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In this episode we celebrate the release of Sian’s book Video games and gender assemblages: Understanding #Gamergate and beyond. Following a chat about some games we’ve enjoyed lately, including Guardians of Azuma and We Know the Devil, we dive into the question “Why is gender, particularly women, such an ‘issue’ in video games?’. Sian’s attitude […]

We’re back to haunt you! After our hiatus we’re back for our first episode of 2025. We discuss some games we’ve been playing lately, including The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Piofiore: Fated Memories, and The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and South of Midnight. We then move on to discuss haunting in […]

In this episode, Sian and Heather reflect on the past few busy months and discuss their favourite games of the year. From the psychological horrors Mouthwashing and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley to the action-RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard and visual novel STOP BURYING ME ALIVE, BEAUTIFUL!, it certainly has been an eventful 2024. […]

In this episode, Sian and Heather reflect on the complexities of archiving video games. We discuss the way that formal archiving is often difficult and tied up with ideas and judgements about cultural value. We also reflect on the importance of fan preservation, and the discussions around ownership, accessibility, licencing, backwards compatibility, remixing, and more. […]

Queer games? For pride month? Ground-breaking. This episode Sian and Heather chat about queer game design and the growing body of scholarship from writers including Bo Ruberg and Xavier Ho on queer games and the way queer games reimagine and play with the video game form. We catch up on what we’ve been working on […]

In this episode Sian and Heather reflect on ‘cosy’ games – games that are designed or played for relaxation and comfort. We recap our research over the past month or so, including the DIGRAA conference, and games we’ve played recently, including Signalis and Mato Anomalies. We consider what ‘cosy’ games are; a category that often […]

In this episode Sian and Heather ‘dive in’ to underwater worlds and level design in video games, particularly the kinds of storytelling inscribed in watery environments. We first catch up on different research projects we’ve been working on and what we’ve been playing recently, before discussing a few different artistic and scientific projects that bring […]

In this episode, Sian and Heather ‘tuck in’ to video game food and its role from both  mechanical and narrative perspectives. Food, an essential part of life, is a constant presence in video games that rely on world-building and environmental storytelling to convey meaning. From cute cooking minigames to games that use food to inscribe […]

Gamification is the practice of applying game design elements in non-game contexts. Both the term and practice have been applied to various activities including education, work, fitness, romance, finances, and beyond. In this episode, we slow down and unpack what the term means and some of the research around its application from various game studies […]

What does the phrase ‘gaming lifestyle’ mean in 2023? In this episode, we talk about the spaces, times, and activities that come to mind when we think of gaming as a hobby. From stylised gaming setups and the visuals of video game streaming; to challenging and toxic communities; to game design exhibitions and the community […]

What makes something cute, and what does a cute thing do in the context of video games? As a surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) dominant aesthetic of the contemporary era, cuteness is an area of interest for various scholars. In the episode, Sian and Heather unpack some of the developing ideas around cuteness within and outside […]

In this episode, Sian and Heather get stuck into the influential concept of flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s writing and lectures on the flow state have been applied by designers and scholars alike to understand and articulate the unique experiences of play that video games facilitate. We walk through what the concept means and discuss some later […]

Happy new year! In this episode Sian and Heather talk about failure in video games. Failure has been an aspect of gameplay that has fascinated many scholars studying video games. We walk through the theories of several scholars, including Jesper Juul, Jane McGonigal, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ronald Tocci, Christopher Paul, Bonnie Ruberg, and Jack Halberstam, reflecting […]

Welcome to our last episode of 2022–and what a year it has been! Sian and Heather take it light and breezy and discuss some of their favourite games from this year, titles they loved, titles they spent a lot of time on (hello Genshin Impact …) and those with some interesting mechanics. We catch up […]

Happy Halloween! In this episode Sian and Heather catch up on what they’ve been playing and researching lately before moving into a discussion of the gothic, the horrible, and the spooky in video games. We reflect on some different ways of thinking about these genres and their appearances in different video games, discussing scholarship, the […]