Things I Liked: April to June 2025

01 Jul, 2025

Welcome to another installment of Things I Liked! Since the last one, I’ve written a Design Diary on Temporal Breach, the video game I made at the end of Year 2 of University; I also uploaded my Year 2 essay: An Exploration of Player Elimination in Multiplayer Games, and I’m really happy with that, so give it a read! I also wrote quite a personal and political essay about Inspector Calls, and the current state of trans and disabled rights in the UK, that was really hard to write so I’d appreciate a lot of love for it. And finally, I wrote something a bit more journalism-y, talking about My Favourite Demos From Steam Next Fest Summer 2025! Outside of writing I’ve also added a highlights page to the blog, so check that out for a recap of all the writing I’m most proud of! Without further ado, let’s get to these recommendations for things I’ve liked since April!

Sinners

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was AMAZING. Like, really amazing. Like, redefines the potential of cinema amazing. Like, caught the cultural zeitgeist in a way we haven’t seen in ages amazing. Michael B. Jordan absolutely kills it as twins Smoke and Stack, Miles Caton blew me away with his debut performance as Sammie. I’ll say that again: debut performance! I couldn’t believe that when I first found out! Sinners has so much that I love in it, blues and folk music, electric guitar stings, themes of legacy and ancestry (check out my game ABODE for more of that!), vampires, Michael B. Jordan, and, of course, Michael B. Jordan. If you somehow still haven’t seen it after all the buzz, please do everything you can to watch it. Sinners is an all-timer for sure.

Saints

Saints by Amy Jeffs is a really interesting book retelling various stories from the medieval cult of saints (though the stories are set as far back as the first century). A thing I love about books about myths and folklore is that they alternate between telling fictional stories and analysing them as real cultural objects, and I love the way that Jeffs writes both sides of it. The book jumps between famous saints (like George, David and Nicholas) and more obscure ones (like Uncumber, Ia and Cosmas and Damian, my personal favourite). Overall I really enjoyed this book, though it took me a while to finish (I started it in December!)

SolidArf

Other than Saints and Sinners, I’ve fallen quite deep into games writing and essays this season. I discovered a number of more obscure video essayists, including SolidArf. I first discovered them with their video What I Learned Photographing NPCs in Tears of the Kingdom, an hour-long exploration of TotK’s NPCs and how they’ve changed since Breath of the Wild. It covers character design, writing and quests to create a pretty comprehensive analysis of how Hyrule has changed between the two games. It gave me a greater appreciation for photo modes in games and I quickly went on to watch another of their videos, What I Learned Photographing NPCs in Spider-Man (2018). This is a very similar video that also features a pretty robust review of Spider-Man’s photo mode. It made me realise how little discussion I generally see about photo modes in games, but they’re constantly growing in popularity as a feature. While the Tears of the Kingdom video is sitting pretty on 180k views, looking through Arf’s channel, there are some seriously slept on videos here. Both Art and the Environment in Concrete Genie and Hollow Knight's Loneliest Levels are sitting at under 1,000 views. It’s criminal! Concrete Genie is also a massively underappreciated game that I played a couple years back, so definitely check that out too! Arf also occasionally makes Micro Essays for The Essay Library, which are cross-posted on their channel. Each of these videos comes in between 80 and 90 seconds long, an amazing feat of writing in my opinion. They feel reminiscent of conversations I’ve had with friends over Discord: here’s a thought, it’s not long enough to go on the blog, and I don’t feel the need to say more. So check out some of my favourites: Representing Monsoon in Games, Chants of Sennaar Micro-Essay: Language and Discomfort, and Russian Doll Micro-Essay: Becoming Someone Else.

Incidental Mythology

Incidental Mythology has been another great, tiny video essayist who I’ve discovered these last couple months. I was introduced to them with Taskmaster and Intelligence, when it came out in May, which is a great analysis of how the UK panel show Taskmaster challenges conventional ideas of intelligence. I used to be a huge fan of Taskmaster and I’ve been getting back into it watching the whole way through with my partner (we’re up to season 11, nearly caught up to when I dropped off), so it was lovely to see such a silly show analysed in a genuine way. I also really enjoyed their video The Chthulucene | Princess Mononoke and Lord of the Rings as Critique of the Anthropocene, I’m a big fan of both of those pieces of media for how they present the world as non-human centric, which is exactly what the Chthulucene is all about. Finally, I want to recommend Spiritfarer and the Sociology of Grief. Spiritfarer is one of those games that deeply affected me and fundamentally changed how I think about games and the world. I’m glad to see it getting the attention it deserves.

Filmmakers Without Cameras

I bought Filmmakers Without Cameras: The Trilogy from Peregrine Coast Press at UK Games Expo 2023, not too long after it came out. The book is an amazing collection of essays about games, films and culture by a huge collection of writers. Some of my favourites from the book include: ‘Playing Hades or- what it’s like to sit with inadequacy’ by Sydney Bollinger; ‘This War of Mariupol’s’ by Oleksandr Derevianchenko, which is about This War of Mine and Ukraine; and ‘High School Musical: A Communist Reading’ by Megan Dobbyn. The book is absolutely gorgeously laid out, with amazing art from all contributors (special shoutout to the piece for the aforementioned Hades essay by Heidi Ostell, and the piece for Eurothug4000’s ‘The Virtual Home of Hub Worlds’ by Matt Miles). The book is currently 40% off at Peregrine Coast Press (I believe for clearance? It’s been on sale for a while now), so pick it up while you can!

Stealth Crossword

Play it for free on Itch.io here!

It’s been a while since a game has made me laugh out loud at how clever it is, but ComputerJames’ Stealth Crossword got me from the opening scene. As the name implies, Stealth Crossword is a crossword game with stealth mechanics. It’s stupid, it’s genius, I love it. You are presented with a crossword and must walk the letters into the correct slots, avoiding the sightline of the guards in your path. This game is so funny, both because of its silly concept and hilarious writing. I won’t spoil the details, but the perspective switch was hilarious. Check it out!