This Month’s Soundtrack
I’m a fan of the weekly pinball newsletter This Week In Pinball, and one of the things I really like about it is the decision to open every newsletter with a song of the week, which is a cute way to provide some music you can stick on in the background while you read the newsletter (or not, if you’ve already got something on, or you just love silence.) Well, I’m nicking the idea, as a low stakes way to share some music I like when I feel like it.
This month I’ve been voting in the People’s Pop Poll‘s “Pop World Cup” on Bluesky, which has been a really fascinating way to get exposed to music from a lot of countries that I just otherwise wouldn’t—or to try and push deeper cuts from the more ubiquitous Western countries on other people, like I did by nominating Secession’s The Magician. Rather than pick that though I thought I’d share this absolutely joyful bit of… uh, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what it is, but it’s from Cote D’Ivoire, a country I doubt I’ve ever heard a song from, and it’s great fun. If that’s not your speed, I’ll also highlight the Austrian entry, Dani Lia’s schwindelig (omgomgomg) which I just can’t stop listening to. Feel free to check out the whole playlist though!
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This Month On exp.
The Insert Credit Show #436: Shiny Finding Instinct
My highlight of the month—of any month—is when they let me on The Insert Credit Show, and I’m slowly earning those credits so one day I can force the panel to play a game on the Amstrad CPC or something.
Subscriber Post: Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works, 2025)
This was a tough one to write, because I really wanted to like this so much more than I did, and the state of the industry these days really can make you second-guess yourself as a critic. But better to be honest.
Unlocked Posts: Lunar Rescue (Taito, 1979) / Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-Kun (Technōs Japan, 1986) / Double Dragon (Technōs Japan, 1987)
Technically a hat-trick of Taito releases, unintended but with the sad passing of Yoshihisa Kishimoto it felt right to share these pieces, even if in at least the second one I’m hard on Double Dragon. It really is close to unplayable in 2026 though.
From The exp. Archive: The Tower Of Druaga (Namco, 1984) / The Tower Of Druaga [Famicom] (Namco, 1985)
As the Famicom version hit Switch Online, I thought it was worth sharing my coverage of the original and its Famicom version, because the game is simultaneously incredibly important and utterly baffling to the uninitiated. It’s more a game that’s for learning about rather than playing—at least, don’t feel like you have to complete it. There’s a reason I’ve only done it the once…
exp. Du Cinéma
Ripple Rock, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
An unusual month in which nothing I saw graduated to front page status and I avoided writing about a few movies that I didn’t feel like I had anything particularly useful to say about. So why don’t I share Ripple Rock, which I watched on the NFB’s website, which informed me that once in Canada they used over a thousand tons of explosive to blow up an underwater mountain, and reminded me that the NFB is an incredible resource that Canadians including myself mostly forget about but which should be cherished.
Also reviewed: Project Hail Mary (2026) / Eephus (2024) / Easter Parade (1948)
Zine News
Shareware Made Me Trans by Anna Anthropy
“~6000 words (and lots of images) on the 90s games that shaped my gender identity, including windows 3.1 amazons, sapphic crpg romances, and my own teenage fetish games.”
And Finally…
I think this might be the greatest piece of writing in the Onion, ever. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. It’s just a masterpiece of tone and phrasing.
Relatedly, I didn’t realise you could subscribe to The Onion internationally for no additional postage costs. I should do that when I’m not skint, especially to support their great work making Alex Jones even more of a laughing stock than he already is.
Next week on exp.: The first vertically scrolling shooter?
