Including the null motif, there are 27 distinct hypergraph motifs. Coincidentally, this week is the 27th expedition of the Bathysphere! Floss has played some interesting games in Chalk Farm, Christian has been re-reading F Scott Fitzgerald and Keith grilled game developer NikkiJay on her favourite things.

As ever, please consider taking out a paid subscription. It is £25 for the year and you get to read the full essay and the retro section, and visit the archives to find every essay we’ve written so far. Maintaining the bathysphere takes considerable time – it is a demanding beast that we would love to grapple with for as long as possible.

The Bathysphere crew
Christian Donlan
Florence Smith Nicholls
Keith Stuart

Contact us at bathyspherecrew@gmail.com. Please do get in touch if you would like to recommend a video game event, book, or other interesting thing.

Delightful games

Last weekend I went to the “Save Me!! Internet Angel” exhibition in Chalk Farm, a celebration of early internet culture and alternative Japanese fashion. Two game installations there really caught my eye.

“At Goodle, we’ve decided we’ll be deleting the entire internet soon . To remind you of the good times, here are some of your precious memories.” This is what greets you on the first page of Kitty Ess’ I <3 Lulu Bunny, which is like a kawaii version of the Wayback Machine. It’s an interface game inspired by Hypnospace Outlaw. You can check out some of Kitty’s net art on her website.

An alt control game about chronic overwork in which you use a magical girl staff as a controller? That’s right. Lejin Fan created Transform for my Company! The Corporate Magical Girl’s Survival Guide as commentary on the parallels between the idea of the modern corporate hero and magical girl narratives. It also has very cute pixel art.

Not at the exhibition, but a game I am equally excited about, is Triumvora. It’s a roguelite in which you play as a strange deer-like creature in an infinite, dilapidated city. You can gather resources, befriend other creatures or dominate them to get ahead. I loved the demo, and by the time this newsletter is sent out the full game will have been released! FSN

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A developer recommends

This week we spoke to NikkiJay who escaped a religious cult to write the wonderful retro adventure Quantum Witch. We asked her to recommend five useful things, and she did…

Non-fiction book: The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

This became my guide for exiting a world ruled by superstition, where furniture could be possessed by demons and all powerful beings would be offended if you said “bless you” when someone sneezed. It’s a critical thinking manual, a self-described “baloney detection kit”. Science as a candle in the dark.

A novel: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

To say this influenced my sense of humour would be a severe understatement. In the very first chapter, the Earth is destroyed. And it’s hilarious. From there it’s an absurdist journey through meaning, purpose, capitalism and bureaucracy, life, the universe, and everything. As life-changing for me as they come.

A retro video game: Jungle Trouble, ZX Spectrum

It’s a single screen arcade platformer based around getting timing right to complete each section of the screen. Incredibly difficult to start off, frustrating beyond belief… but when you master a section the satisfaction is off the scale. It’s arcade gaming distilled into its purest form. Absolutely worth your time.

A TV programme/series: Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks is three seasons and a movie about a murder and a bunch of supernatural beings who feed on suffering and live above a convenience store. Or maybe it’s about struggling with our inner demons and darker sides. Or maybe something else. I DON’T KNOW. And that’s the point.

A technique to spark creativity: Write without filters or purpose

“A floating piece of cheese gives advice to deal with a multiverse travelling skeleton who can see through time and is manipulating events to save reality because he wants a decent weekend sleep in.” It’s nonsense. It didn’t fit with any of my existing ideas. But it’s a starting point.

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Essay: Finishing School

This week I’ve been re-reading The Last Tycoon, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s a Hollywood novel, based on Fitzgerald’s time spent writing for movies, and it’s famously unfinished. Fitzgerald died while writing it. (There’s a wonderful moment in a William Gibson novel where an AR artist makes location-based art from Fitzgerald’s death - he died in what was, in Gibson’s time, the World Music section of a Virgin Records. Maybe a Tower Records. Anyway...)