Happy Halloween! This week, Florence returns to a haunted house, Keith explores a haunted castle and Christian haunts a mortician. As far as we are aware, the Bathysphere is not haunted. However, sometimes late at night, many fathoms beneath the surface of the ocean, there are strange tapping noises on the exterior of the chassis, as though the ghost of a diver, long lost in the briny depths, has found our little craft and now seeks to escape the cold, dark depths – or drag us out to join him...

The Bathysphere crew
Christian Donlan
Florence Smith Nicholls
Keith Stuart

Contact us at bathyspherecrew@gmail.com

Delightful games

I have a couple of spooky game recommendations this week. The first is The Annual Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival by Adam Robinson-Yu (also known for A Short Hike). It’s a freely available multiplayer space in which you and other ghosts can take part in seasonal activities, from pumpkin carving to an escape room. I tried it for the first time last year and immediately fell in love. Also, it’s worth paying at least $2 dollars because then you get to give your ghost a hat. FSN

My second recommendation is the puzzle game Spooky Express which, you guessed it, involves spooky trains. You trace routes for monsters to reach their destination while also accommodating their specific foibles. Oh, and apparently the zombies in it say “trains” instead of “brains.” FSN

My Halloween recommendation is really just an excuse to point people towards A Mortician’s Tale. It’s not remotely spooky, but it offers an approach towards death that most games - and most media in general - does not consider. It’s quiet, kind and filled with reverence for humanity. CD

Interesting things

The British Library has a new exhibition called Secret Maps. Two of my favourite words right there! The exhibition looks at a range of maps that were not meant to be seen and explores the manner in which they can control knowledge as well as defining territory. The whole thing runs until January 18th. Cannot wait to see this one. CD

As it’s Halloween, I am reading the excellent Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia, a really fascinating book about Derrida’s concept of hauntology and how it can be experienced through TV, films and music. I am obsessed with this idea of nostalgia, belief and forgotten pasts infringing on the present and future, and I think it applies very clearly to video games, a medium that is haunted by the genres, concepts, and rules of long lost software and machines. KS

Essay: No Return

It’s Halloween and I’m trapped in a haunted house. No, that’s me being hyperbolic for effect - I’m just back in my childhood home to look after my parents’ little black cat. In any case, there is something particularly uncanny about returning to a place that seems to have remained much the same when you’ve changed so much. This topic is one that many media have tackled, including several video games.