It’s a refrain that pounds inside my head, driving me onward far past my normal limits of difficulty and sleep deprivation. Deeper. Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons […]
Author: Jacob Geller
Capitalist present, collective future: Labor in Night in the Woods and Tacoma
Major spoilers for Tacoma and minor spoilers for Night in the Woods follow in Jacob Geller’s look at the employee’s sometimes unenviable lot – both […]
Door Kickers: Action Squad
Jacob Geller reviews PixelShard‘s Door Kicker: Action Squad. From a detached, design-only perspective, Door Kickers: Action Squad does very little wrong. It’s a pixel-y throwback […]
What Remains of Edith Finch and the friendly shadow of death
In which Jacob Geller ponders gaming’s inextricably intertwined relationship with our inevitable expiration. NB: Spoilers beyond. We recommend that you play through What Remains of […]
Flashing before his eyes: The nature of time in Gorogoa
Jacob Geller attempts to unravel Gorogoa’s knottiest riddle. NB: Spoilers beyond. We recommend that you play through Gorogoa before reading this piece. Gorogoa initially feels […]
What never lived cannot die: Alienation, architecture, and NaissanceE
Jacob Geller explores another otherworldly environment, this time that of Limasse Five‘s “obscure and magical first person exploration game”, NaissanceE There’s a moment in NaissanceE, […]
A planet of my own: Subnautica and the meaning of ‘survival’
Jacob Geller explains how he found himself rapt by Subnautica’s alluring undersea environs. Eight years ago or so, I sunk literally hundreds of hours into […]
Jessica Curry and the walking simulator
Jacob Geller appreciates how important Jessica Curry’s compositions are to the first ‘walking simulator’ – Dear Esther. When I first played Dear Esther, I didn’t […]
Shadow of the past – Shadow of the Colossus then and now
Jacob Geller fondly recalls his first time with Shadow of the Colossus on PS2, and compares the memory of that to his perception of the […]
Interactivity, agency, and institutional oppression: Virginia’s relationship with control
Jacob Geller makes some observations regarding player agency – and the lack thereof – in one of the endings to Variable State’s Virginia. It was […]
A deeper kind of horror
The first level of the game INSIDE is a terrifying gauntlet of masked men, dogs, and dark woods. A half dozen narrow escapes and near-death […]
Five years of guilt with Spec Ops: The Line
Jacob Geller analyses the lasting impact of Yager’s traumatic third-person shooter, Spec Ops: The Line. It’s been five years since Spec Ops: The Line released. […]