Bookwarm Games

Justin joins us to discuss the Dostoevsky book most people who ever read him read first--or if not Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground. Over the past year, we've read most of his major works, and we'll be back at some point with a discussion of The Brothers Karamazov.

Also mentioned: Mr Grenke's essay on Chekhov: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6171391c274812c5059f802de70a0351.pdf

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Back from summer break here at the Video Game Academy, and this time we delve into Lunatic Pandora, battling Fujin and Raijin, Mobile Type 8, Seifer, and Adel, crossing into Disc 4.

We have one more week to go in FFVIII. So what's next? Alex speculates about starting right over to play more cards. I'm thinking Tactics or FFIX would be the move. Let us know your thoughts!

For more FFVIII study resources, see https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

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Welcome to the return of Night School, a segment Alex and I had going for awhile back in the day reading and discussing classic literature. We're calling this installment Night School Pt Deux: The Ennightening.

With Babcock, our friend from St John's, we read/play and reread/replay Nabokov's Pale Fire.

Text: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.458629/page/n214/mode/1up?view=theater

Context:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/textcult.8.1.101?seq=1

https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=timonathens&Act=4&Scene=3&Scope=scene

https://newschoolnotes.blogspot.com/2018/12/organizing-night-school.html

For an unironic AI-written breakdown, see the YT version, whence this audio has been wrenched.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63U_uc8P0Q

That's where you can also find old discussions of Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, and many more on Alex's YT channel and Spotify (formerly Anchor).

Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon with a conversation on Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.

Approaching the end of disc 3, President/Dad Laguna has a plan! A corny, foolproof plan to overcome time compression with love, friendship, and courage!

For more, Ragnarok on over to https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

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Space romance and Ragnarok blasting "Eyes On Me".

For more, see https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

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On the space station built for keeping an eye on the moon and the sorceress in stasis, we get it.

Thanks for listening!

For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Laguna's making movie magic with a Ruby Dragon and rescuing Ellone in Esthar, while Squall carries Rinoa piggyback from the White SeeD Ship to that same futuristic city hidden by dragon bones in the salt lake.

Thanks for listening!

For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Boss rushes and aerial choreography above the melee, with pauses to discuss Squall's ring. Most challenging of all: playing cards with the random rules, stacked onto sames and plusses...

Ultimecia/ Artemisia makes her appearance, plotwise, along with Cerberus and Alexander in quick succession, and Rinoa goes into a coma after Seifer departs. Welcome to Disc 3.

Thanks for listening!

For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Back from our momentous side quest to Manchester, we debrief the Multiplatform 2025 Rituals of Play conference and share some takeaways.

See https://videogameacademia.org/2025/06/06/rituals-of-play-a-side-quest-to-manchester/ for more.

Next time, we'll dive back into FFVIII proper with the Garden Battle and mosey on to the end of Disc 2.

Thanks for listening!

For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Lengthy description of a trio of side quests (Shumi Village, Chocobo Forest, and Tonberry King) leads into reflections on Fujin and Raijin as foils to Squall and the team, busy with their own long conversations at last revealing lost memories on the broken basketball court of Trabia Garden.

Leapfrogged in release order by our episode 16 on Game Studies and Side Quests to make sure that one was out before the conference.

For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Thanks for listening