PODCAST

Pixelated Playgrounds

Taking one game per month (old, new and everything in between) and talking though an in-depth examination of narrative, mechanics, theme, and the interplay between the three.

leisure video games

All Episodes

Citizen Sleeper

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/05/15

Even in the year 2022, which was overflowing with excellent narrative-driven games, Citizen Sleeper stands out as a uniquely strong experience. In Citizen Sleeper, the second game from Jump Over The Age, the player takes on the role of the titular ‘Sleeper’, a human whose mind has been digitized and put into a robot body to work in the service of the Essen-Arp corporation. You are on the run from Essen-Arp and have just arrived on a space station called Erlin’s Eye. Utilizing a novel dice-based

en-US

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/04/30

In early 2022 we were almost 26 years into Pokemon’s existence as a francise when Pokemon: Legends Arceus released for Nintendo Switch on January 28th. Pokemon is famous (or notorious?) for its formulaic gameplay design and Legends Arceus is one of several entries over the years that bucks that trend to try out something new. Throwing out the gyms and badges structure for a more free-form, exploration and collection focused experience that injects a healthy dose of modern game design into the tried

en-US

Backpack Hero

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/04/15

Pack your bags and join Josh and Bryan for a dip into this recent rouge-lite with a concept so good its hard to believe it hasn’t been done before: Inventory Tetris as RPG mechanic. Organizing your inventory is often a key aspect of certain adventure and survival games, but what if one were to use as the central mechanic for a run-based, rogue-lite, dungeon crawler? The answer is Backpack Hero! Crafting your perfect backpack with adjacency bonuses and synergies is compelling in itself, but this

en-US

Lil Gator Game

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/03/30

Drawing inspiration from a Short Hike and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Lil Gator game is a short and sweet exploration platformer about, you guessed it, a lil gator. You are charged with helping lil Gator round him his friends to join in the biggest and best make believe game ever. Bryan and Josh were immediately drawn in by the ‘Short-Hike-ness’ but quickly realized the games smart and snappy writing was being used to convey some very universal and heartfelt themes and situations. So

en-US

Chess Club ft. Shotgun King and Chessplosion

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/03/15

Welcome to Chess Club! Chess and roguelikes seem like a strange match, but in this episode Bryan and Josh explore two such games that use the tried and true mechanics of chess and mash them up with the roguelike video game genre (and a few other genres as well). The first game discussed, Shotgun King, is a run based game where you play as a single piece (the black king) and instead of taking out the enemy pieces with traditional chess moves, you have a shotgun. A simple, elegant premise with a

en-US

Case of the Golden Idol

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/02/28

Bryan and Josh are on the Case! The Case of the Golden Idol, that is. This deductive logic puzzle game set in the 18th century and spanning a 40 year period, follows the Idol as it changes hands and drastically affects the fortunes of its owners. The game presents as a series of logic puzzles in which players collect clues to connect together concepts, characters, and evidence to provide context to the story. Once it began receiving favorable comparisons to Return of the Obra Dinn, Bryan and Josh

en-US

Narita Boy

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/02/15

Take a trip down a neon-drenched memory lane with Bryan and Josh as they play 2021 action platformer, Narita Boy! Sporting some of the most striking pixel art we have ever seen, Narita Boy’s aesthetic alone warrants the price of admission. As they made their way through the digital kingdom, Bryan and Josh reflected on their time with the game and on the 1980’s era nostalgia it is channeling. Narita Boy punches above its weight by pairing its action packed techno-quest with some truly poignant

en-US

Batman: Arkham Knight

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/01/30

This podcast is vengeance. It is the Knight. It. Is. Batman! Batman Arkham Knight to be exact. Clint has been a longtime fan of this game and the series, and Bryan had been looking for a reason to complete his journey through the Arkham trilogy, so together they ventured out into the cold, autumnal Gotham air and recorded a podcast about what its like to inhabit Batman in Arkham Knight. Batman is a character they both have a lot of fondness (and some criticism for), and this outting being the most

en-US

ArenaCast ft. Vampire Survivors, 20 Minutes til Dawn,...

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2023/01/16

Bullet Heavens. Action Roguelikes. Arena Shooters. Crowd Management Games. Survive ‘em ups… the list goes on. Whatever you call them, thanks to Vampire Survivors they were a big story in 2022. In this podcast, Bryan and Josh sample three games from this burgeoning genre, popularized by Ponkle’s breakout hit, and quickly iterated on by a legion of creative developers. Our selection includes: The OG - Vampire SurvivorsThe Stylish Successor - 20 Minutes til Dawnand The Quirky Cousin- Boneraiser

en-US

Elden Ring

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/12/29

The falling leaves tell a story… Earlier this year, across the fog, in the Lands Between, Josh and Bryan embarked on their respective journeys to become the Elden Lord. And their Remaining Free Time was shattered. Along the way they met a variety of colorful characters: cowardly Patches the Untethered, the Unkillable Poisonous Jellyfish, and THE LOATHSOME DUNG EATER! Before long they realized the tales of their journey must be shared, and so a plan was hatched to condense hundreds of hours worth of

en-US

The Last of Us

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/12/15

Join Bryan and Clint for a discussion of Naughty Dog’s critical darling from 2013… and 2014… and of course, 2022! The Last of Us was, and remains, a landmark video game in the action-adventure sphere and continues to be the standard for character-driven narratives in gaming. Joel and Ellie’s cross-country road trip is just as exciting today as it was the day it launched, but the technical upgrade it received with “Part 1” is worth discussing in its own right. On the heels of its 2022 re-release,

en-US

Sokpop Selection ft. Stacklands and Simmiland

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/11/30

Bryan and Josh have both long been intrigued by the prolific and quirky “Video Game Development Boy Band” hailing from Utrecht, Netherlands and calling themselves Sokpop. Given the recent breakout success of the group’s title, Stacklands, they decided to dive in and survey the vast back catalogue of projects that Sokpop has created. For those unaware: Sokpop is a 4 person video game development collective which has given itself an ambitious mission: launch a new game every 2 weeks. The games vary

en-US

Triangle Strategy

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/11/15

Fans of tactics games rejoice! Triangle Strategy is here to deliver you the square grid, isometric, turn-based action you’ve been craving! … Along with an equally large helping of palace intrigue, politicking, and a bafflingly large amount of cutscenes. Oh, and don’t forget the detailed worldbuilding, subtle character development, and narrative ‘convictions’ system. Triangle strategy is a game that is not afraid to let its story breathe, and it backs its ambitious script up with some of the tightest

en-US

Dead Space

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/10/30

In this podcast Bryan, Josh and Clint take their spooky season celebrations to space! Dead Space, that is. The franchise’s first outing by the studio that would later become Visceral Games is as heart-pounding today as it was groundbreaking back in its 2008 debut. Offering a frightening level of immersion with its innovative UI and audio design, Dead Space doesn’t skimp on world-building either, even if it did have a few missed beats from a storytelling perspective. The real star of this

en-US

Moondrop

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/10/15

In this very special episode of Pixelated Playgrounds, Bryan interviews the developer of Moondrop and founder of Moonroof Studios, our very own Josh Galecki! Some of you may have picked up from listening to our other podcasts that Josh has had a solo indie dev video game project titled Moondrop in the works, and it has recently launched in August of 2022. This gave us a unique opportunity to talk through the process of design and iteration of making an indie video game, from 7-day roguelike

en-US

NORCO

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/09/30

NORCO is what you get when you take a long lost LucasArts adventure game and steep it in Louisiana Bayou swamp water, then strain in through a filter of deep cynicism and hyper-local, near-future science fiction. Bryan and Josh showed up for the evocative writing and stunningly designed pixel art , but soon realized that the game’s crowning achievement was likely the way it was able to convey a sense of place and history perhaps more effectively than any other game they have played. So listen in for

en-US

Death's Door

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/09/15

Acid Nerve’s sophomore outing, Death’s Door, is a huge step up in complexity and scope from their first title, Titan Souls. For a small studio coming off of a successful debut, it was a very ambitious project which not only moved their trademark tight action gameplay style from 2D to 3D, but also involved them building out a large hub and spoke world with many interesting dungeons and levels to navigate. Bryan and Josh appreciated the game not only for its artistic and auditory merits, but also for

en-US

Metroid Dread

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/08/30

What happens when you create a series that launches an entire genre? While Metroid may not have been the first ‘metroidvania’, it and its predecessors are certainly the ones we look to as the standard bearer. Metroid Dread comes long after the Cambrian explosion of the metroidvania genre, but proves that the series and its new developers at Mercury Steam, are able to hang with the best of them. Metroid Dread iterates on Metroid Fusion’s introduction of being hunted and inclusion of horror elements

en-US

Stray

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/08/15

International Cat Day has recently passed and to celebrate the Pixelated Playgrounds crew leapt at the opportunity to play the cat game that everyone is talking about: Stray! This game is getting a lot of attention, so much so that we even had friends reaching out to see if we’d be playing it. Developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive the game poses several interesting questions that the crew endeavors to answer: Will we reunite our cat with his family? What happened to

en-US

V Rising

Pixelated Playgrounds ·

2022/07/30

Hailing from Skövde, the same town that brought us Iron Gate’s Valheim, Stunlock Studios’ VRising has a new twist on the survival genre: make it a vampiric quest for power with a top down, diablo-inspired interface. Bryan, Josh, and Clint quickly found themselves thirsty for more of the game’s snappy combat, addictive crafting progression, and highly customizable base building. Despite the game’s well reported on degradation mechanics, the book club crew found a server that fit their needs and set

en-US

158 results

Pixelated Playgrounds

All Episodes

Similar Podcasts

Expres Ráno

Expres FM

詭哭郎嚎

郎祖筠 & FMTaiwan製作團隊

Ron en Erik Podcast

Ron en Erik

Poor Man"s Pinball Podcast

Poor Men Ian and Drew

WeAreChange on Odysee

WeAreChange