Sunday is for getting up early and testing that the legs are still in working order after perhaps overdoing it with a cross-country ride. All week, going up the stairs was a real struggle, as if the muscles contained only vapors of energy. Just a little test ride in the woods to see if everything is okay.
Then, inevitably, when I collapse into bed, it will be time to settle in to some heavy reading. Exercise for the old noggin, you know?
On Aftermath, Brenda Romero has published a beautiful piece of playable literature, a memoir. A life story told through the overlaps of history within a house. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll share a little earlier in the story, but I sat down to take a look at Chasing Lilacs and found myself captivated until the end.
3) Front door. The space inside the front door may be called entryway or foyer, but these words seem larger than the space, which is why it is called “the front door.”
a) If you are two years old, your father greets your older sister’s date at the door. He hands her a lead pipe and says, “Bend it and you can get my daughter out.” The young man struggles with the pipe, cannot bend it, and returns it to your father, saying, “I don’t think that’s possible, sir.” Your father takes the pipe, bends it into a U with his powerful arms, his muscles worked by a lifetime of work, and returns it to the young man. Closing the door, he returns to the living room and sits down in front of the TV. Your sister, mortified, rushes to the front door to try to explain her father’s strange sense of humor.
The Guardian has started their annual summer games preview series. These short, 500-word dives into upcoming games were a delicious challenge to write as a freelancer. Developers can be so generous with their time that it’s easy to overload an element with their words and lose sight of the details of the game. James Nouch’s article on the upcoming Carcass Clad game from Mouthwashing developer Wrong Organ shows how to do it well.
When you’re considering a sequel to something so relentlessly nasty, how do you raise the stakes? Well, you could set the entire game in the sweltering crew compartment of a heavily armored tank, a coffin-like interior that you share with two other players as you cooperatively attempt to pilot your beleaguered war machine to safety through the ruined remains of a city in enemy territory.
While there’s undoubtedly some tonal overlap, the roaring engine that powers Carcass Clad is gameplay rather than storywriting. “In Mouthwashing, everything we did was about bringing that script to life in every way possible,” says gameplay lead Tomec. “Every gameplay sequence, everything you do in every moment is just there to make this story successful. And Carcass Clad is fundamentally not that kind of game. It’s a gameplay-driven experience.”
While our sweet Callum fell in love with Beast of Reincarnation during his review, at Remap, Patrick Klepek and Rob Zacny explore why his ‘in-between world’ can provide pleasure. Not that it conflicts with Callum’s feelings, but rather that it explores how not Reviewing a game can open it up to be enjoyed.
I’m bringing this up because of the time I’m spending with a new video game this week, Beast of Reincarnation. It’s an unambitious action game from Game Freak, the developers of Pokémon, that rarely transcends its influences. A special girl in a corrupt world destined to save it. A fun, if repetitive, combat system that owes a lot to Devil May Cry and From Software. A world both too big and too small, largely devoid of things to do.
It is, by all definitions, the middle. 7/10. Whatever you want to call it. But Rob, I’m enjoying my time with this. It’s not great. It’s mostly good. This pleasure might have an expiration date, a joy that drains away long before the credits roll. (These games tend to be 10 hours too long and I tend to preemptively burn out by spending too many feathers throughout the world.)
To mark ten years since the release of No Man’s Sky, Sean Murray spoke to Eurogamer about the game’s journey from its tumultuous release to its current ascendancy.. However, as you can read below, Murray disagrees with this framing.
No Man’s Sky’s launch in August 2016 was of course controversial, but the first signs of a revival came a few months later. when Hello Games released the Foundation updateadding a base building and more. From the inside, has there ever been such an obvious turning point? “The beautiful story is that there’s this redemption arc, this comeback,” Murray responds, “and there would be some sort of inflection point for the team; like, ‘Oh, we were doing things one way, and then we learned this important lesson, and now we’re doing things a different way.'”
But that’s not really accurate, he continues. “It’s not really the story of No Man’s Sky and the story of the team… This team is incredible and has always been incredible; I’m very proud of what they’ve put out. I’m very proud of what they’re doing now, and they’ve always been this team that has cared so much about this game and the community. And I think that shines through.”
Let’s move on to a heavier subject, Game Developers’ Bryant Francis investigated sexual harassment allegations made against three independent horror game publishers. – including Mouthwashing publisher Critical Reflex – and what changes have been made within the companies.
On December 14, 2025, the former Critical reflex community manager Evelina Zemljic uploaded a video on YouTube accusing two people of mistreating her during her tenure at the company: CEO Rita Lebedeva and her former colleague Ted Hentschke, now CEO and co-founder of a Polish horror publisher Black Lanterns Collective.
His video sent shockwaves through the growing world of indie horror as other developers and gaming industry professionals came forward with similar allegations. These claims went beyond Critical Reflex (known for releasing horror hits like Mouthwash), some accusing Hentschke of having sexually harassed them while he was production manager at Dread X Collection editor Dread XP.
It’s been eight months. None of these companies have ever issued public statements. This leaves developers and accusers wondering: Have Hentschke or Lebedeva been held responsible for their alleged behavior?
And to end on a lower note, I have at times been obsessed and deliberately disengaged with the news of wildfires in Europe. This year seems to mark a knot in the fabric that cannot be smoothed out. The years of warnings have passed and we will now feel the increasing heat year after year. Writing for the LRB, Jeremy Harding discusses the numerous warnings and canceled fire safety programs in France which exacerbated the recent fires.
This year, four firefighters lost their lives across France. They and their fighting comrades are rightly praised by politicians and the media for their endurance. But anger is brewing in the ranks over the reluctance of bureaucrats to update their equipment. In 2024, Macron’s Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal (in power for nine months), canceled a central government loan that would have allowed firefighters to benefit from new amphibious firefighting aircraft. There are currently twelve planes, but when the fires broke out this summer, only seven or eight were in service. By the end of July, eleven were worthy of a mission.
These Canadairs, beasts of burden – known in France as pelicans – are put to the test on each outing and require intensive maintenance. Ground staff and pilots insist that the engines must be replaced regularly. In July, the Interior Minister assured the public that a dozen spare engines were fully serviced and ready to operate. In fact, nine engines were still in the workshops. Currently, the French Canadair fleet has two spare engines. It is supported by nine DHC Dash planes – most spraying fire retardants – and this year by Black Hawk helicopters, courtesy of the Czech Republic.
So how to finish, how to finish? What music to share? Last weekend I was traveling north, passing train stations I hadn’t visited in years. With that in mind, how about a little Vashti Bunyan? No? And some Elbow? I still don’t have your speed, I have exactly what you need: Steve Reich.
