Welcome back! Oh what a cosy submarine in which to strike out for the horizon!

This week, Chris has decided not to write an essay and has instead chosen to bang on about a few games he’s been playing. Elsewhere, Florence begins a ritual.

The Bathysphere crew
Christian Donlan
Florence Smith Nicholls
Keith Stuart

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Delightful games

Hawk & Puma is one of the most exquisitely crafted Bitsy games I have ever seen. The developers translate the life and works of Guaman Poma, indigenous chronicler of the Andes, into pixel art that almost feels like it could dance off your screen. You can play it for free on itch.io. FSN

Interesting things

We all have our little rituals. Lighting a candle, brushing our teeth, putting our avatar to bed before we exit a game. Rituals of Play is a free zine that explores the space between games, the occult and magic. A perfect October read. FSN

Essay

Hello! In lieu of an essay this week, here are a few things about some of the games I’ve been playing.

Militsioner Demo

Militsioner is a sort of spin on The Trial in which you try to escape town while being observed by a giant policeman. I’ve been poking around with the demo for a morning or so and it’s a wonderful thing - characterful and funny and scary. 

If I had to pin it down to a genre, I would say it’s a blend of immersive sim and - kind of - an adventure game. I certainly ran into a variation of Monkey Island’s three trials fairly quickly. I’ve cooled on adventure games over the years, but I think adventure game elements work here, not least because this is a game about a totalitarian state. And with their odd demands and often cryptic rules, aren’t a lot of adventures already totalitarian states?

Sno: Ultimate Freeriding

I’ve been playing this game alongside Militsioner and it’s an ideal companion. Whenever Militsioner gets slightly too oppressive, here’s a winter sports sim that offers a glorious sense of freedom. You can trick and score points and all that jazz, but I like just bombing around the procedural snowscapes in an aimless fashion. Plus there’s a menu option that allows you to generate a whole mountain, and that’s the kind of thing I am always in favour of.

Chess

I stumbled across a TikTok of people playing Chess in Bryant Park recently and I was struck by how different the game they were playing was compared to my own plodding version. The pieces were flying and every move seemed to see a capture. The energy of the thing! It’s a bit like when I watch tennis on TV and the ball behaves unlike any tennis ball I have feebly knocked around a court.

After that I wandered over to Chess.com and was very quickly reminded of why I don’t play Chess very often. I’m horrible at it. BUT! Then I saw another TikTok about the Chess player Capablanca and his approach to the game was so delightful that I’ve been trying to implement some of his - pleasantly simple - rules, and I’ve seen the most modest of upticks in my own wretched games.

I always hoped there would be a way into Chess for me. Maybe that way in is a famous player who strikes me as being an interesting and playful character?

Gloom

Gloom is a card game about ensuring your family of mournful Gorey-alikes have the absolute worst lives imaginable. I’ve been playing it with my daughter, who loves it in part because you’re encouraged to tell stories around the cards you play and in part because the cards themselves are made of some kind of see-through plastic and smell quite weird. CD