Keza MacDonald

Yes, usually about a year after hardback 👍

I was honoured to be preceded by footage of David Attenborough and a sloth, and followed by a report about cheese 🙏

Yes! There are several translated versions in the works but getting it from the UK is the fastest option for now. UK release date is Feb 12

Finally! My book Super Nintendo is out TODAY in the US + Canada. Here's where to buy it: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/753986...

"MacDonald is one of the best games journalists... Here is a book bursting with love. Bop your head against it and see if a shower of gold coins comes out." -The Times

Really enjoyed this, Feargus was one of my favourite interviews a couple years ago (admittedly pickings are SLIM when it comes to interesting execs)

Now you too can play a slowed down version of a game from 20 years ago with no actual level design or enemies and all it costs is a complete collapse of the world economy, biosphere, education system, and multiple entire creative industries.

Damn, we both missed a trick by not writing a guide to steal a brainrot

Writing the Book on Nintendo (with Keza MacDonald) – February 6th XL Episode: Two Giant Men Play Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned + The Ballad of Gay Tony – February 9th The Best Levels Draft (with Ashley Day and Dave Scarborough) – February 13th Somehow, Games Court Returned – February 20th XXL Episode: Two Giant Men Rank The 2026 Oscar Best Picture Nominees + Our Alternative Movie Awards – February 23rd Two Giant Men Play Resident Evil: Requiem – February 27th

This month's podcasts. Thanks for supporting The Back Page! Read more about them in our free newsletter here: www.patreon.com/posts/februa...

I was in the same position for years! I hope it'll be a pleasant and undemanding way to reconnect with your love of gaming 🙏

THANK YOU, Nintendo Life. These guys are the true test for my claim that you'll read something you didn't already know in this book🙏

"Comprehensive but never too dense, informative but approachable, packed with passion... if you want to learn about Nintendo, this is the book to do it."

Had a lie-in this morning and my kids have binge-watched half a season of The Traitors?? (I've never watched an episode and I feel like the universe is conspiring to force me into it)

‘It’s the underground Met Gala of concrete murderzone design’: welcome to the Quake Brutalist Game Jam Quake Brutalist Jam began as a celebration of old-fashioned shooter level design, but its latest version is one step away from being a game in its own right

thanks to @ricklane.bsky.social for talking to me and other modders. sorry not-sorry for the ludicrous headline quote

btw credit to @asponge.bsky.social who coined “concrete murderzones” years ago to describe QBJ1 and it stuck in my head all these years

Hahaha hilarious - that's the old paperback, it's been out of print for a while. @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social publish the current editions but they're also not showing up on the website for me right now, I think they're due a reprint

we said all along that they wanted Gawker dead not because we embarrassed a pro wrestler but because the Epstein story is one Gawker was covering a decade before most other people caught up & was just one of many stories exposing powerful people and their misdeeds

Every day I wonder why Sony won't resurrect Mainichi Issho

I’m only a humble science fiction writer but this seems like a terrible terrible idea.

Very, very excited for this! If you live near Brighton and would like to come along and hear the two of us get stuck into the weeds on Keza’s latest dive into the history of Nintendo, grab yourself a ticket.

Mario, Pikachu and Donkey Kong — the joy of Nintendo In Super Nintendo, Keza MacDonald explores the history of the Japanese company that gave us Super Mario, Pokémon and so much more

Bloody hell, a good review of Super Nintendo in the Times.

"The upside of MacDonald’s standing is that you won’t find anyone, I don’t think, with a better insight into the nuts and bolts of these games... Here is a book bursting with love."

www.thetimes.com/article/cc15...

I don't know whether it is the #1 Catherine O'Hara accomplishment but the fact that she invented a manner of speaking that no other person in human history has ever attempted for Schitts Creek and made it seem realistic that her character would talk that way felt like a comedy miracle to me

Very good point, you're right! I hope you enjoy the book 😁

And the blockchain. And the metaverse. And VR. And so on and on and on, I feel like I've seen this cycle 20 times

🫡 thank you, it is nice to be treated with respect on these programmes these days after How Things Were in the 00s/10s

Oh very best of luck to you. I was sick for a LOT of last year and honestly, when life is hard IRL there is no reason not to turn on whatever assists you can, in games and in life!

I might actually do that so I can see more of the mountain, I can see from the flyover that there's LOADS I missed

Made an improvised tomato and gochujang bean soup today as well and it was just 👌 winter perfection

The ending absolutely floored me. Cairn develops into a game not just about climbing but about the nature of obsession, I was so into it

Cairn review – obsession, suffering and awe in a climbing game that hits exhausting new heights A punishing, beautiful survival game that turns mountaineering into an intimate test of endurance, fixation and emotional resolve – you’ll be in tears by the end

"Is this another one of your masochist games?", asked my partner warily when I was playing through Cairn last week. The suffering is part of the point, yes, but also there are plenty of assists and difficulty options (that I stubbornly refused to make use of)
www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

SAME, this year for me it turned out that HMRC decided to stop taxing my day job halfway through the year without telling me. And then they wanted basically all my freelance income, which I had obviously already spent on, you know, living. Hateful system

bookstore goal this year is to bring cooler stuff in, so Im slowly building a games section, first few things in by @jacobgeller.com @jasonschreier.bsky.social @add-hawk.bsky.social @mackeza.bsky.social

It's based on 20 years' worth of my own interviews with Nintendo creatives - the newest being Miyamoto, Aonuma and Fujibayashi in 2023