Prepping this week's episode on autobiographical games, and it really is criminal that Despelote hasn't reached more people. Not just because it's important. But because it's ridiculously fun and moving.

HORSES was nominated for the Grand Prize and Nuovo Award at the 2026 Independent Games Festival! What a great opportunity to give shoutouts to the incredible talent that made this production possible. Check out the following posts to find out who they are, and what else they worked on! Thread:

There are many more wonderful people that worked on HORSES! Find out more about the team and their work on www.mobygames.com/game/251019/..., currently the only hyperlinked source for game credits!

Finally, the Seumas McNally Grand Prize nominees are: Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, & Bennett Foddy's Baby Steps Analgesic Productions's Angeline Era YACHT, Telefantasy Studios, Noble Robot's Blippo+ Santa Ragione's HORSES AP Thompson's Titanium Court Three Bees' Perfect Tides: Station to Station

The first group of Nuovo Award nominees are: @gcuzzillo.bsky.social, @maxiboch.bsky.social, & @foddy.net's Baby Steps YACHT, @telefantasytv.bsky.social, & @noblerobot.bsky.social's Blippo+ @santaragione.com's HORSES @threemoreyears.bsky.social's Mini Mini Golf Golf

The following games have been chosen for Honorable Mentions for Excellence in Narrative: YACHT, @telefantasytv.bsky.social, & @noblerobot.bsky.social's Blippo+ @santaragione.com's HORSES @eviltrout.com's The Roottrees Are Dead @alamodegames.bsky.social's Sorry We’re Closed

Baby Steps leads 28th annual IGF Awards nominations

My game of the year for Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto is Andrea Lucco Borlera and @santaragione.com's Horses. I also think that this kind of "emersive videogames" can be important in a revolutionary perspective and I hope to explore this topic further in the future.

The games industry brings in 300 billion dollars a year. The guy who made DOOM gets his projects canceled, the guy who made Katamari Damacy is broke, everyone in your feed is begging for a job and there are 50 new games coming out on Steam every day all going towards buying Gabe Newell's next yacht

Subscribe today and get immediate access to my essay on Horses, but also get subscriber exclusives like my current posts on Christmas games: www.patreon.com/posts/christ... and older articles like my solution for A Bard's Tale! expzine.com/2025/02/20/h... Code 09BAA for 90% off the first month!

It's my birthday! The ONLY thing I want is more subscribers to the exp. Patreon! It's just $1/month for consistent, quality video game criticism, but my gift to you TODAY ONLY (til 11:59pm EST) is 90% off the first month with the code 09BAA. That's like 10¢! But if you can't sub, please share!

At the very edge of gaming's most commercially-charged evening, we bring you @midfalutin.bsky.social's interview with the embattled developers of Horses, a game conceived and executed as a corrective to the very nature of modern gaming. vgbees.com/in-search-of...

I was disappointed to see the store page description put his name front and center while not mentioning any of the creators of the original games. This industry’s obsession with auteurs is not healthy.

That said, I hope the game will get a more nuanced label than “new Jon Blow game”. While the creative vision is his, he didn’t make any of the original games and there are a lot of talented people at Thekla who also deserve credit.

Mirror Isles: alan.draknek.org/games/puzzle... Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes: alan.draknek.org/games/puzzle...

Promesst: silverspaceship.com/promesst/ Promesst 2: silverspaceship.com/promesst2/

Heroes of Sokoban: sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puz... Heroes of Sokoban II: sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puz... Heroes of Sokoban III: sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puz...

So, “Order of the Sinking Star” by Thekla was just announced, which takes several small free games (two of which are mine) and gives them a major graphical upgrade and mashes up their rulesets. I haven’t been very involved but it’s a great concept and looks cool.

Has the discourse moved on yet? I hope not, because this is the best thing I've written this year. For supporters, I go deep on a comparison you will have heard a few times: On Horses, Salò, and Pasolini's "indigestible art." expzine.com/2025/12/09/h... Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/horses...

Valve has now rejected my complaint, confirming that "I don't like muslims" is a valid reason to leave a negative review on a game on Steam This is where we're at now.

I'm glad to see someone else talking about Vile: Exhumed, another game by an indie dev that was banned from Steam recently that deserves far more attention than it got. The creator chose to release the game for free and it's absolutely worth your time to play. Deeply affecting, raw, and unsettling

Italian art magazine @artribune.bsky.social talks about @santaragione.com's Horses and making art in a market controlled by monopolistic platforms.

Great episode with excellent HORSES segment ❤️ thank you!

When we made our systemic game MirrorMoon EP about the manipulation of systems, the play of contingency, and the brokenness of machines, you commented, “Oh, so experimental games mean Portal guns now?” It traumatised us so much we’ve been making games exclusively about Italian politics ever since

I had to write about Horses for @aftermath.site aftermath.site/horses-indie...

Spotify is garbage on every count: Its treatment of artists, its ICE advertising, the CEO's investment in military AI, its leading role in the commodification and AI slopification of music, its terrible audio quality—you name it. So I quit, and put together a complete guide to getting off Spotify:

itch once again kickin ass for the little guy; go pick up a copy here santaragione.itch.io/horses

Horses explores how bodies are constrained, operated and degraded by media technologies that range from early silent movies all the way to the grotesque and choppy sorcery of videogames. https://bit.ly/48zBsGi

Horses is being censored to the extent that the censoring storefronts dominate distribution. That should be pretty simple to understand, no? The effects of censorship are not really from the consumer (*can I get this media?") point of view; they control what's commercially viable to make, upstream.

The bans say more about a psychopathic and bigoted USA, perfectly fine with mass murder in ordinary FPS games (and IRL), yet treating nudity and sexuality as taboo no matter how intentionally or elliptically they’re approached.

Just played Horses It's fucked up that grotesque ultra violence, pornographic depictions, and military propaganda that profits genocidal regimes is acceptable, yet critique of violence, oppression, and exploitation in the way Horses does is considered "too controversial" www.gog.com/en/game/horses

Horses

A lot of people are talking about the controversy around the game Horses. If you are one of those people, you should buy the game, it's $5 and doesn't take long to beat. www.gog.com/en/game/horses THEN you can talk about it. :D

one side thing to this piece that i'm thinking about the IARC rating system. is it normal for a platform to apply for the rating after a developer has already done so? it sounds like no. curious in general how this works, if anyone wants to chat. (dm me!) aftermath.site/horses-steam...

In which i lay out what's going on with Horses up to and including the recent humble ban.

Many thanks to GoG and Itch for having Horses available to download while others are scared shitless of their own shadow www.gog.com/en/game/horses

www.gog.com/en/game/horses 😱

I swear to god none of the people involved here have actually played this game because if they did they’d be embarrassed that this is what they’re afraid of.

Humble's now banned it too, post-launch: www.ign.com/articles/hor...

Indie horror Horses gets pulled from Epic Games Store one day before launch

I reviewed Horses for @ign.com! www.ign.com/articles/hor...

Horses banned from Epic Games Store just 24 hours before launch

It's not approved as yet on SteamGridDB, but I made some library assets for HORSES if y'all decide to add it as a non-Steam game to your collection. Thankfully I worked fast with the materials in @santaragione.com's presskit for the game. 😁

Epic Games Store has also banned Horses at the last possible minute before the game was set to release. It was banned from Steam last week. https://bit.ly/48zMSdm

I did some work on HORSES and this whole thing has been ridiculous. Yesterday the news to finish with a bang. Thankfully it's still available somewhere

HORSES, the bizarre, funny, and thought provoking game from @santaragione.com, is out now! it was essentially banned from Steam and Epic Games Store for being too weird, indicative of just how bizarre and excellent the game is. buy it for $5 on itch or GOG instead: www.horses.wtf

First HORSES reviews are in!

Bunch of cowards, scared of virtual Horses

Santa Ragione's Horses delivers a subversive, sometimes shocking, often funny first-person narrative horror that, while perhaps a little insubstantial, remains an engagingly unconventional exploration of some timely themes. Here's our review: www.eurogamer.net/horses-review