This Month On exp.
The exp. Game Awards 2025 / The exp. Culture Awards 2025
Took a little time off from the relentless grind of new articles to celebrate my favourites of the previous year. It gave me an opportunity to talk up Evil Egg in advance of me writing it up, because it’ll probably be a long time before I do—I’ve been busy and had to put it down for a while, so when I return to it I’ll have to grind my skills back up if I want to eventually beat the boss.
Hey, do you hate in-line advertising? We do too! We’re only ever going to do it here at the start of our newsletter posts because we want you to get these missives in your inbox a day early. Sorry!
Cheeky ad-blocker? Sign up here!
Subscriber Posts: Head On (Sega/Gremlin, 1979) / UFO 50 #3: Ninpek (Suhrke, 2024)
Head On piece is a really great example of the perils of self-publishing. I probably should have cut all the Sega Ages waffle and drilled down on the story of Lane Hauck, but absolutely no one is making me kill my darlings.
And in my latest UFO 50 subscriber exclusive, I really struggle with Ninpek. In later essays I’m going to be thinking a lot about difficulty when it comes to this collection, and I think it’s interesting to see how my feelings evolve as I face each game.
Unlocked Posts: Smash Ping Pong (Konami, 1987) / Consume Me (Hsia/Thompson, 2025)
I’d held onto that Smash Ping Pong article for a bit thinking I might like Marty Supreme enough that I could do a mild Ping Pong theme week, but I didn’t find Mary Supreme interesting enough to write more than a few words about it. However, Smash Ping Pong is great, I genuinely recommend it. Consume Me… not so much. Not throwing shade, but I really do wonder how far the IGF juries actually got in it. But then I suppose we all know that the Oscars are largely voted on by people who see the ballot on their kitchen island and mark down the people they recognize (Sean Penn??? Again??? Come on.)
From The exp. Archive: Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Good-Feel, 2010) / Crossy Road (Hipster Whale, 2014) / Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft, 2008) / Doug Dug. (The Electric Toy Company, 2014)
I finally get into 2015 with the exp. archive, and it’s interesting how much I played mobile games at this time, which I basically don’t do at all now—outside of the vice of a daily Puzzmo mini crossword, which just feels like something else entirely.
exp. Du Cinéma
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2026) / F1 (2025)
A movie that warns us of the completely soulless slop future that tech companies want and a completely soulless streaming slop movie produced by a tech company. Huh.
Also reviewed: No Other Choice (2025) / Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026) / Hoppers (2026) / Memory Run (1995) / Black Mamba (2016)
Zine News
The Atomic Elbow Issue 40
“Do you like wrestling? Are you sure? Did you maybe really like it once and now you’re trying to figure out why you aren’t as jazzed about it but also you found a copy of the American Wrestling Association’s 1998 pay-per-view SuperClash III and so you watched it to see how it felt and then you wrote about it but didn’t fully address the issues tied up with how you feel but you’d written a long thing so you published it anyway? I did.”
Hmm, that’s all I had bookmarked this month. Be sure to get in touch if you’ve got a zine that you’re trying to publicise!
And Finally…
TOJam 2026 has been announced! May 8-10th, with registration opening on April 2nd.
Next week on exp.: Pull your finger (thumb?) out.
