kind of co-op multiplayer game, that values both whimsey and diegetic action to a high degree, whether you’re taking over one of many aspects of successfully pilot...

Join Josh, fluent Paradox games veteran, and Bryan, an enthusiastic newbie for a discussion of Paradox Games’ signature 4X space strategy game, Stellaris! We both put a good amount of time into this game recently and our play actually straddled the big 3.0 update back in April 2021. Paradox games have always thrived on the support given to them by their developers, and this game is no different. S...

City builders have always been among the more meditative and ‘flow-state inducing’ genres for many people. This week we play two city-builder games, Islanders and Dorfromantik which offer simplified but vastly different takes on the city builder genre. Islanders is a low poly score-chasing city builder that always nets you a view of one or more gorgeous cities at the end of a round. Dorfromantik i...

In this episode Bryan and Josh go down the raccoon(?) hole and take a close look at Donut County, the hole physics game from Ben Esposito. Aside from being an utterly delightful experience, Donut County is also in that increasingly valuable class of games that Bryan and Josh feel can be ‘squeezed into’ almost any schedule. Shout out to the sleeping and eating habits of newborns and toddlers. So ki...

By now its obvious to anyone not living under a rock that the magical boarding school trope is well and truly played out. After Harry Potter and its scores of imitators had run their course, it seemed unlikely that anything fresh could be done in this space…. until Ikenfell! Veteran indie dev, Chevy Ray, devised not only an innovative battle system, but also a cast of truly memorable characters su...

With almost a decade in the books since its inception, Kentucky Route Zero’s final act was released in early 2020, capping off a project that has been called a new Great American Novel by some and simply obscure, yet poignant by others. Bryan and Josh have had their eye on this project for a while and recently sat down to record a podcast about their experience with Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky R...

This month the book club takes a trip back to the future of hacking with Quadrilateral Cowboy by Brendan Chung aka Blendo Games! Equipped with a "top-of-the-line hacking deck outfitted with a 56.6k modem and a staggering 256k RAM” (which is only slightly faster than Josh’s setup) the group talks through the plethora of interesting features and how the game succeeds, and sometimes fails, to pull th...

When gyms across the US (and the world) closed in the spring of 2020, many people were left without access to their normal outlets for physical fitness. Conveniently (especially for Nintendo) only months earlier, Ring Fit Adventure had released to more buzz than is usually warranted for an exercise game. A year later Bryan and Josh are here to tell you what all the fuss was about. Listen in to hea...