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

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…)

Review: Chasing Static Is A Spooky Faux-Retro Walk Through the Woods

Review: Chasing Static Is A Spooky Faux-Retro Walk Through the Woods

In Chasing Static, Chris Selwood is an everyman from northern Wales returning to his hometown of Hearth to attend his late father’s funeral. Dear old dad, in true horror game fashion, has left behind a single belonging for Chris: a cryptic and tattered journal filled with notes that seem like gibberish and missing pages. With his father buried and journal in-hand, Chris stops for late night coffee and directions at a diner when things predictably hit the fan and strand Chris in a Welsh forest. The journal left behind for Chris suddenly looks a lot less like gibberish and more like the notes of a scientist working for a secret government agency. In order to escape the rural forest at night and its secret government bunkers, Chris must re-live the traumatic relationship with his father that he has buried deep down and forgotten. Nothing heals family trauma like fungus from space.

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Unpacking: Our Lives in Boxes

Unpacking: Our Lives in Boxes

When I was young, I was always terrified of losing my worldly possessions to a fire. It wasn’t like I was in the areas that annually burst into flames (and much less so back then), but I’d become fixated on preparing for a blaze. I’d think about how I would wrap up all my stuffies and throw them out the window—completely assuming we’d grab the cat—and get out of dodge. The items I had accumulated in my life were as precious as the life itself. I feel a bit ashamed to admit this, but if you’ve moved around as much as I have, you may understand: it’s your life in those boxes. (more…)

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

GYGO: At This Point We Might As Well Call This Roundup “This Week in Layoffs”

Another week, another Wednesday! I haven’t been playing many games recently, though I did just try Horrified, a co-op monster-hunting board game. It was a lot of fun! The rules seem complex at first, but once you get into the groove of things it’s a lot of fun with flexible difficulty. We took Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon down on our first try, so you’re welcome for saving the world from a double monster menace.

Anyway, here’s the gaming news this week. (more…)

January Roundtable: Sequels

January Roundtable: Sequels

Every year in recent memory has felt like a sequel to the last. Literally, of course, in that time marches ever forward, but also thematically, if the real world can be said to have a theme. New year, same topics. We’re in year three of a sustained pandemic, capitalism continues to ruin everything, and every week is a fresh deluge of news about exploitation in the gaming industry. So what better topic for this cheery occasion of turning over the calendar than sequels? (more…)

Coffee Talk Brews Up Coziness with a Splash of Discomfort

Coffee Talk Brews Up Coziness with a Splash of Discomfort

Content note: this piece discusses racism and police brutality.

Now that I’ve started commuting to the office, most of my mornings are rigidly structured. I wake up at 6:00 a.m. and get up by 6:20, at which point I make my pourover. Depending on how motivated and quick I’m feeling on a given morning, this takes anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. I frequently joke that it takes me longer to make coffee than it does for me to put on my makeup and get dressed, which causes my husband to grimace and apologize. Over the last year or so, he has made brewing a good cup of coffee into a hobby, a hobby that I have since inherited. (more…)

Autistic Representation in Video Games

Autistic Representation in Video Games

I was eighteen when I was told I was on the autism spectrum. It was at that moment, sitting in that dimly lit doctor’s office, that many pieces of my life finally found their place. Suddenly those ‘weird’ things I did or those ‘abnormal’ reactions to things made sense, and for once, I felt a sense of acceptance for myself, by myself. Another thing that suddenly made sense was my ability to hyperfixate on things—especially video games. (more…)