Moving Pixels Podcast

This Is the Police is a police management sim boiled about as hard as they come.

This week we take a look at the themes and politics of the game.

Reminiscent of text adventures and experiments with natural language processing, Event [0] is a game that feels both modern and retro. It's a game that forces the player into a relationship with an AI, becoming an exploration of both identity and language itself.

This week we explore the game's experiment with language as a form of gameplay.

As is our tradition, this year we count down our top five games of 2016. Spoiler alert: there's a whole lot of indies and oddities on this list.

Following our discussion of last year's smash cut heavy Virginia, the Moving Pixels podcast decided to take a look back at one of Virginia's gaming inspirations, Thirty Flights of Loving.

This week the podcast looks at the avant-garde games of indie developer Blendo Games.

Virginia is a surrealist crime procedural set in a state adjoining the seat of American power, Washington D.C.

This week we discuss how Virginia explores themes of power, corruption and identity through its cinematic gameplay.

Following up on our discussions of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, we are now discussing the slow burn sci fi horror of Soma.

Soma considers philosophical questions concerning the relationship between the body and the mind, a topic we dive into head first this week.

Following up on our discussion from last week of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, this week we discuss that game's follow up A Machine for Pigs.

Machine for Pigs was handed off from Frictional Games to The Chinese Room. As a result, we consider how the new developer handles a classic property and reconsiders what kind of horror the Amnesia franchise can offer.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was one of the more well regarded games of 2010, but we recently discovered that none of our regular Moving Pixels podcasters had played it at the time.

So, this week we catch ourselves up and take a look at one of the most critically acclaimed horror games of the past ten years, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, discussing (among other things) its unique approach to provoking horror and player vulnerability along with its commitment to environmental storytelling.

The Deed's conceit is that it is a murder mystery in reverse, a kind of anti-procedural, in which you plot a crime, rather than solve it.

By playing The Deed we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of inhabiting the mind of a murderer. This week, we consider the implications of this role reversal.

Love it or hate it, No Man's Sky was one of the most anticipated game releases of the year.

This week, Nick Dinicola and Erik Kersting consider the possible successes and perceived failures of No Man's Sky.