A game of 100 three-second one-button minigames. To me, Blake Andrews is one of the best there is at game feel — everything they do is so textured and tactile, and operating in a space that feels wholly its own. To play through this rapid-fire collection is to feel a vast range of textures and moods. Mostly the ideas are scattered and disconnected (in a good way!), though occassionally small ideas will build on each other (most notably in the Theo the Cat sequence, which I will not spoil here).

This is a game that feels difficult to put into words for me! Part of the game's urgency is in its vastness (100 games! all different!). It's quite striking to fly through so many ideas, similar to the effect of a one-take in film, or a diabolic etude in music: the artist's craft is so forcefully on display that you feel their presence in a way. There's an awe to what they've taken on and accomplished. But here that sense is coupled with a flippant irreverance. I feel each of these games is wonderful, but their strict three-second timer lops any "elegance" off as you stutter between ideas at a break kneck pace. More than this, there's an impossible charm to the scenes' quiet mundanity: sleeping cats, cash for gold billboards, dwindling soap dispensers. In the oft-talked-about age of instagramification where everything feels painted over and curated, it's a blessing to see the elevation of these forgotten moments.

But more than anything these games are a delight. Consistently funny, strange, surprising, it needs to be played to be felt (and I haven't even mentioned the music). Play it!

This was the "book club" game at Boshi's Place this month (we just play games and talk about it together) which means I finally got around to digging into it! Predictably amazing. The usual thecatemites' charms are here: derisive humor, biting satire, beautiful worlds, and beautiful sounds. The writing in this game is phenomenal. It's a literary style (very Pynchon-esque) that is so rarely employed in the games world, and is more "serious" or "classical" than what I'm used to for thecatemites' style (I've only played Magic Wand and 50 Short Games though so maybe my sense of their style is skewed).

What's most exciting to me about the game is its formal qualities: for one, its episodic nature is different from the usual games fare. Rather than breaking out one long story into a series of standalone acts, it really leans into the affordances of episodic structures to tell a much looser frame narrative. So far at least (4/9 episodes in), acts don't spill into each other, but feel more like paper layers laid atop one another, building mass iteratively through time spent in this world, with these characters. Its an exciting device to me lately (in the books world I've become enamored with the picaresque novel for similar reasons) and it's fun to see it employed here.

I'm also really in love with its mechanical structure. The game is more or less a walking sim, seeing you plumb the halls of deep red backrooms, folding itself open through simple navigation. But as you walk around you'll find small green eye icons which, when walked over, stamp out narrations at the bottom of the screen. The result is something like a marriage between a walking sim and a visual novel: tension and terror is built through menacing spaces you have to move through, but you also get the more nuanuced interiority something like a visual novel allows. I can't think of anything that feels quite like it (not least because its writing is so evocative, and cutting) and makes me excited to see more of these sorts of experiences pop up.

This last game isn't out yet, but can be wishlisted! The premise is "a turn-based tactics descent into the mind of god." Think Into the Breach where you descend between layers. The result is an incessant nail biter — you feel deliciously powerless in this game, and unlike most tactics games the goal is not to clear out the screen but to stay alive. A good turn never tips the balances into calm, but rather punches out an exhale held in the gut for too long. It's so fun, and makes for this constantly evolving dance: how far can I descend before it all catches up to me? Keep your eyes out for this one: I love it.

I wanted to give a shoutout for a game I didn't get a chance to play, but seemed great while watching. Last night I attended its launch party at Boshi's Place, and I'm keen to play it in my own time. You should too!

Okay it's not a game but I have been obsessing over it. Stunningly beautiful, and funny. George Eliot has an amazing capacity for reaching into the mind of a character with searching clarity. Everyone in this novel feels so alive, and complex, each one dotted with their own pecularities and hang ups. It has a sprawling cast, and it roams among the minds of all of them, never settling into a perspective, but placing each one alongside the others. The result is a novel that feels both vast and intimate, and it seems to be about everything: the eye-opening beauty, pain, and absurdity of being alive, and of sharing that life with those around us. I love this novel. I can't recommend it enough.