Kritiqal Care

Karin Malady (any/all pronouns) is a writer, poet, and occultist interested in the relationship between art and audience. Recently, they’ve contributed writing to apocalyptic photography game, Dear Future (Dear Future Production Committee, 2021), and videogame flesh realm DEEP HEEL DOT COM. In this especially free wheeling episode, we talk about growing up on the internet, metafiction, being Tony Hawk, and provoking readers.

You can find Karin on Twitter @SweetNAwful, and explore their many creative endeavors on their personal site.

Karin’s Cool People to Shoutout

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Somehow, we’re at the end of 2021. It has been a strange, unpleasant, unpredictable year, but you know as much already. I won’t belabor the point as if we haven’t all been living with the same uncertainty, but I do want to say thank you for listening/reading/being part of KRITIQAL. The community that has grown around the site, the contributors I’ve been able to commission, and the friend’s I’ve made along the way have been so hugely important to me not spiraling off into the void. It is perhaps the smallest bit of hope to cling to, but I cling to it either way.

Please enjoy this compilation of the moments that meant something to this year’s guests. They are varied and surprising, and I am so glad to be able to share them with you. Happy holidays!

Featuring

Taylor McCue | Colin (melessthanthree) | Nem (Sandy Pug Games) | Nilson Carroll | Kat (Pixel A Day) | Nathan Blades | Kevin Wong | Shane Yach | Jeff Chiao | Yaffle (lowpolis) | Jeremy Couillard

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Breogán Hackett (she/they) is an indie dev, community organizer, and creator of low-res horror anthology, The Haunted PS1. She set aside some time from Halloween spooks to talk about how The Haunted PS1 got started, moving beyond the Playstation, and forcing players to get lost. A likely contender for most games mentioned in an episode, and all good ones at that (a hearty recommendation for Bleakshore if you’ve yet to play it).

You can find Breogán’s many, many games on itch and follow them on Twitter @BreoganHackett. You can learn more about The Haunted PS1 on Twitter @HauntedPs1.

Breogán’s Cool Thing to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Xalavier Nelson Jr. (he/him) is a prolific videogame writer, producer, and internet poster, working on everything from An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs (Strange Scaffold, 2021) to Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator (Strange Scaffold, upcoming). He took some time away from creating every videogame to walk through how he moved from games criticism to development, the challenge and necessity of figuring out what you enjoy creating, and the existential dark comedy of a drunk puppy.

You can follow Nelson on Twitter @WritNelson, and find a sample of his games on itch.

Xalavier’s Good Thing to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Heather Flowers (they/she) is the non-existent creator of EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER, a post-apocalyptic visual-novel beat-em-up about gay disasters meat mechs fighting facists. They didn’t join me on this episode to recap MEATPUNK’s origins as a spontaneous collection of sounds, adapting the series into tabletop form, and rejecting apocalyptic cynicism. I cannot stress this enough: Heather Flowers does not exist and therefore could not have been on this episode.

If Heather Flowers did exist, you could follow her @HTHRFLWRS and play her games on itch.

What Heather Flowers Good Thing Would Be, If They Existed

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Naphtali Faulkner (he/him), AKA Veselekov, is the creator of IGF Grand Prize winning photography game, Umurangi Generation (ORIGAME DIGITAL, 2020). In this extra long episode, Naphtali elaborates on origins of Umurangi, confronting liberal apathy, and the hunger people have for explicitly leftist art. Many detours into Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019) are made along the way.

You can play Umurangi Generation on Steam and Switch, and follow Naphtali @Veselekov.

Napthali’s Fun Things to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Jeremy Couillard (he/him) is an artist and professor, whose games JEF (2020) and Fuzz Dungeon (2021) explore the weird, uncomfortable, and inexplicable aspects of life through humor and alien surrealism. In this episode, Jeremy details how he started creating games out of a frustration with animation, the importance of loitering in digital spaces, and finding community in alt games.

You can play Jeremy’s games on itch and Steam, and follow them @jeremycouillard.

Jeremy’s Inspiring Thing to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Rayzones (they/them) and Yaffle (she/they) make up indie studio lowpolis, creators of cute games with surreal insides. In this episode we explore the inspiration for lowpolis’ latest game, co-open (2021), discus the complex politics surrounding “wholesome games,” and appreciate the most fundamental videogame act: crawling through vents. Closing out the show, I once again confess my shame of having not played some very good games.

You can follow lowpolis @lowpolis, @rayzones, and @Yafffle. Their games are available on itch.

lowpolis’ Good Things to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Ryan Rose Aceae (he/they) is a visual novelist whose games explore the messy, sometimes monstrous dynamics of queer identity through surreal characters and earnest writing. In this episode he recounts his nontraditional route into making queer games, collaborating with Heather Flowers on GENDERWRECKED (2017), and the necessity of complex and challenging queer art. Finally, Ryan ends the show with a surprise package from a friend.

You can play Ryan’s games on itch and follow them @gendervamp.

Ryan’s Nice Thing to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.

Jeff Chiao (they/them) is an indie game producer, designer, and rhythm game enthusiast currently working on upcoming rhythm action title, UNBEATABLE (D-Cell Games). They took some time away from production to discuss UNBEATABLE’s long pre-production, the importance of embedding composers within the dev process, and the thriving indie rhythm game scene. Then Jeff closes the show with an enthusiastic recommendation for Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Greg Lobanov, 2021).

You can follow Jeff @comet_melting and play the demo for UNBEATABLE on Steam and itch.

Jeff’s Inspiring Thing to Share

Things Discussed

Kritiqal Care is produced by me, Nate Kiernan, with music by Desired. It's available on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a loved one and supporting Kritiqal on Ko-Fi.