The Four Best Romance Club Stories To Play First

The Four Best Romance Club Stories To Play First

Content note: this piece mentions suicide. This piece also contains minor spoilers for various Romance Club stories.

In 2019, I was scrolling through Apple’s App Store in search of an interactive story mobile game similar to Pixelberry’s Choices. I had wanted to play Choices since its conception, when I used to watch playthroughs of some of the stories on YouTube. However, my problem is that I’ve always found the diamond choices to be extremely expensive. I’m not interested in having to watch numerous ads and then wait for hours to mine for free diamonds, so I feel that I can’t fully enjoy the app’s stories. There have also been complaints from fans about how the quality of the app’s story outputs has been dwindling. In fact, I had tried playing another mobile game, Chapters: Interactive Stories, but found the stories badly written. (more…)

Monster Hunter Rise’s Character Creator Gives Me Gender Euphoria

Monster Hunter Rise’s Character Creator Gives Me Gender Euphoria

As a series, Monster Hunter has a lot to offer: challenging, punishing combat; fantastical, yet somewhat biologically justified creatures; and a massive selection of armour and weapons to be crafted from their body parts. Despite the games never veering far from these core elements since the first title in 2004, continuous adjustments and mechanical additions, such as Rise’s high-flying Wirebugs, have kept the series from ever feeling dated. However, one aspect of the series that often goes underappreciated is its character creator. (more…)

Let Me Tell You About My OC: Intari

Let Me Tell You About My OC: Intari

Did you ever have a character concept you loved, one that looked great on paper even, yet… nothing ever worked out? That’s Intari Ariabis, my tiefling warlock. When my friend (and Sidequest Editor in Chief) Missy decided a couple of years ago that she would start running a Dungeons & Dragons game for us, and that the game was going to be full of feywild bullshit, the concept for Intari snapped together, crystal clear in my head.

(more…)

February Roundtable: Wario and Waluigi

February Roundtable: Wario and Waluigi

This month, the month of love, we’re going to let you take a little peek behind the Sidequest curtain. For whatever reason, we rank quite highly for the search term “wario and waluigi,” which is not something we expected when we wrote “Wario and Waluigi: Who Are They, Anyway?” all those years ago. But because the Brothers Wario (if they are, in fact, brothers) keep driving traffic to our site, and because our other highest-ranked keyword is porn related, this month’s editorial meeting went A Certain Direction and Zora made us aware of this Wario and Waluigi body pillow (link NSFW). So what better way to honor the Brothers’ service to Sidequest than to make them this month’s icons to celebrate Valentine’s Day? (more…)

Get in the Car, Loser! Is an Unflinching Portrait of Anxiety

Get in the Car, Loser! Is an Unflinching Portrait of Anxiety

Get in the Car, Loser!, the latest game from Ladykiller in a Bind and Analogue: A Hate Story studio Love Conquers All Games, is about a lot of things. A fun queer road trip to kill a god. The thrill of fighting fascists and misogynists and transphobes with your hot friends and magic. And, most surprisingly to me, a subplot about anxiety that felt a bit like being read for filth by someone who really gets it. (more…)

Review: A Space for the Unbound Journeys Through the Mind Toward the Apocalypse

Review: A Space for the Unbound Journeys Through the Mind Toward the Apocalypse

A Space for the Unbound features themes such as depression, anxiety, domestic abuse, suicidal ideation, and animal death.

I find an old man huddled under a now-barren cherry tree as he racks his mind for the reason he’s there. As Atma, I approach him to see if I can help, but his memory is betraying him and he can’t remember. So I use my power of Spacedive to delve into his heart for answers and, in that reality, I find him as a boy. Together, we collect cherries from the now-flourishing tree. When we have enough, we split them, and it’s then that his brother appears—also a child. I realise that this is what the old man was forgetting—a childhood with his brother climbing the cherry trees. This is one of many stories that you find in A Space for the Unbound. (more…)

GYGO: Square Enix, Square Enix, Sony

GYGO: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

Welcome to Wednesday! My husband was out of town this weekend (more on that later) and I played roughly one thousand years of The Sims 4 in his absence. Since the last time I played, they seem to have added a mechanic that makes my sims unhappy because I don’t fulfill enough of their wishes and desires. Um, hello? This ain’t about you, Alexis and Michael. This is about me and my desire to have a beautiful Victorian-style home and chickens. I don’t care if you hate your job as a critic, we are going to build this damn house with your salary! Sorry about it!!

Anyway, here’s the news. (more…)