Beautiful Games Club

A book club for games, but one more chapter becomes one more quest 🎧

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For episode 7 we're talking about Phonopolis by Amanita Design, the studio behind Machinarium and Samorost. You play Felix, a bin man in a city where loudspeakers tell everyone exactly what to do, until he finds a pair of headphones and becomes the only person in town capable of having his own thoughts. Every set, character and prop was handcrafted out of cardboard before being digitised, animated at 12fps to feel like stop motion, and it took roughly six years.

This game is a real labour of love, and we think that comes through in abundance!

But. Is Phonopolis a beautiful game?

⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for Phonopolis throughout, including the ending. Listen with caution if you haven't played!

Phonopolis is available on Windows and Mac via Steam and Epic Games for around £20.

Host: Angel

Guests: Alannah, Lale and Mike

Game: Phonopolis (2026), by Amanita Design

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Introduction 00:41 - Do You Like Uniform? 08:42 - What is Phonopolis? 10:44 - What Did You Expect Going In? 16:18 - Discussion: Favourite Puzzles 25:38 - The Light Bulb Puzzle 28:25 - Discussion: The Ending 38:58 - How the Mechanics Tell the Story 42:04 - Discussion: Felix's Voice 43:33 - What Impressed Us as Developers 47:23 - Discussion: The Graphic Design 52:42 - Will Phonopolis Influence How We Make Games? 54:45 - Is It a Beautiful Game?

What does 'retro' even mean? 🕹️

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

Last time we did a minisode we looked forwards at games that weren't out yet. This time we're doing the opposite.

Conor, Mike, Angel and Jane each bring a game from back in the day, and we all try to make the case that it still holds up as genuinely beautiful. We start by failing to agree on what retro actually is, get sidetracked into playground games, and end up somewhere near Freud.

There's an Atari 2600 athletics game Mike was playing at two years old, a 1997 PC adventure with a hero who has to switch into "sport mode" before he can jump, the JRPG that taught Conor to read and soundtracked his wedding, and a PS2 launch title that kickstarted Kingdom Hearts.

Along the way: floppy disc stacks, anti-piracy grids on sheets of paper, why old games looked better on a CRT, and the discovery that Wii Sports turns 20 in three months.

So. Which retro game has aged the most beautifully?

The picks:

Activision's Decathlon (1983) - Mike

Little Big Adventure 2 (1997) - Jane

Final Fantasy 7 (1997) - Conor

The Bouncer (2000) - Angel

Host: Conor Guests: Mike, Angel and Jane

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

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A book club for games, but the paperback is a PlayStation 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For episode 6, we're talking about Big Walk (2026) by House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game. This one was a first for us - it's multiplayer, so instead of playing separately and comparing notes, all four (or six!) of us got on a call and walked across an island together. We solved puzzles, got separated in the dark, shouted into walkie-talkies, put a helmet on Angel so she couldn't see anything, sit in a room doing absolutely nothing for five minutes because the game asked us to, and SO MUCH MORE.

Somebody wrote "kick me" on Mike's back.

So. Is Big Walk a beautiful game?

🎥 BONUS: we recorded it too! Our playthrough is going up on our YouTube channel over the next few weeks, so you can watch it all go wrong in real time.

⚠️ Spoilers throughout for puzzles and areas, though none of us have finished it. No content warnings for this one, unless you have a friend in the group who brings out the worst in you. (Big Walk is available on PC, Mac, PS5 and Switch 2 for around £16. About 12 hours if you're focused, well over 20 if you're not. 2 to 12 players.)

Host: Angel

Guests: Alannah, Lale and Mike

Featuring in gameplay: Conor and Jane

Game: Big Walk (2026), by House House

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

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4 Upcoming Games that We're Desperate to Play!

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively and brought to you by the team at ustwo games - makers of Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure and Assemble With Care.

Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

But this time we're doing something different. Instead of looking back at a game we've all finished, we're looking forwards. Conor takes over hosting duties for a minisode where each of us brings one unreleased game we think is going to be beautiful, and then has to defend it.

We make the case for a co-op-only platformer that looks like lost 90s anime, a fairy tale open world with a thousand handcrafted NPCs, a sequel that's now in a third dimension, and an old witch with chicken feet and a monster friend.

Along the way we argue about whether a game can be beautiful when the experience belongs to two people instead of one, whether comedy counts as beauty, and why there are so few old people in games.

Then we rank all four on our wishlists and immediately disagree.

So. Which one are you wishlisting first?

Games discussed in this episode:

Orbitals - Shape Farm - Releases 3 September 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2.

Fable - Playground Games - Releases 23 February 2027 on Xbox and PC.

Pikuniku 2 - Sectordub - Releases in 2027 on Switch 2 and Steam.

Coven of the Chicken Foot - Wildflower Interactive - no release date yet!

Host: Conor

Guests: Alannah, Lale and Mike

CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Introduction

01:19 - How Do We Find New Games?

09:28 - Orbitals

22:09 - Fable

31:13 - Pikuniku 2

42:24 - Coven of the Chicken Foot

50:30 - Honourable Mentions

52:43 - Ranking Them on Our Wishlists

A book club, but the bookmark is a save point 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For episode 5, we're talking about Mixtape (2026) - a coming-of-age adventure from Beethoven and Dinosaur, published by Annapurna Interactive. We follow Stacy Rockford, an aspiring music supervisor spending one last night in Blue Moon Lagoon with her two best friends before they all go their separate ways, soundtracked by the mixtape she's made for the occasion. We skip rocks, TP a teacher's house, head-bang in the back of a car, and endure a first-person kissing scene that absolutely none of us were prepared for.

With its Spider-Verse-style stepped animation, camera work lifted straight from a film set, and a soundtrack that hides original songs among the real 80s and 90s tracks so convincingly we couldn't tell which was which, Mixtape is the kind of game that shares somebody else's nostalgia but you will feel it anyway.

So. Is Mixtape a beautiful game?

⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for Mixtape throughout, including discussion of underage drinking and drug use. Listen with caution if you haven't played! (Mixtape is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2 for around £16 depending on platform. About 4 hours of gameplay, more if you keep running your skateboard into cars)

Listen along to the songs we discussed in this podcast here.

Host: Angel

Guests: Alannah, Mike and Lale

Game: Mixtape (2026) by Beethoven and Dinosaur & Annapurna Interactive

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

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A book club for games that make you feel things 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For episode 4, we're talking about Indika (2025) - a strange, striking third-person adventure from Odd Meter set in an alternate 19th century Russia. We follow a nun with a distinctly ungodly inner voice, meet an escaped convict who swears he can hear God, climb an impossibly huge fish factory, and ask a lot of very uncomfortable questions about sin, guilt and free will. With its clash of gritty realism and pixel-art flashbacks, unsettling sound design, and a plot that left all four of us with more questions than answers, Indika is the kind of game that stays with you long after the credits roll. So. Is Indika a beautiful game?

⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for Indika throughout, including discussion of violence, murder, sexual assault, and mental health.

Listen with caution if you haven't played! (Indika is available on Steam, PS5 and Xbox for around £20 - also currently on Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra. About 4-5 hours of gameplay, more if that furnace puzzle beats you the way it beat us)

Host: Angel

Guests: Alannah, Mike and Lale

Game: Indika (2025), by Odd Meter

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

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This is our second ever minisode, recorded at SXSW London in June 2026. In this quickfire chat, Conor, Jane, Lale and Maria Sayans, CEO of ustwo games share three beautiful British games that have left an impact on them.

✨ The three games featured in this episode:

🎮 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice by Ninja Theory: https://store.steampowered.com/app/414340/Hellblade_Senuas_Sacrifice/

🎮 Thank Goodness You're Here by Coal Supper: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366980/Thank_Goodness_Youre_Here/

🎮 Everybody's Gone To The Rapture by The Chinese Room: https://store.steampowered.com/app/417880/Everybodys_Gone_to_the_Rapture/

Huge thanks to the team at SXSW for their support, and enabling us to chat about some beautiful games!

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What is the Beautiful Games Club?

It's like a book club, but for games 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

---

Hosts: Conor, Jane, Lale and Maria

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

It's like a book club, but for games 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For episode 3, we're talking about The Berlin Apartment - a narrative anthology from Blue Backpack Games set across a century of life in a single flat. We throw paper planes over the Berlin Wall, help an old man pack a very important suitcase, navigate a spaceship (badly), and ask the question: what would you leave behind?

With its comic book-inspired visuals, genre-hopping storytelling, and a habit of making you google German history at midnight, The Berlin Apartment is the kind of game that turns a renovation project into something quite profound.

So. Is The Berlin Apartment a beautiful game?

⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for The Berlin Apartment throughout.

Listen with caution if you haven't played! (It's available on Steam, PS5 and Xbox for around £21 - about 4 hours of gameplay, more if you struggle with paper planes)

Host: Angel

Guests: Alannah, Lale and MikeGame: The Berlin Apartment (2025), by Blue Backpack Games.

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

Follow the Beautiful Games Club:

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It's like a book club, but for games. 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you — emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For episode 2, we're talking about Poco - a 2025 indie gem from student developers Whalefall. We investigate balloon animal murders, join a band, and spend way too long trying to catch a very tricky fish. With its gorgeous hand-drawn 2D world, charmingly nostalgic 3D character models, and a soundtrack we honestly can't stop thinking about, Poco is the kind of game that makes you wonder how a student team pulled it off (and then makes you a little annoyed that they did it this well).

Oh, and did we mention it's COMPLETELY FREE

So. Is Poco a beautiful game?

⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for Poco (2025) throughout. Listen with caution if you haven't played! (But just go play it cuz it's free)

Host: Angel

Guests: Alannah, Lale and Mike

Game: Poco (2025), by Whalefall. Published by Micah Boursier.

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.

Follow the Beautiful Games Club:

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Instagram

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BlueSky

Join the conversation on Discord

Get monthly updates with our Newsletter.

It's like a book club, but for games 🎮

The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.

For our first ever minisode, we're doing something a little different. Recorded live on stage at New Games Plus as part of London Games Fest, Conor, Jane, Lale and Mike share four games they played at the event that stopped them in their tracks - games that caught their eye, captured their heart, or simply looked unlike anything else on the show floor.

✨ The four games featured in this episode:

🎮 The Day I Became A Bird by Hyper Luminal Games LTD: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3120030/The_Day_I_Became_a_Bird/

🎮 Find Your Words by Capybara Games: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2971960/Find_Your_Words/

🎮 Wax Heads by Patattie Games: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2769240/Wax_Heads/

🎮 Nippets by Blink Industries: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4151830/Nippets_A_Hidden_Object_Game/

If any of these caught your eye too, go show them some love!

Hosts: Conor, Jane, Lale and Mike

The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.