Hello! And welcome back on board for another gentle descent into the world of games and game-adjacent things. There’s a storm on the horizon, but Florence isn’t worried. Chris tried to get Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion running but couldn’t, and had to write about something else. Keith discovers the truth behind an apparently exclusive ZX Spectrum magazine cover-mount!

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The Bathysphere crew
Christian Donlan
Florence Smith Nicholls
Keith Stuart

Contact us at bathyspherecrew@gmail.com

Delightful games

Messenger is a lovely free browser game that’s been doing the rounds for the last few weeks. It works on a phone, which is some kind of wizardry, surely, and it was sent my way by Bathysphere pal Emad Ahmed.

The game’s set on a very small open world that also happens to be a lovely lumpy sort of sphere. There’s a surprising range of different environments and it feels like the designers have learned from the quick transitions and sight-line manipulation of theme parks.

You play as a messenger, a simple objective that allows you to meet various people, travel back and forth between them, and ponder the connections between things. In truth, I think being a messenger is a lovely excuse to just explore a world, particularly one as interesting and varied as this one. CD

This week I’d like to recommend two games about visiting hotels. The first is Lovely Lodgings, a game about being a literal ghost writer reviewing, well, lodgings. It’s one of the latest DOMINO CLUB game jam entries and I’d recommend its combination of Bitsy and visual novel-like visuals. FSN

Secondly, Backrooms Booker is “the world's first booking agency offering hand-picked, uncanny holiday listings…it has become increasingly important to accommodate the growing need for individuals to noclip out of their daily lives.” Need I say any more? FSN

Interesting things

My Fitzgerald reading marathon continues with his Pat Hobby stories, which I’m sad to report I dropped in the bath last night. No matter. These are a selection of stories Fitzgerald wrote as he was working on his final novel, The Last Tycoon. Whereas the novel looked at Hollywood studios from the perspective of the people running them, the Hobby stories examine them through the eyes of a washed-up writer who hasn’t really been in control since the days of silent movies.

I remember going to EA many, many years back when they were still based in Chertsey, and thinking that this huge company with so many games on the go was a bit like the Fitzgerald-era Hollywood studio, with people moving between very different projects quite briskly and a general hum of terrifying industry going on. EA’s changed a lot since then, but I do suspect that if Fitzgerald was writing Hobby today he might be trying to get producer gigs on Madden or something like that. CD

Essay: How’s the weather?

As I write this, I’m hiding in the basement of a café as storm Amy runs her fingers through the trees outside. This weather reminds me of other times I’ve taken refuge from the elements, whether in real life, or indeed, a video game. From static to dynamic systems, weather can range from mere set dressing to a core game mechanic. Personally, I’m perhaps more drawn to games that allow you to bask in sensory meteorological pleasures, rather than battling with them as an existential threat.