Tag: author_name|Jessica Conditt

Playdate revisited: Two years with the little yellow inspiration machine

Playdate came out two years ago, and it’s still miniscule and yellow with a black-and-white screen and a delightful crank on its side. Today, the device has a built-in library of more than 100 titles, none of which are Call of Duty, Dark Souls, The Last of Us or any…

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Open Roads review: Take it slow and savor the drama

Open Roads is an easy game to get lost in. It tells a twisting tale about generational trauma — the tension, lies and love between mother and daughter — with all the comfort and warmth of an early 2000s network drama like Gilmore Girls or Charmed. As a former suburban…

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Hyper Light Breaker hands-on: I’m here for the hoverboard

Hyper Light Breaker is a hoverboard sim. Technically, it’s a third-person roguelite adventure set in a luminous fantasy-cyberpunk universe, but after playing a 30-minute preview, it’s clear to me that Hyper Light Breaker is all about the hoverboard. Vicious beasts, secret alcoves and shiny weapons are secondary to the feeling…

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Children of the Sun brings FPS puzzles to Steam on April 9

Children of the Sun is a bullet-bending puzzle game set in a trippy world of cults and revenge, and it's due to hit PC via Steam on April 9. In Children of the Sun, players line up a single sniper shot and then control the bullet as it ricochets among…

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ULTROS and the palette of surreal sci-fi

Game design is a daring and dangerous endeavor for Niklas Åkerblad, who creates under the name El Huervo. When he describes the artistic process behind ULTROS, a neon-speckled platformer set in a demonic cosmic uterus, he talks about pushing against the sharp edges of introspection and sanity, drawing from wells…

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GLAAD’s first annual gaming report is here to tell us how gay games are

“The game industry is out of step with contemporary media in terms of LGBTQ representation, and it is failing its LGBTQ customers.” This sentiment has felt true for years, and now the statistics in GLAAD’s first annual gaming report prove it. The media watchdog and LGBTQ advocacy group today published…

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