Hello and welcome to another expedition! This week Christian is looking at games about vans, Florence is spending time with the Picts and Keith has found an old news article about how arcade owners could make sure people stayed engrossed in Missile Command. Please step inside and join us, just mind your head as the hatch is lower than you think.

The Bathysphere crew
Christian Donlan
Florence Smith Nicholls
Keith Stuart

Contact us at bathyspherecrew@gmail.com

Delightful games

There have been several games about the turmoil of Alzheimer’s but As Long As You’re Here is a particularly polished and emotionally resonant example. It looks at an unfolding family drama through the eyes of an Alzheimer’ sufferer for whom regular activities and joys slowly unravel as the condition takes hold. This is, of course, quietly devastating, but hugely meaningful and important too. KS

As someone who spent many happy hours as a teen hanging around in Games Workshop and board game stores, I was obviously going to try Tabletop Game Shop Simulator, the latest in a seemingly endless run of shop sims. It’s typical of the genre in that you order stock, design your store interior, employ staff, then manage the business, but it also lets you paint figures and then display them on large dioramas! It is rather lovely. KS

Interesting things

Carved in Stone is a storyteller’s guide to the Picts, an early Medieval Scottish society. The book is absolutely gorgeously illustrated and has been designed with TTRPGs in mind. With input from specialist research, I was most impressed with the transparency around what interpretations had been made about the archaeological record, and the importance of recognising diversity of lived experience in the past. FSN

This week, in honour of its one year anniversary, I would like to recommend the Thinky Games database. Defined as “games you love to solve,” the database includes all kinds of puzzle games, now including visual novel detective games. Objection? FSN

Essay: Vanlife

For the last few months - actually it’s more like all summer - my neighbours have been restoring a van in their driveway. The van is a camper. It’s a VW, but not the classic VW camper. It’s white and powder blue and clearly needs a lot of work: the van never leaves the drive. But it still speaks of adventure and a freewheeling, chummy kind of way of being in the world. The van is an intensely appealing thing.