Resonant Arc Resonant Arc create the gaming podcast/YouTube series State Of The Arc. While they do episodes on various topics, the main focus of the series is long-form book-club style analysis of video game stories. They play through a game over several episodes and talk about the game’s narrative, characters, themes, and storytelling devices as the game unfolds. The two hosts Mike and Casen each bring an interesting perspective. Mike is a writer himself, and also has a history of struggles with mental health; he is often very vulnerable with how the game speaks to him and the pain he carries. Casen, on the other hand, brings theoretical knowledge: he knows his traditional symbology, Jungian literary theory, and often reads the works of philosophy that have inspired the game they’re covering. He also speaks Japanese, giving him some insight into how the games they cover have been translated. This is how I heard about Terranigma (the game I’m currently playing). I’ve enjoyed all the classic Final Fantasy games they’ve covered. I was moved by Mike’s response to Outer Wilds.[1] The creator of BioShock listened to and enjoyed their series on it. And I’m looking forward their next game, Chrono Trigger, as well as eventually going back into their archive to play along Xenogears with them. Haiku talk American haiku poet Ben Gaa has a regular vlog called Haiku talk. The premise is simple: each episode, he talks about an English-language haiku poem he enjoyed recently, usually one from a recently published journal. Then he comments on what makes the poem work for him and how it makes him feel, and also overuses the phrase “It’s a very nice poem” (at least once per episode). Anyway, I think this is very underviewed. I know it’s a niche topic, but he’s done over 140 episodes and still only gets a couple of hundred views on each video. I’ve discovered some of my favourite haiku through this series. I recommend watching a few from the beginning as they’re more likely to explain a few key haiku concepts, but then you can just look through the episode titles and see what jumps out at you. If Books Could Kill Who doesn’t love a good dunking? In the If Books Could Kill podcast, the two hosts take turns reading a popular non-fiction “airport book”, then explain and review that book to the other person, along with factchecking it and exploring the impact the book had on popular culture. They do try to be fair and give credit where due and point out the book’s merits, but there is also plenty of taking the piss. I guess there is a kind of catharsis listening to this, as some of these books are the kind of thing I might have read and perhaps liked in my early-to-mid-20s. TechDweeb It feels silly putting this as a recommendation because if you’re into TechDweeb’s main topic (retro gaming), you probably already know who he is. However, the title of this post is “stuff I’m enjoying at the moment”, and I’ve been enjoying TechDweeb a lot. His videos are hilarious and creative, and he recommends great niche retro games. While his channel title is “TechDweeb”, his content skews more toward the games themselves than some other retro-gaming content creators, who focus solely reviewing gadgets for playing retro games. Outer Wilds supercuts I’m a bit addicted to these. Outer Wilds is such an interesting game because everyone experiences it so differently. Some figure out puzzles in seconds that take most people several play sessions. Some stumble on one of the game’s deepest secrets early on by accident. Some[2] land on the fucking Sun Station first time like it’s nothing. Some come up with wild theories about what is going on that turn out to be wrong. Some (many) are moved to tears. Outer Wilds is commonly referred to as “the game you can only play once”. There’s just nothing for you to come back to. It’s my favourite game and I doubt I’ll ever play it again. But watching others play, I can re-experience the game to some extent, and I still find it moving, every single time. Thankfully, to ensure I do actually get other things done in my life, there are “supercuts” of others’ playthroughs: edited highlights, showing the players’ reactions to big moments and particularly unusual aspects of their playthrough (which there always are). Do not click on these links if you have not played the game. You can only play Outer Wilds once, and anything that is spoiled is essentially subtracted from that singular experience. So go play it first. Shout out to Eelis who makes loads of supercuts (and of course all the players who feature), but also BeccaBytes and Dish[3] who made their own, and some of the best I’ve ever seen. Honestly, the reason I include this one is if you’re a fellow member of the Outer Wilds support group you can reach out and talk to me any time. The greatest game ever made. ↩︎ Kerbal Space Program players ↩︎ In which I finally mention some women on this list. ↩︎ Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed. To leave a comment, please visit the original post. If you'd like to get in touch, even if just to say hi, please write to sayhi@thetangent.space. I'll be genuinely delighted to hear from you.