Moving Pixels Podcast

This month, Nick and Eric talk about the epic and dense high concept sci-fi/fantasy of Torment: Tides of Numenera and end with an important announcement about the future of the podcast.

Nick and Eric got sent to detention and missed Halloween, but they escaped their classroom just in time to talk about the Taiwanese horror game Detention.

This week, Nick and Eric dig into the detective point-and-click text adventure A Case of Distrust, and investigate what makes it good, but not great.

This week we discuss self-consciousness, self-identification, and awful puzzle design in The Fall: Part 2 - Unbound.

This week Nick and Eric discuss The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, and how its status as a prequel/promo for Life Is Strange 2 makes it less awesome.

This month Nick and Eric discuss the economics of robot sentience in Subsurface Circular and the tricky trust issues of alien first-contact in Quarantine Circular.

This week, Nick and Eric discuss the optimistic and mythic post-post-apocalypse of Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Nick and Eric brave the depths of Helheim to talk about the art, craft, and representation of psychosis in 'Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice'.

This month, Nick and Eric spend a Night in the Woods facing down the cosmic horrors of economic disenfranchisement.

This week, Nick and Eric take up arms in order to free America from the Nazi regime, and occasionally talk about Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.

Nick and Eric count down their top seven games of 2017, and look back at what was a pretty great year for gaming.

This week, Nick and Eric talk about the joy and frustration of killing Nazis in Wolfenstein: The New Order.

This week, Nick and Eric talk about the cyberpunk, blue collar future of Tacoma.

This week, Nick and Eric discuss the religious fantasy basketball of Pyre.

This week, the Moving Pixels podcast delves into the experimental horror text adventure anthology Stories Untold.

This week, Nick and Eric dive deep into the cursed family history of the Finch family.

This week Nick and Eric complete their trip to the borderlands of Pandora.

This week Nick and Eric travel into space and plan an elaborate heist to steal Tales from the Borderlands - Episode 4.

This week Nick and Eric finishing discussing 'Knee Deep' by asking if a game can be so bad it's good.

This week Nick and Eric are joined by Max Bernard of YouTube's 'Great Levels of Gaming' to talk about giant mechs, the intelligence level of artificial intelligence, and of course some great level design.

We've reached the middle of Telltale's effort to blend the point-and-click adventure with a First Person Shooter.   This week we discuss more hijinks from Tales from the Borderlands

This week the Moving Pixels podcast begins a three-part discussion of Knee Deep, a "swamp noir" we all agree has a great setting. However, we can't agree on much more than that.

This week the Moving Pixels podcast continues a five-part discussion of Telltale Games' Tales from the Borderlands.   So, our foray into the adventure-game-style version of the Borderlands continues.

Often regarded as one of the best adventure games of the 1990s, Full Thottle is a classic that mixes the violence and bravado of biker culture with the careful logic of the adventure game.

This week the Moving Pixels podcast begins a five-part discussion of Telltales' Tales from the Borderlands.   Tales from the Borderlands tests whether or not Telltale's conversation-driven adventure game can work as a comedy.

Finji's Night in the Woods is one of this year's most talked about indie games.   This week the Moving Pixels podcast takes a look at the precursor to that game, Lost Constellation.

It's easy to think that we would never be complicit with the dictates of an authoritarian regime, but Beholder reveals how complicated such choices can become.

This week, Nick and Eric play the long awaited The Last Guardian. Does the game live up to our expectations? What were our expectations? Is Trico more of a cat-bird or a dog-bird? We consider these questions and more in this episode.

This week we talk about the unusual card game/roguelike Reigns and how it reduces politics to a left or right swipe.

It's back to the '80s with Steve Jackson's Sorcery!. This week we consider how a game book fares as a video game.

This Is the Police is a police management sim boiled about as hard as they come.   This week we take a look at the themes and politics of the game.

Reminiscent of text adventures and experiments with natural language processing, Event [0] is a game that feels both modern and retro. It's a game that forces the player into a relationship with an AI, becoming an exploration of both identity and language itself.   This week we explore the game's experiment with language as a form of gameplay.

As is our tradition, this year we count down our top five games of 2016. Spoiler alert: there's a whole lot of indies and oddities on this list.

Following our discussion of last year's smash cut heavy Virginia, the Moving Pixels podcast decided to take a look back at one of Virginia's gaming inspirations, Thirty Flights of Loving.   This week the podcast looks at the avant-garde games of indie developer Blendo Games.

Virginia is a surrealist crime procedural set in a state adjoining the seat of American power, Washington D.C.   This week we discuss how Virginia explores themes of power, corruption and identity through its cinematic gameplay.

Following up on our discussions of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, we are now discussing the slow burn sci fi horror of Soma.   Soma considers philosophical questions concerning the relationship between the body and the mind, a topic we dive into head first this week.

Following up on our discussion from last week of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, this week we discuss that game's follow up A Machine for Pigs.   Machine for Pigs was handed off from Frictional Games to The Chinese Room. As a result, we consider how the new developer handles a classic property and reconsiders what kind of horror the Amnesia franchise can offer.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was one of the more well regarded games of 2010, but we recently discovered that none of our regular Moving Pixels podcasters had played it at the time.   So, this week we catch ourselves up and take a look at one of the most critically acclaimed horror games of the past ten years, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, discussing (among other things) its unique approach to provoking horror and player vulnerability along with its commitment to environmental storytelling.

The Deed's conceit is that it is a murder mystery in reverse, a kind of anti-procedural, in which you plot a crime, rather than solve it.   By playing The Deed we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of inhabiting the mind of a murderer. This week, we consider the implications of this role reversal.

Love it or hate it, No Man's Sky was one of the most anticipated game releases of the year.   This week, Nick Dinicola and Erik Kersting consider the possible successes and perceived failures of No Man's Sky.

As is our habit on the podcast, we occasionally like to sample what is going on in the free-to-play gaming.   This week we discuss three games available on Steam, A Date in the Park, Mandagon, and The Lion's Songs as examples of lowbrow, middle brow, and high brow offerings within the free-to-play market.

Fans of Kentucky Route Zero have waited two years for the penultimate chapter in the episodic game series.   This week we discuss the slow winding journey of The Mucky Mammoth down the Echo River, the slow dissolve of the game's former protagonist, and speculate on where this journey to 5 Dogwood Drive will end.

While the mania has begun to ebb in the remaining days of summer, Pokemon Go was the biggest gaming event of the last two months, both a cultural and cross cultural phenomenon.   While our own experiences of the game are localized, this week we discuss our own experiences with Pokemon Go and how they may reflect on the larger phenomenon surrounding its release.

Inside is Playdead's follow up to the now cult classic Limbo.   The game is haunting, both in its beauty and in its presentation of body horror, exploring collectivism and control through its weird world and silent protagonist. This week we attempt to get under the hood and toy around with what lurks beneath its often inscrutable surface.

Jotun arrived quietly last year, but the game is all about going big, reveling as it does in grandiosity and big, big boss fights.   This week we discuss Jotun's presentation of Norse mythology through scale and grandeur.

This week the Moving Pixels podcast returns to search for treasure with the rogue with a heart of gold, Nathan Drake.

This week we discuss the minimalistic combat of One Finger Death Punch. We discuss the game, but our conversation also strays into a discussion of the design philosophy of Silver Dollar Games, punk game design, and video games that troll their players.

SUPERHOT isn't the first reconsideration of the first person shooter, but its slow motion violence and methodical approach to murder certainly has made an impression.

Too often video game critics find themselves responding to cinematic versions of video game properties, from Super Mario Bros. to Tomb Raider. Hardcore Henry, however, gives us a chance to consider not how well a video game translates to film, but how well a video game experience and a video game point of view translates to film.

This week we delve into the smartly written, character-driven story of Oxenfree, an early 2016 adventure game release. From high school drama to ghostly hauntings, we peel back the layers of this simple, but elegantly designed indie release.

Firewatch was developed by game development veterans associated with Telltale's The Walking Dead and with the popular indie Mark of the Ninja. Set in Shoshone National Park in 1989, it tells the story of a newly recruited fire lookout named Henry, a man looking to escape from his recent past.   This week we discuss Henry and his experiences in this lonely role alongside the growing intimacy he develops with another lookout, a woman named Delilah. We consider the beautiful world that Campo Santo has built for Henry to explore and the way that the game explores human relationships through Henry's experiences within that world.