The Safe Room

Rose and Grace explore a secret island base in pursuit of Code Veronica! They discuss its melodrama, nineties-style transphobia, and its multitude of annoyances.

In the midst of a fierce winter storm, we hop on the first available flight to Lospass Island and explore Suda51’s infamous surrealist adventure game “Flower, Sun, and Rain”. We talk about the game’s uniquely mundane structure, examine the ways it borrows from Twin Peaks and David Lynch, and recollect the game’s funniest and most memorable moments.

Grace and Rose dig into Slay the Princess and discuss its many routes, surprises, and ruminations on narrative storytelling. We also talk about the game’s tone and often grating dialogue between personalities. Lastly, we contemplate perhaps the most important question of all: Why doesn’t anyone talk about how horny this game is?

Rose and Grace discuss the first (good) Silent Hill game since SH4! We talk over its deeply felt depiction of growing up, its introduction of real ensemble dynamics to the franchise, and its exhausting, repetitive, and thrilling combat.

Rose and Grace enter the very heart of survival horror in Sweet Home. We talk over the genre's (now mostly-absent) RPG roots, the game's campy and self-aware charm, and its systemic adaptation of the source material.

cw: suicide, self-harm, drug useRose and Grace are joined by Cameron Kunzelman of Ranged Touch to talk over the Sega Saturn game D and its Dreamcast pseudo-sequel D2. We discuss how D2 at once presages the modern "cinematic" game and is something totally different, its wide swings at serious profundity, and how damn long everything takes in both of these video games. Tune in next time for Parasite Eve with another special guest!

Alisa is both thematically light and aesthetically ornate, a loving, smart throwback that is super annoying. In this episode, Grace and Rose work through how exactly it curates such a clockwork feast and how it manages to grate and delight in equal measure. Next time: Sorry, We’re Closed

The Safe Room takes a detour into the surreal and absurd with 2024’s Indika. We discuss the game’s commentary on religion, the unique and entertaining formal choices the game makes, and the second hand pain of playing a video game that features a bunch of straight people. Also, this was nominated for The Game Award’s Games for Change?

I wanted to get a Handheld Talk episode out for the holiday but unfortunately, due to my own carelessness, my files for that have been lost. Instead, enjoy this little playlist I threw together featuring songs from games we played this year. Hope you enjoy! See you soon for our Pathologic 2 episode. —RosePlaylist:"Two of Everything" by Tori Beaumont from "Immortality""Kusabi Love or Die Remix" by Masafumi Takada from "The Silver Case""Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy, arranged by Masafumi Takada from "The Evil Within 2""Fear II" by Yutaka Minobe from “Rule of Rose”"Koe" by Tsukiko Amano from “Fatal Frame III: The Tormented”"Miracle Workshop" by Vasily Kashnikov from “Pathologic 2”"You Came Back" by Ockeroid from “Crow Country”"Dead Space” by Jason Graves from “Dead Space”"Silencio Zero" by Vasily Kashnikov from “Pathologic 2”"The Tormented" by Tsukiko Amano and Ayako Toyoda from “Fatal Frame III: The Tormented”"The Reverse Will (Unseen Paths)" by Akria Yamaoka from “Silent Hill 2 (2024)”"Opening" by Nainita Desai from “Immortality”"Fairtale Town" by Ockeroid from “Crow Country””Shoot Speed" by Masafumi Takada from “Killer7”"Twyrine" by Vasily Kashnikov from “Pathologic 2”"Backbiting" by Yutaka Minobe from “Rule of Rose”"The Attic" Yutaka Minobe from “Rule of Rose”"Rave On" Masafumi Takada from “Killer7”

cw: suicide, sexual assault, domestic abuse, alcoholismIt’s time. We delve into the Silent Hill 2 Remake and discuss its handling of the originial game’s themes, the new (and pretty good) combat system, and how it handles (and mishandles) key scenes from the original game. We top it all off with a flurry of listener questions, where we talk game preservation, that damn pizza, and more.

Content warning: general gore and violence, body horror and limb dismemberment, ableism, misogyny.In this episode, we strategically dismember both versions of 2008 classic Dead Space. We talk about differences, downgrades, and improvements across versions, decide just how good the guns feel to fire, and work through the politics, and psychology, of having a dead wife™.Edwin Evans-Thirlwell’s essay on Dead SpaceGrace’s original review of Dead Space Remake

We talk about the classic detective visual novel The Silver Case! We discuss police procedurals, visual novel aesthetics, mysticism vs. science fiction, and why games should be like television.