• Galactic Cafe: Davey Wreden's blog post about The Stanley Parable
• The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and The Beginner's Guide - a truly amazing analysis video of The Beginner's Guide by Innuendo Studios on YouTube (33m)
• Errant Signal: The Beginner's Guide - another awesome breakdown analysis from the YouTube channel Errant Signal (20m) - watch this if you suspect Coda might be a real person

The theme this week is "The Func" by VCMG, a free download from chipmusic.org.
The Will's Quiz Minute(tm) theme is Linker, also by beloved Pauly! And we also hear his Unravishing!

Tune in with us next week for a talk about the emotional follow-up to this game, The Beginner's Guide. If you enjoyed this game, BG is a must-play from Wreden's own experience after the release of SP.

Relevant links!

• UPDATE! The Baby Game has been patched as of 2016/12!
• Jazzpunk by Necrophone Games, an absurdest alt-Cold War comedy game with a similar sense of humor to Stanley
• Way of the Samurai, an oldschool game about multiple endings
• The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, a textbook on game design
• yep, we talk about the Swiffer in this podcast

The theme this week is "The Func" by VCMG, a free download from chipmusic.org. Also from chipmusic, the WILL'S GAMING MINUTE(tm) theme is "Wienerhype" by jaar.

The theme this week is Linker, by our very own Pauly!

The theme this week is "Cracks" by Clamm, a free album download from chipmusic.org.

Join us in discussing the text version of a single Mass Effect side-mission, Mako-free, here in Drew Karpyshyn's debut prequel to Mass Effect.

Morality and shades of gray are front in center in this puzzle game, but transparency of choice is not; what you do may make be ethical but its outcomes vary wildly in the face of a political system so obfuscated as to be completely labyrinthine. Papers, Please does more to simulate the atmosphere of Soviet politik than even a good read of Solzhenitsyn, but that isn't just why it's popular: it's also a darn strong puzzle game.

Relevant links!

• Document types in the game
• Caustic Soda, a podcast about gruesome or weird stuff by lovable Canadians

Relevant games!

• The Westport Incident by Double Zero One Zero (the newspaper version of Papers, Please
• The Tomorrow Children by Q-Games
• Calm Down, Stalin by Cartboard Games (no, not Cardboard Computer)
• This War of Mine by 11 bit studios
• Ekranoplans, by Russia Itself, GiantBomb'd here
• The entire Metro series by 4A

The theme this week is "Duck Wings Going Down in Smoke and Flames" by Duck Boy, a free album download from chipmusic.org off of his new album Unknown Command. Also from chipmusic, the WILL'S GAMING MINUTE(tm) theme is, fittingly, "Wienerhype" by jaar.

Relevant links!

• Ellie Gibson of Eurogamer gets incredibly frustrated and reviews Eden
• John Walker of RPS, someone who "gets it", reviews Eden
• Maybe relevant to your ESJ interests: some gameplay of Crypt of the NecroDancer
• Maybe relevant to your Eden interests: Hohokum, a Phil Kollar Polygon review

Relevant music podcasts!

• The Anjunadeep Edition for good deep house, a bit more calm than Eden's soundtrack (a progressive house record label out of London)
• Resident Advisor (RA) podcast for getting into techno and more eclectic, less smooth, more worldly sounds
• The Monstercat podcast for slightly more energetic, upbeat sounds midway between the energy of these two OSTs (an upbeat trancey-dance record label out of Vancouver)

The theme this week is so incredible it couldn't be contained: "Voyage: Andromeda" by Jayster, from chipmusic.org. Also from chipmusic, the WILL'S GAMING MINUTE(tm) theme is, fittingly, "Wienerhype" by jaar. The song towards the end is from the ESJ official soundtrack, so go check that out!

The theme this week is a mildly jazzy and mildly chippy one: "Funk of Ages" by The Jazz Surgeon, from chipmusic.org. The ALBERTO'S HOT TIPS(tm) theme is Summon In The Sunlight from the fantastic YouTube video HAPPY SOULS, and it also makes a charming ringtone.

Listen along this week as we delve into a superindie hacking game with ridiculous open domain synthwave hacker soundtrack accompaniment as you hack fried chicken establishments and college records databases. It's fun, but only mildly dangerous, much to our chagrin.

Relevant links!

• RETICULATING SPLINES!
• Danger! High Voltage! by Electric Six

The theme this week is "Total Bae" by Brink, from chipmusic.org.