Blog Archives

Afterlives

I think I would be an excellent ghost, which makes it all the sadder that I'm immortal.

Sometimes I think about the afterlife. Not the actual afterlife. I’m suspicious about the probability of any such thing. But the afterlife as it appears across faiths and cultures, as reflections of our lived values and fears.

Take Club Spooky and That’s the Spirit!, the forthcoming duo by Connor Wake, whose Out of Sorts was one of last year’s unanticipated (and overlooked) hits. These small-box titles present contrasting soteriological outcomes for our disembodied souls, one an endless celebration and the other an endless process of self-doubt. To my Manichaean mind, one of these afterlives must be paradise and the other purgatory. The only problem is that I can’t tell which is which.

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The Gooey Decimal System

I love how this game's alien captor is just some little dork. But be careful. He's like one of those bobble dudes who bounces back with ferocious force when you slug him.

Surprising absolutely nobody, this inveterate library-hopper actually knows and utilizes the Dewey Decimal System. Unfortunately for everybody else in the human race, especially those with a far more vibrant social life than myself, the existence of Melvil Dewey’s sorting method is the one thing our galaxy’s extraterrestrials have learned about us. Now a gang of disparate humans has been abducted to sort an alien library. Eep.

2024 has been an excellent year for memory games, if only thanks to the stupendous Wilmot’s Warehouse. Connor Wake’s Out of Sorts, which like Marceline Leiman’s High Tide will be available at next month’s Indie Games Market at PAX Unplugged, is proof that the genre still has a few unswept corners to explore.

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