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Category: The exp. Dispatch

  • The exp. Dispatch #9

    The exp. Dispatch #9

    I think I’m going to settle on the dispatch being biweekly–doing it every week has felt like overkill. I think I imagined this newsletter as just links to the articles of the week, but each time I’ve thought of doing that it’s felt like such poor value for your no-money that I’ve ended up doing more, so this is, probably, better for all involved. Let me know if you feel any different. Onwards!

    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!

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    This Fortnight On exp.

    Subscriber Post: Many Nights A Whisper (Deconstructeam/Selkie Harbour, 2025)

    Listen to Together by Nine Inch Nails while reading this. If you know, you know.

    Unlocked Post: The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986)

    Nice to get to call out Wes Fenlon’s excellent Read Only Memo and Phil Summers’ Hand Drawn Game Guides here. Not the last time Phil’s work will be mentioned at the very least.

    Unlocked Post: VILE: Exhumed (Cadaver, 2025)

    You know, I really thought this game would create a bit more discussion online considering the context in which it was released, but I guess not!

    From the exp. Archive: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Intelligent Systems, 2008)

    Digging this old article up made me realise I never managed to cop that fancy re-release Nintendo did of the Super Famicom original, despite really trying, and then I completely forgot to download it digitally anyway. It’s really bizarre that Nintendo took to these limited releases for Fire Emblem and that Super Mario collection. Why? I guess they did limited Mario and Kirby releases in the days of the Wii, but it just seems so weird to go “you can’t buy that now” in the digital shop of infinite shelf space.

    What’s that? I’ve got a digital zine collection that I’ve only ever released temporarily? Uh… shut up.

    From the exp. Archive: Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017)

    The Silksong hype is real, man. This article, despite being from 2020, was just about the most read thing on the site in the wake of it being announced. And I don’t even like Hollow Knight!

    exp. Capsule Review

    Merge Maestro (Stingless, 2025)

    Had heard rumours this was the new roguelike-like obsession of the moment, so thought I’d give it a shot–it’s not like I feel like I’m wasting my life as it is. But I bounced off this basically immediately. Of the roguelike-likes it’s most similar to Luck Be A Landlord in that it’s very simple, entirely focused on a core loop–here, playing a symbol-based Threes-like to fight a succession of waves of enemies until you either lose or win the run by beating a final boss enemy. After each wave you get to upgrade one of your symbols, each of which has a special ability, and you’re basically trying to make your deck work synergistically so that as you merge symbols you’re doing massive damage and making your board better. 

    If that sounds… fine, it… is. I mean it’s really quite generic feeling, probably not helped by the fact that is uses emojis for the symbols, and maybe if you really love Threes this will light your fire, but it’s got the same kind of problem that Luck Be A Landlord does, where there’s a billion symbols (here 300!) that all do different things and you can find yourself heading in the wrong direction based on your rolls or just not being able to pull anything together. You can get Balatro-esque insane numbers going, but I certainly couldn’t be bothered to try.

    I don’t mean to beat up on this one too much, because it’s from a small developer, completely competent, reasonably priced and I assume for the right kind of player absolute catnip. If anything I’m surprised at how much this failed to get its hooks into me. Am I burned out on the genre, or will another game draw me back into it? You know what, I’m not in a mood to find out any time soon.

    exp. Du Cinéma

    War 2 (2025) / Coolie (2025)

    Thank goodness I’m here to keep you up to date with the latest Indian cinema releases. Absolutely why you subscribe to a video game newsletter. But for real though, War 2 is a banger.

    Zine News

    ZINEDUMP

    “ZINEDUMP is a new Toronto zine fair that aims to provide a venue for the open expression for independent publications, radical art and ideas. The inaugural fest will be held on Nov. 9th between 12-5pm at the Cecil Community Centre.”

    Still time to get submissions in if you’re quick–the deadline is August 31st.

    Amiga Addict 39

    “The new issue of AA is out, in which we look at  Fast Food 2 and the history behind the Oliver Twins original!”

    Incredible to think that there’s an modern Amiga magazine that’s run for 39 issues. I haven’t been able to keep up.

    How To Report ICE

    These single page, easy to print and distribute zines give information on how to report ICE for specific cities/areas in the US.

    And Finally…

    What’s this???

    Next week on exp.: The Stampers get ripped off for the second time. Allegedly.

  • The exp. Dispatch #8

    The exp. Dispatch #8

    This week on exp.

    Subscriber Post: VILE: Exhumed (Cadaver, 2025)

    This was a really difficult one to write about, and while I really hesitate to bang on about how exp. needs your support to continue at this level, well, it does, so please consider supporting us on Patreon (preferrably), ko-fi, or pick up a zine or the book. Here, I chose to dig into a banned game with heavy themes that reflect the current moment of moral panic, but which I found… inconclusive. Would love to hear what others thought of it, or what I wrote about it.

    Unlocked Post: Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido (Sunsoft, 1986)

    Speaking of people getting in touch to say what they thought of a game, I’m still surprised by just how many people have popped up to say they love this one. I hadn’t heard of it before!

    From the exp. Archive: Toy Soldiers: Cold War (Signal Studios, 2011)

    Wrote about this one all the way back in 2014 and was surprised to look Signal Studios up and discover that they’d quietly gone out of business in at some point in 2023, their last release a HD remaster of the original Toy Soldiers that no one liked. One of the only things I was able to dig up about the closure actually was a tweet from the official Toy Soldiers account: “TSHD was not handled well by the publisher or me—limited resource, tons of delayed/bad dev caused by idiotic public policy and other unexpected events—deals fell through—over time—resources gone—the rest is history.”

    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!

    exp. Capsule Reviews

    Mindset GO! (Magicave, 2025)

    Spent some of the last few weeks playing this mobile and web puzzler, and as it’s been made by friend-of-exp Ste Curran I can’t in good conscience give it a “proper review” but I do want to recommend it anyway. In fact I’ll go ahead and explain that I’ve already recommended it to other people as an antidote to a few things–engaging with anything from the New York Times, a propaganda company with a games arm (or vice versa) or playing any of those fucking terrible games that show up when you use any mobile app with ads (more on that on a bit though.)

    Mindset GO! is the kind of design where when you play it you think “wait, how have I never seen this before?” as it features an incredibly simple design: you’re just sorting shapes based on one or more feature that they have. If they’re a triangle, or yellow, that sort of thing. You put them into circles, which might intersect as a Venn diagram does–meaning you need to put yellow triangles there, but can put just yellow, or just triangles, elsewhere–and you don’t necessarily know what all the features required are.

    This starts embarrassingly easy, but quickly gets… difficult. The Venn diagrams become more complex, and then suddenly you’re sorting (say) wee cat faces instead of big simple shapes. The thing I most appreciated about this game is that you can feel your brain expanding as you work out systems and techniques to beat harder and harder levels. Almost subconsciously you find yourself pre-sorting shapes, or able to keep two concepts in your mind at once that you couldn’t before. It’s deeply, deeply satisfying, and it’s all wrapped up in a terrifically thoughtful UI.

    As highly as I recommend it, this is a free-to-play mobile game, and you therefore have to engage with that whole… thing. Meaning mobile ads rear their ugly head here if you don’t quickly stump up the no-ads tax, and if you’re determined to stick to free-to-play while you’re feeling the game out, every single part of this carefully curated puzzling experience is smashed to bits when what feels like out of nowhere you get an ugly, often broken slop advert for whatever the algorithm has decided you would like best (it’s certain I’m a woman in her mid-50s, obsessed with her dying plants but unable to get up from her chair to do any exercise.) This really means that you basically have to spend the $3.99 to enjoy this on mobile really before you get to the point where it gets its hooks into you. As a result, you may wish to play the web version at first, then make up an account to save your progress? 

    Weirdly, one of the main reasons to play this now is to play and enjoy the real thing before you start seeing its clones advertised in its own ad slots. Some weird AI voice saying how playing “Shape Sorter” will stop you getting Alzheimer’s, or maybe an entire fucking streamed version of “Venn Diagram Royale” you have to play through where you have to shuffle a bunch of diamonds into a circle to stop a king being squashed by, I don’t know, a big Monty Python foot or something. Why the fuck are we supposed to be saving a fucking king anyway? If god chose him god can bloody well save him from rising sand or being dropped in some lava, the sponging prick.

    Other Zines

    One More Win: Ridge Racer Type 4 Fanzine

    “Due to POPULAR DEMAND I’m doing another print run of my Ridge Racer Type 4 fanzine.”

    Retro Game Zine: Buy 3 Get 1 Free on ALL ISSUES

    “Catch up on missing issues, or jump in with some big savings. This promotion is applied at checkout and runs until the end of the month.”

    COMPUTE!’s Gazette – July 2025 (Volume 1, Issue 1)

    “For the first time in 35 years, COMPUTE!’s Gazette returns to serve the vibrant retro computing community. This premiere relaunch issue is packed with exclusive news, in-depth articles, community stories, and classic type-in programs that celebrate the golden age of computing.”

    Mega Fun Newsletter

    “I’m launching a weekly newsletter that brings together all my writings, podcasts, videos, and creative endeavours in one place for your unmeasurable pleasure. If you like what I do, you must subscribe. Your life depends on it.”

    (Ok, that last one isn’t a zine, but Justin Decloux is one of my favourite people and he does so much incredible stuff, you’re going to want to keep up. I mean you already subscribe to this rubbish, don’t you?)

    And Finally…

    This article, The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con is, I think, the most important, insightful thing you can read about the AI mania full stop. It’s from a few years ago, but if anything more important to read and understand as AI tries to create a stranglehold over the mainstream. Share it with anyone who might be buying the hype but considers themselves rational. It gets to something really key about AI: it’s not “just” a scam: it’s an illusion that preys on our urge to fool ourselves.

    Next week on exp.: A legend? No. The legend.

  • The exp. Dispatch #7

    The exp. Dispatch #7

    The triumphant return of the Dispatch after a week off because I was too busy. Sorry! Still, it means a bumper crop of article and zine links.

    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!

    This fortnight on exp.

    Subscriber Post: Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido (Sunsoft, 1986)

    A game I didn’t expect any reaction to but I’ve already had a few people saying they’ve played it as well and like me at least found it interesting.

    Unlocked Post: Paradise Killer (Kaizen Game Works, 2020)

    Unlocked Post: DAIVA Story 6: Imperial of Nirsartia (T&E Soft, 1986)

    From The exp. Archive: Mirror’s Edge (DICE, 2008)

    From The exp. Archive: Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, 2009)

    exp. Du Cinéma

    The Naked Gun (2025)

    Watching this in the theatre, I was struck by just how sad it was that it felt so unusual to be watching a broad comedy with an audience. You could almost feel everyone tense up initially when the movie started being intentionally illogical: “can they do that? I’m only used to nominally funny things occurring between CGI action sequences.”

    Once everyone was able to relax, this was incredibly funny, managing—for a while, at least—a return to the rapid-fire nonsense of the great spoofs with a similar hit-rate (not every one a winner, but the next one is quick enough that it doesn’t matter.)

    There are a couple of all-timer sequences in this, and my critique is going to feels harsh because I think we’re all so willing for this to succeed and for movies like this be allowed to exist again, but The Naked Gun’s problem is that it simply runs out of steam. There’s an incredible peak that it can’t seem to follow, and while it’s not like I’d want the movie to be longer (85 minutes? *chef kiss*) the jokes suddenly get a bit weaker, more sparse, and the narrative feels not so much underbaked—which would be fine, it’s a spoof—but missing entire ingredients. The climax is so limp, in fact, that I have to question if it’s what was originally intended, and it (sadly) had me thinking a bit too long about the film in general: “you know, they could have gone harder on that joke… they should have built on that gag more… there was a good chance for a callback there.. man, Paul Walter Hauser went underused…”

    It’s not the end of the world that they didn’t completely nail it, and I still think everyone should go and see this and let some joy into their life in this sick, sad world. And if you didn’t go and see Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, go twice to make up for that.

    Also reviewed this week: KPop Demon Hunters

    Other Zines

    Forgotten Worlds #6. The Sega issue

    “100+ pages of dedicated to classic Sega magazines … , with exclusive interviews and insights from the people who were there.”

    VGHF Acquires Early Game Magazine Computer Entertainer

    “The magazine, which ran from 1982–1990, has been released into the Creative Commons for anyone to use.”

    Summer Sale: ON: Volume One – Now 50% Off! Ends Sunday

    “ON is the ultimate celebration of gaming’s past, present and future. We give the very best writers in the industry freedom to write their dream feature and combine those words with bold and experimental design in a luxury journal.”

    Pound the Pavement #15: Handala

    “This is a slightly-updated reprint of a small zine I created for the Librarians and Archivists With Palestine Box Set that was compiled for Booklyn back in 2014. Previously it was unavailable outside of this exclusive box set. The zine itself is a compilation of 29 photos of cartoonist Naji al-Ali’s Handala character painted, pasted, stenciled, and screenprinted around the Palestinian Occupied Territories.” (via Tiny Cartridge)

    And Finally…

    There’s been a lot of debate over what this year’s “song of the summer” is, but I’ve got no idea why, Neil Cicierega has got it completely sewn up. Sing it with me, everyone! Blankets… blankets… blankets…

    Next week on exp.: A game for the current moment.

  • The exp. Dispatch #6

    The exp. Dispatch #6

    In this week’s Dispatch: after playing Wheels of Aurelia, I decided to look at its main inspiration, Il Sorpasso. And a capsule review of Luth Haroon’s INSERT/DATE/HERE.

    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!

    This week on exp.

    Subscriber Post: DAIVA Story 6: Imperial of Nirsartia (T&E Soft, 1986)

    Even I wonder why I wrote about this one but it is on Switch Online in the west!

    Unlocked Post: Cyrano (Popcannibal, 2025)

    Unlocked Post: Wheels of Aurelia (Santa Ragione, 2016) 

    Wheels of Aurelia is now delisted on the App Store, though in some respects the story of the control tech companies have over access to art has evolved in the face of both Steam and itch.io delisting/deindexing NSFW games under demand from payment processors reacting to the pressure of far-right activists. There’s a great resource here that can help you pressure the payment processors in return.

    From The exp. Archive: Threes (Vollmer, Wohlwend, 2014)

    I made myself sick of Threes before 2048 was even a glimmer in a cloner’s eye, and I think it’s important to reflect that the things that ultimately stopped me playing it were very deeply considered: there’s a great Wired article that goes into just how deeply they thought about it all.

    exp. Capsule Reviews

    INSERT/DATE/HERE (Luth Haroon, 2025)

    Play INSERT/DATE/HERE and then come back, ok?

    How do you feel? Did you keep clicking? Did you stop? Did you just close the window after it said game over, or did you continue? How long did you click?

    …

    When INSERT/DATE/HERE was shared by friend-of-the-zine Mare Sheppard, it was made clear what it was about–and I don’t think when you start playing, that you can really have any doubt what you’re doing from the first click anyway. It made me think of the “Death From Above” sequence from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which (in a reading which absolutely requires the author be stone-dead in your mind) I always read as a meaningful juxtaposition of how some people kill by pushing a button vs. the gritty reality of on-the-ground warfare. A touch of nuance with your exciting Hollywood-style story where any action is justified by the fact you’re fighting “real” baddies.

    But the reality of this kind of warfare is the person pushing the button doesn’t even really think about if they’re fighting baddies. They aren’t thinking about them as people at all. And if they did, they wouldn’t care. 

    In INSERT/DATE/HERE we face a genocide that has been streamlined into a series of clicks, likely performed by a drone operator, miles away, sitting in a chair in front of a computer just as you are. What they are doing has been so disconnected that it is as if they are poor, special Enders, allowed to do what they’re doing without ever really having to understand it. So disconnected that the clicks you just performed could very well have been as real. The perfection of dehumanisation. 

    I clicked. I clicked until I hit my quota and then I watched what that actually meant. And then I clicked, over four hundred times, to symbolically bury every single person I killed–until it was clear that not every one could be found. Because of course, many of the murdered will never be found, or counted, or their existence will simply be disputed, whether we have seen it with our own eyes or not. As I write the window remains open, knowing that there will be no closure, there is nothing I can do, and that tomorrow the same thing will happen again.

    Free Palestine. Donate: gazadirect.com (verified direct aid campaigns) / UNRWA / PCRF / MSF

    exp. Du Cinéma

    Il Sorpasso (1962)

    Claimed as an inspiration for Wheels of Aurelia by Santa Ragione, I was interested to discover the influence to be less straightforward than the setting of the Via Aurelia, with both game and film using the beautiful setting to try and dig more deeply into the Italian society of their era.

    Italy is in the honeymoon period of post-fascism in Il Sorpasso, while in Wheels of Aurelia, the characters have already lived through a decade of the “Years of Lead.” In some respects, both works lull you into a false sense of security that they really aren’t about much more than what you see. In Il Sorpasso, it immediately feels… expected. Almost formulaic. A shy student lets a brash character, Bruno, use his telephone, and seems to end up kidnapped out of politeness. Their adventure, of course, opens him up. Maybe he’ll start to believe in himself?

    Well… no. In retrospect Il Sorpasso is prescient in theme: that trying to be carefree in the face of your failures may ultimately have a cost to those who believe you. Bruno is charming, insightful, but his failures are not that he’s blunt or that he’s incapable of taking anything seriously. It’s that he’s a would-be rapist and an absentee father, one who returns to find his teenage daughter in a relationship with an elderly pedophile* and after realizing his own irrelevance does his best to at least get some money out of it—but ends up abandoned, with only his mousey thrall left to impress. But his lesson has worked too well, and as always, it’s the next generation that suffer.

    If you’re unfamiliar with commedia all’italiana (Italian-style comedy)—and listen, I was—that something called a “comedy” could be not just so annoying (Bruno honks his fucking car horn a million times in this) but so deeply bleak comes as a surprise. The cinematography is stunning, the women are beautiful, but Il Sorpasso says: don’t let it fool you. As Wheels of Aurelia explores, for many, it did.

    *I had to look this up, the age of consent in Italy is fucking 14 even today. Christ.

    Other Zines

    8 Things You Can Do To Stop ICE

    A free one-page trifold zine by CrimethInc. that you could print out and just leave places (if you’re an American.)

    Palestinian Family Fundraiser Zines

    A huge collection of free zines focusing on individual Palestinian families seeking support that you could just print out and leave places (whether or not you’re American.)

    And Finally…

    Matt Farley’s 2013 film, Local Legends, is streaming for free on Youtube for the next week (until the end of July) and it is, arguably, the best, most honest statement on how it feels to make art–to make anything–in the modern world. You should watch it.

    Next week on exp.: A trip to paradise.

  • The exp. Dispatch #5

    The exp. Dispatch #5

    Two subscriber articles this week, and a surprisingly successful trip to the archive.

    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!

    This week on exp.

    Subscriber Post: Cyrano (Popcannibal, 2025)

    It’s always surprising how little you actually know the classics, despite feeling like you’re always submerged in references to them.

    Subscriber Post: Wheels of Aurelia (Santa Ragione, 2016)

    This post has some urgency, as Wheels of Aurelia will be delisted on iOS on the 25th, so rather than make this the regular weekly post I thought I’d make it a bonus post so it can be unlocked a day before it’s delisted (though you can pay just $1 to support and read it now.) I suppose unless Apple decide to not delist it (they won’t) and if you don’t want to pay anything, you can just download the game now for free, skip reading my thoughts on it and just get stuck in. That’s valid!

    Unlocked Post: Pro Wrestling (TRY, 1986)

    Although I posted this with the western cover, I regret not sharing it with the Japanese cover so… there it is! Gaze upon the chibi-adjacent Inoki!

    From The exp. Archives: Fable III (Lionhead Studios, 2010)

    Thanks to a wee repost from Sasha’s Retrobytes, this one got some traction on Bluesky, with lots of people sharing their own bitter disappointment in Fable III. Including someone saying their brother almost “puked from rage” at the ending, which is like… steady on!

    exp. Du Cinéma

    Detour (1945)

    A beautiful example of what you can do if all you’ve got is a couple of sets, a rear-projection screen, a fog machine, and Ann Savage. Admittedly that last one is really important.

    Feels like it ends too early, but there’s also something really funny about our down-on-his-luck shmoe main character going “alright, I’m beat” and walking out of the movie.

    I wrote this short, quippy review of Detour (1945) on Letterboxd this week because I went to see it as part of the “Important Cinema Club Classics” series at the Fox Theatre in Toronto, and that gives me the opportunity to recommend listening to the Important Cinema Club, the best cinema podcast you can listen to, hosted by my friend Justin Decloux, and Will Sloan, who is also a person I know.

    Other Zines

    KNIFE

    “greetings i have made another zine, this is about how i got my hands on a knife at age ~9” 

    Queen’s University Library has digitized a collection of rare, self-published sci-fi & fantasy fanzines, making long-lost voices from 1940s–1980s more widely accessible.

    “The thirteen titles chosen for our project are periodicals with multiple authors. Most can be loosely classified as self-published, small print-run fanzines or zines within the science fiction/fantasy/speculative fiction genres … published in Canada featuring predominantly Canadian authors.”

    The Ipoh International Zine Festival (25 – 27 July, 2025)

    “The Ipoh International Zine Festival takes place in #poh, Malaysia from 25 – 27 July, 2025. Location: Aras B, Pasar Besar Ipoh, time: 12 pm – 6 pm. Includes: Zine bazaar, Workshops, Zine launches, DIY craft tables, Panel discussions, Exhibitions.”

    And Finally…

    Obviously normally I want to end the newsletter on something funny or cute, but I think it’s important to, at least briefly, discuss the recent controversy over Modretro releasing Wayforward’s licensed Sabrina game for GameBoy Color. I’ve been posting a thread over on Bluesky about it, where I note–accurately–that Modretro is arms-dealing zionist Palmer Luckey’s gamewashing arm. Wayforward first openly publicised the release, then deleted everything because it was bad PR, and then had to make a statement to Time Extension probably because they got told off by ModRetro. But it’s clear now that they were deeply and happily involved in this whether or not they see any money from it, so fuck Wayforward. Do better.

    Next week on exp.: The sixth game in a franchise you’ve never heard of.

  • The exp. Dispatch #4

    The exp. Dispatch #4

    This week on exp.

    Subscriber Post: Pro Wrestling (TRY, 1986)

    I have (generally) been unimpressed with Nintendo’s black box output, but along with Golf, this one was a really nice surprise.

    Unlocked Post: Despelote (Cordero/Valbuena, 2025)

    The only article you’re going to read about a video game that includes a reference to Jeanne Dielman and Fishing With John. Probably.

    From The exp. Archives: Gunhouse (Necrosoft, 2014)

    I don’t do these that often, but when I feel like I know the developer really well–maybe too well to honestly critique their work–I cadge an interview with them. Here it’s a really deep design interview with Brandon Sheffield that’s probably obsolete because it’s so specific to the PS Vita(!) version of Gunhouse. Looking forward to another round when Demon School comes out (wishlist now, etc.)

    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!

    exp. Du Cinéma

    Thunderbolts* (2025)

    The main issue with Thunderbolts* isn’t really the film’s fault: it is, of course, the MCU’s. Because—and I think this is borne out in how fatigued and almost indifferent the positive reactions to this movie are—if the MCU is a banquet you can never leave, Thunderbolts* is like receiving a perfectly delicious hotdog after being forced to down a cup of cold sick. It’s a good hotdog! But you still sort of wish you were anywhere else.

    You can feel the weight of the MCU machine—gotta advertise those future movies—but they actually work to get you on side rather than relying on that alone. That they were able to immediately and unceremoniously kill a character no one likes? Unbelievably funny, gives you just enough to make you go “oh, maybe this was made people who actually like movies.”

    Not only that, that they might actually want the images you see on screen to be cool and enjoyable? The action is clear (they do a fun riff on some iconic Terminator imagery) and it even hits the comedy beats well enough that I actually laughed out loud at points. There are even… themes! And it manages to tell a complete story!!!

    Christ, that kind of praise really is grim, isn’t it? But I suppose that’s where we are. Ultimately, I liked it! But I kept thinking “please don’t make me drink any more sick.”

    Follow Mathew on Letterboxd.

    Other Zines

    Kill Or Be Killed: A No More Heroes Fanzine

    “Preorders for KILL OR BE KILLED ZINE are OFFICIALLY OPEN! They’ll be available until August 5th.”

    BreakSpace – Issue 2

    “Our scorching Summer issue features 38 reviews of new ZX Spectrum games, Type-ins, interviews and loads more.”

    And Finally…

    Mikolai over at Forgotten Worlds wrote a cute blog about their experience of publishing zines using the JRPG as a metaphor, er, a few months ago. But it came up in my feed recently and is an interesting manifesto/guide if you’ve ever considered it yourself. Give it a read!

    Next week on exp.: “You don’t have to put on the red light.”

  • The exp. Dispatch #3

    The exp. Dispatch #3

    This week in the exp. Dispatch we’ve got an exclusive PICO-8 capsule review, an exp. Du Cinéma that didn’t feel long enough to give its own post, as well as all the usual week’s round-up and zine links. Incredible value!!!

    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!

    This week on exp.

    Subscriber Post: Despelote (Cordero/Valbuena, 2025)

    Panic would probably not be best pleased that I turned another article on something they published into a rumination on the place of AI in creativity, but I’m proud of this one. I really think it’s worth subscribing for!

    Unlocked Post: Super Xevious: GAMP No Nazo (Namco, 1986)

    Last call on this meme. Last call!

    From The exp. Archives: Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell, 2012)

    On one hand, I think it’s good I have this record of games I’ve played. On the other hand, I have no recollection of playing this at all, so does it matter that I did?

    exp. Capsule Reviews

    Dino Sort (Adam Atomic, 2025)

    I wrote about getting into PICO-8 games recently by way of Adam Atomic’s Prince of Prussia and owning a Chinese emulation handheld (a subscriber exclusive) and Adam recently dropped Dino Sort which I don’t think I can justify an entire post for, so isn’t it brilliant I have this newsletter now?

    Anyway, Dino Sort is a brilliant wee game where you shuffle around dinosaurs to get them into the right positions based on their personal requirements (e.g. “don’t put me next to a predator”) very much in the style of Rush Hour. There are 26 designed puzzles which will probably take you, I don’t know, forty-five minutes to polish off or something, and though it will require some logic and lateral thinking, it’s good because at least I never ended up in one of those situations where untangling all my dinosaurs was going to be annoying or impossible the way it would be in a Sokoban game or something (god I hate Sokoban.)

    Also as someone who actually hates when a puzzle game has a billion puzzles–the “infinite pizza” problem, you eventually get sick of even pizza–I loved that this was something I could pick up, play and put down, but if you really wanted to keep playing this, you can because it generates a daily puzzle every day. They’re of varying quality, but just think, you could play it every day instead of doing a Wordle, because The New York Times can fuck off.

    exp. Du Cinéma

    Pee-Wee As Himself (2025)

    Pee-Wee—or should I say, Paul Reubens—has had an outsized influence on culture more than people give him credit for, deeply affecting the brains of a generation of millennials (my brain included) and helping define kitsch as a force in the 80s and 90s. He deserves his flowers, and as praised as this documentary has been, I can’t help but find it a bit… slight.

    Archive footage is catnip for me, and there’s absolutely hunners of it here, but you get the sense here that either due to the loss of Reubens or his intransigence they couldn’t quite pull this together into something that feels complete. It limits itself to a chonological telling of Reubens’ life and struggles to make connections to knit anything close to a statement together.

    (I wonder if they had plans to build to Reubens walking around a museum of all the things he’d collected as a physical representation of his life, but even that I question.)

    For someone with as complicated a life (and who is actively passive aggressive here!) the attempt at haigography comes across as disingenuous. It just seems wrong to portray (for example) Phil Hartman in such a one-sided fashion, or to gloss over the idea that people might be fair in feeling that the original Pee-Wee show was created by a collective and Reubens maybe didn’t treat a lot of people well on the way up.

    But in turn, his personal and legal troubles aren’t given the depth you’d expect either—especially considering his final statement makes it clear how one in particular so deeply coloured his later life. It almost feels as uncomfortable as Reubens in discussing it. He was stitched up! You may have to go into uncomfortable detail to exonerate him, but why hold back? Interrogate it!

    Maybe it’s fine. Like all of us, Paul Reubens was messy and incomplete, so it makes as much sense as anything for this documentary to be the same. This is just what people are. They leave us, and maybe you try and dig through what they left and try and make sense of it. But better, I think, to enjoy what they gave you while they were alive.

    Follow Mathew on Letterboxd.

    Other Zines

    Did you know it’s International Zine Month? Well it is.

    Between the Scanlines – Issue Thirty-Three

    “Wi-fi connected C64s, epic 90s sci-fi 4X, Dreamcast 9.9.99 memories from James Webster, and John Bunday l shares his love for Streets of Rage 3!”

    BreakSpace – Issue One

    “Presenting issue 1 of the World’s Cheapest ZX Spectrum magazine … This inaugural Springtime edition covers games released in Q1 2025.”

    And Finally…

    Doujinshi are essentially zines, so I suppose I could just have put this in the “Other Zines” section, but I tremendously enjoyed reading this ROMchip translation of Hiromasa Iwasaki’s 2024 doujinshi Legend 7: Why Do 2D Games Usually Go to the Right?

    It’s really one of those things that, if you know anything about video game development, actually seems really obvious, but you’ve probably never thought about in detail before. Officially sad now that I didn’t know about this zine before so I could have been hunting out copies of it (though I’d struggle to read much of it in the original language.) But better late than never.

    Next week on exp.: I jump a little bit forward from GAMP No Nazo in 1986, and a winner is me!

  • The exp. Dispatch #2

    The exp. Dispatch #2

    This week on exp.

    Actual Journalism: I Asked Panic About GenAI in Playdate Season 2​

    An unusual week on exp. because I did some actual journalism. I’m really not sure why more outlets didn’t pick this up in the first place–isn’t it news that there’s a game that uses AI in Playdate Season 2? I think it is! Anyway, I got some quotes. A few people have mentioned maybe I should have followed up with them to nail down if they’re going to allow AI on Playdate in future or not–and they’re right. But this kind of thing isn’t the focus of the site! If I end up having to do this again, I’ll put some more thought into it.

    (To be fair, also, they made me wait two weeks for a response.)

    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!

    Subscriber Post: Super Xevious: GAMP No Nazo (Namco, 1986)​

    I thought this meme I made was very funny. I guess lots of people didn’t see it, it was a busy news day. Yeah… that’s it.

    Unlocked Post: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive, 2025)​

    Clair Obscur has stayed in the headlines a bit, this article on Digital Trends begging people to be normal about it then when discussing good criticism of the game, somehow forgetting to link this epic article. It’s ok, I’ll forgive them.

    From The exp. Archives: Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Sega, 1992)​

    Old me’s tone of voice annoying me in this one. The iconoclastic wee twat.

    Other Zines

    ​This Queer Online Zine Can Only Be Read Via an Ancient Internet Protocol​

    And here was me thinking I was being old school by having a website. I’ll need to try harder. This newsletter is moving to, uh, Gopher.

    ​Rulebooks for Radicals by Greg Loring-Albright​

    “If games can’t change the world, why bother to make them? I lay out my answers in zine form, including some tips on how to get started making games if you haven’t before.”

    And Finally…

    Friend of exp. Raigan Burns pointed out after reading our article on Sky Kid that Sopwith, a Canadian MS-DOS game, actually predates it by a year or so and is extremely similar. I think it’s sort of unlikely that someone at Namco saw this and decided to rip it off, but it also seems so close to be as unlikely to be simultaneous invention either. Mr. Namco, if you’re reading this, get in touch!

    Next week on exp.: Footy Footy Footy, Ball Ball Ball!

  • The exp. Dispatch #1

    The exp. Dispatch #1

    Hello and welcome to the very first exp. Dispatch! A little later than I expected for a variety of reasons. But at least with the delay I fixed the mailing address so this doesn’t just go immediately into your spam box, like the confirmation emails for, uh, about half of the people who have subscribed, who therefore won’t be reading this in their inboxes. Oops!

    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!

    This week on exp.

    exp. was on rare sale at the Toronto Games Week Indie Game Emporium last Sunday the 15th! There’s a decent chance if you’re reading this you signed up for the newsletter while there, so thanks!

    Subscriber Post: Clair Obscur (Sandfall Interactive, 2025)​

    Really proud of this one, and I think it speaks for itself. It should do—it’s four thousand words long. If you aren’t a subscriber, you can subscribe on Patreon to read this right now!

    Unlocked Post: Sky Kid [NES] (Namco, 1986)

    I’ve updated my way of titling posts, and it’s here I was like… “er…” because I forgot sometimes I write articles about games released in specific versions after I’ve written about a “primary” version. This doesn’t really matter for anything modern–everything comes out on everything–but it does when I’ve got, like, four versions of Ghosts n’ Goblins or something on the backlog. Anyway, I settled on square brackets. Yes, this kind of thrilling peek behind the curtain is what you’re going to get if you’re subscribed to this newsletter.

    From The exp. Archives: Saints Row III (Volition, 2011)​

    While I get the archive up and running on the site properly, I might as well prompt people to read some really, really old stuff, because not all of it made into Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24 (buy now! etc.) This has since been remastered, though I’m sure these ancient thoughts hold up. Thoughts that mostly made me now go “would be nice to replay Sleeping Dogs, I never wrote that one up.”

    exp. du Cinéma: Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning​

    Good joke at the start of this one, IMHO.

    Other Zines

    ​But what can I do? How to fight the trans panic by Ruth Pearce​

    “The zine is written particularly with allies in mind. It provides some background information on the UK’s anti-trans moral panic, and offers some suggestions for easy things people can do.”

    ​Secret Passages #2​

    The Secret Passage #2 Kickstarter is almost over, but there’s still time to back it!

    Mutual Aid

    ​CRT Pixels is a Bluesky account I’ve been following for a while who shows off why I’m such a stickler for playing retro games with CRT shaders or on real hardware when I can–it’s how the art was supposed to look, innit. Their partner was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer and a gofundme was started for support because, of course, America is a hellzone. If you know me personally, you’ll know I lost my best friend to a shock stage 4 cancer diagnosis, so this one hit home. Support if you can.​

    And Finally…

    Hey look! A mildly viral post on Bluesky!

    Next week on exp.: A return to 1986, to write about a sequel to a game that it feels like we mention in 90% of our essays.