I wondered if any of the incredible games from 2025, especially Donkey Kong Bananza, would disrupt my top nine, and apparently: barely no. But it was close!

We got an opportunity to speak with @skunkapegames.com about their remake of Poker Night at the Inventory (which comes out tomorrow!). We also go deep into the history of the original game's development and Telltale as a whole. Check it out! open.spotify.com/episode/0XXu...

Life is getting so hard

I think the most millennial thing about me is that I don't know how to not think that the "Holding Out for a Hero" scene in Shrek 2 is the best action scene in all of cinema.

This rules so hard

we live in the ruins of a greater civilization

No son, they are not "magically delicious." The workers made them delicious. This is a slogan meant to mystify the social conditions of labor

This is so fun! I found myself in the video game professionals cluster, which was a bit of a morale booster tbh. It's true! The internet knows it!

Reading about the Switch version of Dispatch is making me nostalgic for the gray Mortal Kombat sweat on the SNES.

I think this is the best deal these games have had! Survivor will always be special to me, go play it for cheap

Pokémon The First Movie is only about ninety minutes, but if I drink a Monster I can get it done in 50 no problem.

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

greatest steam update of all time, because of one unnecessary detail

The game exists so that the common man can at least get a bit of enjoyment out of it, but really, Super Mario Odyssey is intended to be read live as an oral tradition.

Happy 2026!

One last plein air outing for 2025. There was lot of nonsense this year trying to distract me with disingenuous immediacy. I will be seeking certain silences in the natural world to drown that out in 2026.

I'm now done for the calendar year, so here are all the games I finished* in 2025. *Usually means rolling credits on a thing, but sometimes it's squishier

This is something I'm, embarrassingly, only now learning I should care about. But it's the same thing as when I hear about how proud someone is because they "don't pay for their phone games," so they only play free things with gacha monitization and ads. Buy a game! Pay money! Be nicer to you!

Playin a little Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace for the PS1 for the PS5 this Sunday afternoon

They say imitation crab is the sincerest form of crab

The Telling the Tale pocast is back! (for a little while) @theflyingdustman.bsky.social and I DID go through EVERY Telltale game in the canon, but after Dispatch got so much attention and critical acclaim this year, we couldn't stay away. www.podbean.com/ew/pb-26sp4-...

With Astro Bot last year and Clair Obscur this year, there is now a pattern of the winner of Game of the Year getting new free content the night they win. This will be SO SCARY for whoever wins next, haha. Setting up high expectations.

It's Game Awards day again and I'll repeat my forever-take on this show: awards for genres don't make any sense because *games* don't deserve awards; the developers do. Joke: Best Action, Best Fighting, Best Family game Woke: Best Level Design, Best Animation, Best UI Celebrate the work

Tier list of different radio edits of that one line in "Please Please Please" by Sabrina Carpenter: S: "like the others" A: "mother fucker" B: *just hum that part* C: "little sucker" D: *silence* F: *bleeps*

25 years since we released Banjo-Tooie! Have a boss-montage. Bosses are always the most fun to make. See how big and strong Mr Patch is!

Happy 25th anniversary to Banjo-Tooie, the game that made me want to be a game developer! That's a quarter century of Jamjars the Mole.

I'm in this giving a few quotes about K. Rool. Check it out!

Not to be too much of a Nintendo babe... But Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza both got snubbed for Best Score and Music? No matter how the rest of the awards go, those are very strange omissions imo.

I've also hated "Metroidbrainia" with a passion. Such a cool genre and such a terrible name. I've called these "world solvers" myself, but I love the break down of the different categories here.

This hasn't been a problem on bluesky so far, but just in case it gets as bad as when I was on Twitter: I'm Mitchell Wolfe, the videogame developer. I am not Michael Wolff the Trump guy, nor Michelle Wolf the comedian. Please don't tag me angrily thinking you got the Trump guy!

I can't name myself Mitchell in Dragon Quest 11 because it has "hell" in it. That's too much.

Not seeing restaurants try as hard anymore now that the chicken sandwich wars are over. You never appreciate what you have until it's gone.

It's not something I ever need to think about, usually, but suddenly I'm very scared that I live on the coast.

I built my first self-built PC this week and I understand this product now in a way I probably could not before.

The Kongversation is a ridiculous show

Mayles is one of the best in the biz. I hope that one day my career looks even a small fraction as illustrious.

Last year, @wolfefm.bsky.social and I tried to break down the essence of what makes Gregg's games unique. While there will always be certain intangibles that you can't articulate, I think we did a pretty good job of getting to the heart of what makes him such a standout creative talent.

Nav mesh isn't building

I can immediately tell this is going to be one of those posts I think about for a long time

Just dusted off my portfolio website! Come check it out at mfwolfe.com Still looking for work in encounter, quest, mission, or narrative design if you know of any openings!

Quote tweeting this mainly for future reference. A lot of good newsletter recs in here.

Heather Flowers does it again

I'm seeing a weird amount of haughtiness about the Mandalorian movie trailer. The show was one of the more liked Star Wars things in recent memory along with Andor and it will be nearly seven years after the last Star Wars movie when it comes out. I think it will likely be good?

Obviously biased, but I think the best licensed video game franchise of all time is the Tony Hawk series. Not only are the Pro Skater games great video games in their own right, they adapted the youth culture of the time itself in a way that I haven't games be able to in a long, long time.

Silksong dusted

Question for anyone that commissions art regularly. How many notes is too many notes to give? Once the artist brings back their first draft, is it within your rights as commissioner to tell them "no, that's wrong" (provided, of course, compensation for more work)? How many times?

Me: "This Silksong boss is really kicking my ass." My GF: "They all have been." Shocked. Flabbergasted.