Two Perspectives on Remember August

Two Perspectives on Remember August

In Shing Yin Khor’s Remember August, players exchange letters with a former friend who’s become unmoored in time. The live game was played by mail (or email, or digital files) in February 2022, with Khor sending out letters through the USPS that players could respond to and send back to themselves with the assurance that August, the recipient, would find and read them in their journeys through time. Rather than leaving randomness up to dice rolls or other typical game mechanics, Remember August used the postal service. Letters could arrive out of order or not at all, changing the narrative and the player’s response to it. (more…)

Review: No Longer Home Tenderly Examines Liminal Spaces

Review: No Longer Home Tenderly Examines Liminal Spaces

Sidequest was provided with a copy of No Longer Home for Mac in exchange for a fair and honest review.

No Longer Home is a game that popped into my awareness at a time of transition. I graduated from my MFA in May, I turned 30 in August, and for the next year, I’ll be writing full-time. There’s a certain amount of uncertainty in my life right now, and that sort of uncertainty, the type that appears when one’s in a liminal space, is at the center of No Longer Home.

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Take a Break With These 3 Short Games

Take a Break With These 3 Short Games

I am a very picky gamer. Last summer, when I purchased that giant, amazing game bundle for racial justice and equality on itch.io, I figured it’d be easy to take some time, scroll through and pick out a few things that worked with my interests. I’m usually only interested in dating sims and visual novels, the weirder and queerer the better. However, perusing through the 1,741 items in the bundle quickly became intimidating. Several months later I’ve only played a handful of games, and I get a bit tuckered out just scrolling through the giant list. (more…)

Review: Pixel Ripped 1989 Revises Revisionist Gaming History

Review: Pixel Ripped 1989 Revises Revisionist Gaming History

My first gaming console was a Game Boy Color my mother received in exchange for some nursing books when I was about eight years old. It was bundled with Super Mario Land and Donkey Kong, though I never managed to get very far in either. I was terrible at sidescrollers and platformers and lacked the patience needed to keep going each time I died. Over the years as I’ve traded up to different consoles and games graphics and mechanics have improved, I’ve avoided sidescrollers and platformers like the Castlevania series, convinced that I simply wasn’t good at them. (more…)

The Piano: A Review Of Sorts

The Piano: A Review Of Sorts

The Piano

Mistaken Visions
PC
Release Date: 2018

Note: Sidequest was provided with a copy of The Piano for PC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Piano, an adventure/survival horror indie game by one-man studio Mistaken Visions, could be great—but chances are I’ll never know. (more…)