on the way to work notes/on the settee after work notes: 3 games

games finished in the past couple days leap year: the music from this platformer with a malicious approach to jumping is so delightful. i think that, in designing, this could have been more frustrating, but thankfully (for me) was just enough pressure to get me to persevere past the first ten minutes. the tightness of […]

FALLSTRUKTUR/Automaton Lung – notes on Platforming/Postmodernism

Fallstruktur (2025, PC): a free parkour type game from Stuffed Wombat, Fynn Levy & Rollin’ Barrel… reach the bottom without falling to your demise, across a set of paths, distinct in their shapes and texturing, tied together into a tower, a dream. great, simple and enthralling. criss cross in and out of environmental signification, and […]

foam (2012) & the quantum dream state.

i play the game Foam (download from mirror here) on the suggestion of my dear friend Bagenzo when you see the foam you are in the zone. quantum foam is the theory from the 1950s by John Wheeler that at a base level the universe is foamy rather than smooth. or something. fluctuations. if you […]

reflection on a pirate reality

i spent a month as a pirate ship operator. february-april, working on the spring holidays, about 4 weeks all told. on my internet with friends i call this pirate reality. start at 945. end at 445. most days. or 1045. some days. that’s between 6-7 hours. in march i had maybe 2 shifts. i had no […]

the killer bug game

there’s a killer bug waiting in a bin on the street. it’s like 2ft x 2ft x 1ft in its current orientation, kind of vertically sideways. in one of the other bins on the street is a hundred coins of gold. and in another one, another hundred gold coins. the question is. which one is […]

Down In Bermuda (2019): The Cozy Erasure of an Entire Territory

It should go without saying that any place and its people have place in the myriad histories of the world to be told, and an obvious important continuing condition in the life of everyone living there, and with ties there today. Bermuda, for instance is one such phenomenon. It is currently a British Overseas Territory. […]

We’re sorry for Tomb Raider, thank you for buying.

Start up Tomb Raider I-III Remastered (2024, Aspyr, pub. Crystal Dynamics, Embracer) and you’re met with a curious message. “The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and et hnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics. Rather […]

portal runner: beauty in abject reflection.

there is something very special and precious to me about certain objects. PlayStation 2 platformers of an excessive jank and sparseness. usually European. in my collection i’ve now completed three over a series of about 7 years. they are Evil Twin: Cyprien’s Chronicles, Gift, and now Portal Runner. Portal Runner is a game about Toys, […]