by Angharad Redden | Feb 23, 2023 | Reviews, Video Games
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…)
Angharad Redden is a freelance games journalist from Wales who focuses on representation in video games. When she’s not gaming or writing about games, she can be found by the nearest dog.
You can find them Tweeting over at @reddens_ where she will probably be screaming over the latest Bioshock news.
by Evelyn Grey | Feb 13, 2023 | Reviews
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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Evelyn Grey is a media critic, cryptid, and Forever DM. She writes at the intersection of queer experience, class, and games.
You can find them tweeting at a brick wall over at @Sidereal_Star. When not speaking to inanimate objects, she’s probably retweeting Pokémon fan art and game news.
by Zainabb Hull | Jan 10, 2023 | Mobile Games, Reviews, Video Games
Teacup is a young frog, and she really loves tea. In fact, Teacup, a chill narrative game from developer Smarto Club, opens with the titular frog preparing to host a tea party, only to discover she is fresh out of tea (and several other supplementary ingredients)! That’s where the player comes in, taking control of Teacup as she ventures out into the world to get what she needs for her party. (more…)
Zainabb Hull is an editor at Sidequest, a freelance writer and videographer, and sort-of artist. They’re also a trans, queer, and disabled brown femme. They tweet into the void at @ZainabbHull.
by Nyasha Oliver | Jan 2, 2023 | Opinion, Reviews, Video Games
Like many people, Bratz was a staple in my childhood and teenage years. Owning the first edition Cloe doll in 2001, watching the Starrin ‘n’ Stylin’ film in 2004 and dancing to the Space Angelz music video in 2005 and playing the original PS2 games, in particular Rock Angelz, Forever Diamondz, and The Movie in 2007 was somewhat revolutionary for me. (more…)
Nyasha Oliver (she/her) is a full-time writer, part-time reader. She runs her own spicy food blog, Nyam with Ny and finds peace playing RPG games in her spare time. Her next trip is pending but it will likely be somewhere in Asia. It’s best to tweet her at @aoispice, for all things on gaming, food, travelling and books.
by Elvie Mae Parian | Oct 20, 2022 | Reviews, Video Games
Sidequest was provided with an early access copy of Lords and Villeins for the PC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Different types of management simulation games can have steep learning curves because they all have widely different rules in how their respective systems work. Competitive grand strategy games like Crusader Kings and Stellaris explore completely different genres, while something as simple as the premise of a basic city-builder is taken into two different directions between something like the casual, easygoing SimCity and the more detail-intensive Anno 1800. (more…)
Elvie somehow finds bliss in purposefully complicating the art of storytelling and undertaking the painful practice of animation. If you see her on Twitter at @lvmaeparian, she is doing neither of those things. She currently helps with managing the socials to ensure that the secret recipe will never be revealed.
by Melissa Brinks | Oct 13, 2022 | Reviews, Video Games
Horror games are not my genre. It’s hard for me to not feel an intense fear because games ask us to participate in them, and my participation usually involves involuntarily throwing my controller across the room at the first jump scare. There was a chance that The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, a point and click adventure developed by Cloak and Dagger and published by Wadjet Eye Games, would be the same; I’d dabble in the folk horror aesthetics, but one ghoulish face popping onto the screen or one perfectly timed scare chord and I’d be in the market for a new laptop. Thankfully, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow’s embracing of the folk horror slow burn, its reserved frightening imagery, and its involved but not overly complex puzzles kept me enraptured the whole way through. (more…)
Melissa Brinks is Sidequest’s editor in chief, co-creator of the Fake Geek Girls podcast, author of The Compendium of Magical Beasts, and an aspiring beekeeper. She once won an argument on the internet, and tweets at @MelissaBrinks.
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