Our music game series is now done, so let's recap it with original art by @wendyleftmealone.bsky.social.

Holiday gift idea! Get someone a one-year Design Room subscription. Just go here, tip $70, and put their name, email, and the date you want it to start in the notes. www.designroom.site#/portal/supp...

Buried in this article are FIVE DIFFERENT WIP versions of Begin Again. Unbelievably cool.

4,000 words on the stage I haven't been able to stop playing for the last six years. Early dev screenshots, talk of tech challenges, five demo tracks embedded so you can hear the song's evolution. All the good stuff.

4,000 words on the stage I haven't been able to stop playing for the last six years. Early dev screenshots, talk of tech challenges, five demo tracks embedded so you can hear the song's evolution. All the good stuff.

The final story in our music series is live!

Introducing our 15th Anniversary Art Book: 'Print Screen. Celebrating 15 Years of Video Game Art' • A beautiful coffee table book featuring more than 150 iconic video game artworks, with essays and interviews from industry luminaries and artists!

And yes, that's an illustration from @wendyleftmealone.bsky.social that we haven't run on the site yet, showing the last story in our music series (coming soon!).

Become the Black Bird in this dark-fantasy shooting game with an operatic twist! Discover the tale of a young girl who dies a pitiful death and is reborn as the calamitous Black Bird — now 50% OFF for your PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5! store.playstation.com/en-us/concep...

⏰ THIS IS IT! FINAL 48 HOURS TO BACK THE APWOT 6 KICKSTARTER! 🤖✨ Link below! 👇

AIM FOR THE STARS: FUNLAND NO. 5 HAS LANDED @oniongames.bsky.social's YOSHIRO KIMURA on life on Earth. @lukewasthefish.bsky.social on life on alien worlds (or at least SLC). @kaittremblay.bsky.social on death in the cosmos. Cover by @alexanderlaird.bsky.social funland.itch.io/funland-zine...

Check out @designroom.bsky.social if you’re into video game history and behind the scenes interviews!

New episode! How do you create an oral history feature about a game like Final Fantasy VII or Street Fighter 2? Former Polygon editor @mattleone.bsky.social joins us to discuss this, and his new site, @designroom.bsky.social. Listen wherever you get podcasts: open.spotify.com/episode/0dAo...

Next up in our music game series: a big profile of Sound Fantasy and Electroplankton creator Toshio Iwai, based on a three-hour call with @radishgames.com.

A game starring a flying "sound warrior" that started life as a video game stage show with three people playing simultaneously, all synced to the same soundtrack? It could only be Otocky. www.designroom.site/toshio-iwai-...

Fun fact: This story came about because I noticed Iwai had done an art installation 30 years ago for the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. The museum's staff was able to connect us, and this is the result.

Fun fact: This story came about because I noticed Iwai had done an art installation 30 years ago for the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. The museum's staff was able to connect us, and this is the result.

Issue 5 is out now! 🦄 🎉 Featuring our incredible collaboration with Vanillaware for our Unicorn Overlord cover, interviews with some of the medium's most iconic creatives, and beautiful essays with original art from cover to cover. Let's walk through the latest issue: 👇🧵

Happy Lumines day!

Despite the ravages of age and an internet steeped in misinformation, your eyes – in this one case – do not deceive you: Website different. It’s taken an immense amount of time and effort, but welcome to Aftermath version 2.0: aftermath.site/aftermath-rela...

$1 gets you... •25 incredible interviews with the most fascinating people in video games •5 deep dives on storytelling, reviews, and media •1 oral history of Street Fighter: The Movie •Video episodes •Weekly bonus segments •And a community of over 1,000 passionate gamers www.patreon.com/c/PostGames

We're kicking off a series of music game oral histories with a look back at Rez Infinite -- and why it's been nine years without a follow-up.

New @apwot.bsky.social is live!

Hear about the NES US launch 40 years ago from the people that made it happen: Gail Tilden, Bruce Lowry and Lance Barr with @frankcifaldi.bsky.social from the @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social moderating! Panel recording at youtu.be/f2WDfsiLiRA #prge #prge2025 #retrogaming #VGHF

Fun fact: I originally wanted to run this story the day @designroom.bsky.social launched because I thought it was going to be Rez Infinite's 10th anniversary. Turned out I was a year off, but then I figured, might as well do it anyway.

With Shadow of the Colossus behind us, our next project kicks off Monday: a music game series running throughout November.

i just signed up as a subscriber for @mattleone.bsky.social and co's new hotness! The FF7 and Street Fighter Oral Histories were critical pitstops on my journey to get into game dev, and I am excited to support an independent outlet helping chart the history of our artform from the words of artists!

The Last Guardian executive producer Yasuhide Kobayashi didn't want to move the game from PS3 to PS4.

Delighted to announce Heartbeats, Dreams and Laser Eyes: 15 Years of Simogo, and equally thrilled to be working with @hollynielsen.bsky.social, @nadiaoxford.bsky.social, @illogicaljoker.bsky.social and Christian Donlan, who will be contributing essays to the book. Preorder at the link below!

​Over at The Ringer, I went long on the history of PlayStation online, from SOCOM and Uncharted 2 to its current live-service woes. Notable hearing Shawn Layden on​ GaaS:​ “A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.” www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...

Honored to contribute something to @mattleone.bsky.social's wonderful new jam! I really enjoyed reading back on these, still amazed that I got to talk to so many incredible devs about my favorite thing.

For the second of these, @nsuttner.bsky.social talks with Josef Fares about Ico, wordless storytelling, and why developers shouldn't listen too closely to players.

Another 10,000 words on Shadow of the Colossus?! Today, we're posting two never-before-seen interviews @nsuttner.bsky.social did for his @bossfightbooks.com book on Shadow that came out back in 2015. For the first, he talks to @thatgamecompany.com's Jenova Chen.

Was fun!

Takeshi Oga, the former Gravity Rush concept artist who did our Shadow of the Colossus cover, has just joined Bluesky. @ogatakeshi.bsky.social

It’s FunFactor… Fonday? Today we’ve got an à la carte bonus episode of @funfactorpod.com with @mattleone.bsky.social to chat about games history and preservation, how we tell stories, and his new oral histories project: @designroom.bsky.social. Extended preview in the free feed!

For the Shadow of the Colossus story, we interviewed 14 people including project leads Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido, hired Gravity Rush concept artist Takeshi Oga to illustrate the cover, and put together a 10,000-word story with help from @milkman.bsky.social @shmuplations.bsky.social and others.

🚨🚨🚨 We are live! Welcome to Design Room, a new independent games media site. • We specialize in oral histories like the Final Fantasy 7 and Street Fighter 2 ones I (@mattleone.bsky.social) did at Polygon • Our first big story is on Shadow of the Colossus: bit.ly/4hjwz8n • See more: designroom.site

It's past midnight on the east coast, which means it's officially Shadow of the Colossus' 20th anniversary. Come join the party.

Was great talking about @designroom.bsky.social with the Aftermath folks!

Wrapping up our first week — thanks to everyone who checked out the site, followed, and/or subscribed! Next week, we’ll be back with more Shadow of the Colossus coverage from an old friend.

Working on a feature for Design Room right now and it covers one of the most unique game designers I’ve ever researched. Even had a chance to sit down with them. Stay tuned 👀

We are going live in a few minutes with @mattleone.bsky.social to talk designroom.site, and more! www.twitch.tv/aftermathdot...

One more day! This is genuinely going to be one of the best things we've ever put out, so get your orders in now

New site: designroom.site Personal: rooftopshouting.com Shadow of the Colossus story: bit.ly/sotcoralhistory Niantic/Punchdrunk story: bit.ly/nianticpunchdrunk Street Fighter 2 book: bit.ly/likeahurricane Final Fantasy 7 book: bit.ly/500yearslater PlayStation 25th video: bit.ly/playstation25th

R-Type poster for #iam8bit20!! @iam8bit.com

Yesterday we posted a big Shadow of the Colossus oral history. Threading a few bits of trivia about that story below...

Getting off work? Finally have time to read a 10,000-word story? Or perhaps you live overseas... 👀

Getting off work? Finally have time to read a 10,000-word story? Or perhaps you live overseas... 👀

For the evening crowd... I launched a new oral histories site today. It's very good.