Niv M. Sultan

"Wading through this absurd historical moment, and the absurdity of playing videogames in it, I have found myself increasingly drawn to demos. Beyond being gentle on my time (and my wallet), demos for games that are still in development are works in compelling states of flux. They often reflect visions that have yet to fully bloom: They're rough and unrefined, rife with the thorns that tend to get stripped over the course of production. Grab these roses; let art bleed you."

wrote brief thoughts on why I've been drawn to game demos lately, along with also brief reviews of eight recent demos

nivmsultan.com/demos1/

"Wading through this absurd historical moment, and the absurdity of playing videogames in it, I have found myself increasingly drawn to demos. Beyond being gentle on my time (and my wallet), demos for games that are still in development are works in compelling states of flux. They often reflect visions that have yet to fully bloom: They're rough and unrefined, rife with the thorns that tend to get stripped over the course of production. Grab these roses; let art bleed you."

wrote brief thoughts on why I've been drawn to game demos lately, along with also brief reviews of eight recent demos

nivmsultan.com/demos1/

I have started curating a folder of essays and reviews that elicit the first reaction here — would definitely recommend

"Meanwhile, surviving in the wilderness requires extensive and expensive preparation. The real-time with pause combat (shades of the masterful Vagrant Story) is unwieldy. And material rewards are elusive, opportunities for fast travel even rarer. But Banquet for Fools isn’t sadistic. It simply has confidence in its vision and in you, like a pen-and-paper game master who expects the world of you and will give you the world in return. It wants you to undertake an adventure of tangible stakes, to understand that the souls in your care have needs and deserve investment, to remember that dungeons aren’t fountains of loot but places shaped by distinct histories." "So the game pushes you to learn how to earn a living and afford supplies. It spurs you to tap into, and relish, the nuance and dynamism of its combat, with its grapples, charge attacks, and defensive maneuvers. It teaches you to cherish healing berries and thank the universe for equipment upgrades. It encourages you to reject modernity and embrace long walks home."

reviewed Banquet for Fools, an RPG that crafts its world, and your passage through it, with immense confidence in its vision and in you. made me think of D&D (and of Dragon's Dogma, which makes me think of D&D) in what games can accomplish when they trust you

www.slantmagazine.com/games/banque...

"Meanwhile, surviving in the wilderness requires extensive and expensive preparation. The real-time with pause combat (shades of the masterful Vagrant Story) is unwieldy. And material rewards are elusive, opportunities for fast travel even rarer. But Banquet for Fools isn’t sadistic. It simply has confidence in its vision and in you, like a pen-and-paper game master who expects the world of you and will give you the world in return. It wants you to undertake an adventure of tangible stakes, to understand that the souls in your care have needs and deserve investment, to remember that dungeons aren’t fountains of loot but places shaped by distinct histories." "So the game pushes you to learn how to earn a living and afford supplies. It spurs you to tap into, and relish, the nuance and dynamism of its combat, with its grapples, charge attacks, and defensive maneuvers. It teaches you to cherish healing berries and thank the universe for equipment upgrades. It encourages you to reject modernity and embrace long walks home."

reviewed Banquet for Fools, an RPG that crafts its world, and your passage through it, with immense confidence in its vision and in you. made me think of D&D (and of Dragon's Dogma, which makes me think of D&D) in what games can accomplish when they trust you

www.slantmagazine.com/games/banque...

Mitski Works Wonders With a Little Distance Her best album since Be the Cowboy feels distinctly rooted in a struggle to maintain boundaries as a public figure.

wrote about mitski
www.vulture.com/article/revi...

I omitted Terrence C. Carson, unforgivable, but forgive me

so you got kratos. the character. the icon. the brand. kratos is black. "hes like tanned mediterranean" hes not real. he's voiced by two black dudes, mocapped by a black guy, when they want to sell Kratos as a power fantasy, as an action hero you buy video games to control: he is black.

oof. and: among the show's many cowardly decisions (ex. not casting Christopher Judge as Kratos), I remain baffled by them not just hiring the voice actors who happen to be exceptional TV actors. you had Richard Schiff. you had Jeremy Davies

"Leon’s never in so much danger as Grace, though, who soon finds herself stalked by terrifying creatures across a sprawling, stately care facility that boasts all the labyrinthine design of the series’ best locales. Requiem is ingeniously successful at instilling its forebears’ sense of trying to survive and escape from a living puzzle box. As Grace, you’ll sweat over whether to burn through precious bullets to clear a corridor of threats or risk sprinting through unharmed. Creatures sniff the air for your presence and let out shrill wails meant to goad you into panicking. Sometimes, it’s worth spending those bullets just to give your nerves a rest."

Nic Reuben's not on here, but, man, every piece he writes is revitalizing

www.theguardian.com/games/2026/f...

everyone's talking about Browt, but what about getting browt to the polls

this is super cool, thank you for sharing

we must defend the Underkeep!!!

Vampire Crawlers will be studied as a feat of brain chemistry manipulation

waiting for the Vinson Cunningham essay on the BAFTAs

the cleric to the wizard

if I see this at age 8-11 it completely changes my life

this post made me look up Scarmonde and I am now ready for it to rock my world

kombucha meme: digging Nioh 3's open world (sipping a drink); getting burned out by collectibles (yuck); act 2 is snowy (actually...)

Nioh 3 once again proving that snow is the best thing in videogames

this game rules, but those close-up face comparisons always kill me. line up the faces and guess which one is enhanced, like guessing if the mystery drink is coke or pepsi

increasingly of the opinion that the sanest way to use this place is to revert to the ur social media. I am eating a sandwich, I am playing a videogame

side note: my biggest issue with these videogame concerts is their insistence on playing montages from the games. can we not just enjoy an orchestra? love to go to the theater to replicate the experience of watching a YouTube video

Emmy® and Tony Award®–winning actor Sean Hayes of Good Night, Oscar stars as Elliott in The Unknown. A gripping new play about a writer on the edge. Desperate to cure his writer’s block, Elliott retreats to a remote cabin—only to discover he may not be alone. As the boundaries between his work and his life collapse, Elliott begins to question everything he knows. Is he writing a thriller? Living one? Both?

uhhhhh are Sean Hayes and David Cale doing Alan Wake

All of my time and all of my attention. It’s the only way I know how to write, darn it. But I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it.

I think about this interview pretty much every time I sit down to draft something

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

eons of humankind culminating in its most ambitious political project yet: what if everything were worse

I don’t know what does and doesn’t make a game a Metroidvania, but I do know that clearing out a chunk of Nioh 3’s map tickles my brain in the same way that Silksong did. we’re just meat and electricity, man

so, Nioh 3’s music is gorgeous

(I think it could actually be an interesting convo)