In comparing Death Stranding with its sequel, we come to a dichotomy of two gameplay experiences: a lonely one that matches what the games say about their protagonist and one in solidarity with other…
Now that our boy Kojima has been taken out of Konami and Metal Gear, we have to wonder whether you can take the Metal Gear out of the boy. In this episode, we consider what it means to start a newly…
Nicholas puts on his Japanese scholar's bonnet for a chill half hour of wondering why you'd set a game in a particular time and place but then not use any of the cultural elements typical of that…
With the recent news of Cyberpunk 2077 being delayed yet again, Lauryn and Nicholas talk crunch, burnout, and how to begin to deal with the chronic labor issues that plague the video game industry.…
Nicholas opines on Final Fantasy 7 and how the feel of the original seems to be missing from the recent remake. Also discussed: third person camera, the virtues of cinematic pacing, and teaching the…
In this continuation episode from their previous discussion on MMO history and design, Lauryn and Nicholas delve into applications of player psychology research as embodied in Bartle's taxonomy of…
Nicholas waxes nostalgic over the X-wing and TIE Fighter games as a way to get into the question of granularity in gameplay.
Lauryn and Nicholas wax melancholic while talking about MMOs and the accidental invention of seemingly undefinable social relationships in online gaming.
In this first episode Lauryn and Nicholas discuss 2007's Bioshock, ludonarrative dissonance, and what it means to make choices in games with real moral consequence. All this, as the world seems to be…
Nicholas interrogates Lauryn about the various stages of the video game production process, and together they try to figure out ways to get past doing things the way they've always been done, which…
