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CultureIndie Developer And Her Boyfriend Talk About Making A Game About Their Relationship
Nina Freeman’s calling card as a developer is allowing a player to enter into her life. Some of her games, like Cibele, which is about a relationship that takes place over an MMO, have been semi-autobiographical. Now, Freeman and her real-life partner, Jake Jefferies, have turned their relationship intoan intimate video game called We Met…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureEveryone Loves Shipping Apex Legends‘ Mirage
A lot of people like Apex Legends, but it hasn’t inspired the same kind of overwhelming fandom and lore excavation Overwatch did. Still, the fandom does exist, and with those people come shipping. After browsing through the fanfiction and fanart that this fandom has generated, I’ve noticed a very pleasing trend: You can just ship…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsAdventure Time Creator’s New Card Game Has The Same Appeal As The Show
Card of Darkness has been my go-to phone game for about a week. It’s a tricky little card game, where you pick up cards from a board to fight monsters and traverse through dungeons. While I love the game, what also keeps me coming back are memories of Adventure Time Card of Darkness was made…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureThe Essentials From This Week’s Pokémon Sword And Shield Interviews
This week, Game Informer had a slew of interviews with the leads of the Pokémon Sword and Shield team at Game Freak. There’s a lot there, and some of the information has since been corrected or clarified, so here’s what you need to know. There’s Autosave, But You Can Turn It Off Traditionally, you’ve had…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureCoach, Michael B. Jordan Team Up To Sell You $95 Naruto T-Shirts
Take a deep breath before you read the following sentence: Coach has collaborated with actor Michael B. Jordan on a wildly expensive line of clothing inspired by the anime Naruto Go on a journey with me. Imagine you’re at work, busy working on something not at all related to the anime Naruto, which you mainly…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureEvery time I listen to the theme song for Succession, the HBO drama about rich people being evil and sexy, I feel pretty evil and sexy. It’s a little less sexy when done in Mario Paint Something about the “meow” sound effect doesn’t exactly call to mind the prestige of the Roy family, though perhaps…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureApex Legends Players Are Trying An In-Game Recipe For Pork Chops In Their Own Kitchens
Apex Legends players have uncovered a new secret in the game’s lore: a family recipe for Mirage’s pork chops. One of the battle pass rewards for the third season of Apex Legends, which began yesterday, are new loading screens. Players have noticed that one of Mirage’s loading screens, which you can earn with the free…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsThe Diversity In 80 Days Shocked Me, In A Good Way
80 Days, a game based on Jules Verne’s novel Around The World In 80 Days, is now available on Switch. Revisiting the game has allowed me to see myself and my culture in ways that aren’t always visible to me in video games. I am mixed race, with an Indian mother and a black father.…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureBeing King Doesn’t Look Easy in Upcoming Medieval Management Sim
Yes, Your Grace is an upcoming management sim that will put you in charge of a kingdom, and all of the witches, hunters and generals therein. I am pleased to report that this game looks like it is one thousand percent my shit. In Yes, Your Grace, you play as a king who needs to…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsI Just Want To Cuddle Every Damn Animal In This Zoo
Planet Zoo, a new PC game from Frontier, the makers of Planet Coaster, is currently in a beta available to players that pre-ordered the deluxe version of the game. It’s about running a zoo. In order to do that, you have to build enclosures, outfit habitats with the proper flora for the species—species from the…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsPinball Wizard Is The Perfect Game To Play On A Commute
Pinball Wizard, a new pinball game for Apple Arcade starring an actual wizard, has all the elements of a great subway game: It’s easy to learn, challenging as you keep going, and it doesn’t always need all of your attention. Pinball Wizard is basically pinball, but with spells. Your wizard is the ball, and you…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryI Wasn’t Expecting This New Fashion Game To Be So Political
For a while, I couldn’t open Instagram without getting an ad for Covet, a styling game similar to Love Nikki. Covet’s hook is that it features real fashion brands, and while it was tempting, I also suspected that it would be like taking a vacuum to my bank account. After Jezebel editor-in-chief Julianne Escobedo-Shepherd told…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryHighway Planning Game Really Underscores How Inefficient Cars Are
As I watch cars sit at a standstill at an intersection in Mini Motorways, the new game from the makes of Mini Metro, all I can think about is how much more efficient this city would have been with public transportation. Dinosaur Polo Club, the developers of Mini Metro and Mini Motorways, have created two…
By Gita Jackson -
ReviewsPCI Love You, Colonel Sanders!: The Kotaku Review
The difference between I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator and the dating sims I’ve enjoyed is sincerity. That’s hard to come by in a game that’s actually about making its players fall in love with the idea of buying fried chicken. Dating games and visual novels in general often find…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureMediocre Video Game Show Bandersnatch Wins Emmy
Bandersnatch, last year’s interactive episode of the anthology science fiction show Black Mirror, won the Emmy for best TV movie. That’s pretty great news, if you put much stock in the Emmys. The Emmy Awards, created by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in part for the “image-building and public-relations opportunities,” supposedly awards outstanding…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureThe Creepypasta Community That Influenced Control
Control’s setting, a secretive government facility that studies supernatural happenings, is engrossing. If you can’t get enough of the game’s surreal atmosphere, perhaps you should check out the SCP Foundation, a community-run fiction archive that many speculated was an inspiration for Control. It turns out that speculation was correct. Kotaku spoke with the SCP Foundation…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsMutazione Is A Super Chill Game About Raising Plants And Talking To Mutants
Mutazione, an indie game from Die Gute Fabrik out tomorrow on Steam, Apple Arcade and PlayStation 4, does a lot of things well, but what really caught my attention was how it captured the magic of growing plants. To see a plant grow from a cutting into a fully formed plant, to see the sprouts…
By Gita Jackson -
CultureBorderlands 3 Developers Fix Nasty Bug That Erased People’s Save Files (Although It’s Too Late For Them)
Some Borderlands 3 players have reported issues with crashes leading to corrupt save files and, more concerningly, some wonkiness with cloud saves preventing players from loading up an older, non-corrupted save file. Publisher 2K Games says that they have a fix. Yesterday, Kotaku’s own Paul Tamayo fell victim to the unfortunate combination of issues that…
By Gita Jackson -
CulturePlayer Catalogues List Of Games That Still Have Poorly Implemented Subtitles
Just from playing games, I know that the subtitles they offer are often too small, have weird line breaks, or don’t show up properly against the background of the game. This handy Reddit post offers a more detailed look at just how bad the situation can get in certain games. Over on the PC Gaming…
By Gita Jackson