Matthew Gallant

I thought "The Unworthy" by Agustina Bazterrica was excellent.

A screenshot of the UFO game selection screen, sorted by "most played". The top three are Party House, Velgress, and Paint Chase.

The victory screen of Party House. There are 22 party guests of various types. Caption: "YOU THREW THE ULTIMATE PARTY! WIN!"

Finally dusted off the 50th cartridge in UFO 50 on my flight home. My top four: 🏠 Party House / 🔫 Velgress / 🏎️ Paint Chase / 🌴 Seaside Drive. backloggd.com/u/gangles/li...

Book covers: The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, Glad We Met by Steven Rogelberg, Situational Awareness by Leopold Aschenbrenner, Outer Order Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin, The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth, Quiet by Susan Cain, Play Nice by Jason Schreier, The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō, Ravelstein by Saul Bellow, The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, Gilgamesh by David Ferry, How a Game Lives by Jacob Geller

Game covers: Before Your Eyes, Indika, Mouthwashing, The Exit 8, Skygunner, Daemonologie, Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk, House of the Dying Sun, A Mortician's Tale, Vanquish, Fear the Spotlight, The Sins of New Wells, The Lemurian Phoenix, Death Stranding, Mant Nights a Whisper, Spilled!, A Game About Digging a Hole, Metaphor ReFantazio, Metroid Dread, Metal Garden, Bernband, Unfair Flips, Despelote, Arctic Eggs, Gris

2025 in books read & games completed.
www.goodreads.com/user/year_in...
backloggd.com/u/gangles/li...

Weekly Backlog 2025 Like many people who love video games, I have a conundrum: I own more games than I will ever realistically have time to play. It’s a problem that has accumulated slowly over many years, compounded by ...

In 2025, I experimented with a structured weekly practice of picking one game from my backlog and playing it for at least an hour or two. I wrote about how that experiment went, and highlighted a few standouts from the 52 games I played.

Merry Christmas! 🎄 Got my daughter a copy of Pokémon X to play on her refurbished 2DS, it’s a hit so far (and getting her to practice her reading).

YouTube video by Naughty Dog Naughty Dog’s Favorite Games of 2025 #gaming #naughtydog #goty

Naughty Dog devs (including yours truly) share their favourite games of 2025.

Randomly went down a rabbithole today researching getting a Retroid Pocket 5 for running PC games on Android via Winlator, and by the end of the day the company announced the Pocket 6. The world of handhelds moves fast.

YouTube video by blankis1337 Reboot Mainframe Strolling Players

You mean the song from ReBoot.

Tournament Design as Game Design For many years, I’ve been casually following the competitive LoL esports scene, especially enjoying the Worlds championship tournament that caps off each year. Worlds 2023 has been particularly great ...

Been enjoying another great year for the League World Championship. Credit to Riot's always-excellent production, but also a continued benefit of the switch over to a Swiss tournament format 2 years ago. I wrote at the time how much it helped create drama & dynamism (through the lens of game design)

Screenshot of Parasite Eve. A woman in a black dress aims a pistol at a clown in a dressing room. Dialogue caption: “Man: Ahhhh! Here! Take it! Take everything! It’s all on the counter!”

Inspired by a recent episode of @intothecast.bsky.social, I am playing Parasite Eve.

Screenshot from Silksong, Hornet standing next to a dead and disintegrating boss (The Last Judge).

My accomplishment for the day 😪

Been fun seeing a 2XKO bracket at EVO France, works really well as a spectator esport. Made some early attempts to learn myself, appreciate that the basic combos seem relatively straightforward.

Screenshot of Metal Garden. FPS view: a player with a sniper rifle overlooks a massive grey dam extending into the horizon and getting lost in the fog. Above them the sky is grey and metallic.

Enjoyed playing through Metal Garden this weekend. Vibey atmospheric indie FPS; great level design, minimalist but flavourful, punches far above its weight. store.steampowered.com/app/3539440/...

Atsu (based on Erika Ishii from Ghost of Yōtei) and Ellie (from The Last of Us Part 2) sit on a cliff, making music. Atsu plays a shamisen and Ellie the guitar. A large wolf lies relaxed between them, eyes closed, one ear turned toward Ellie. A huge iconic mountain lies in the background, and yellow-orange ginkgo tree leaves swirl. The entirely hand-drawn, digital illustration looks like an ink work and is entirely in black and white; only the leaves and the kintsugi-repaired mask on Atsu's belt are yellow-orange.

I really enjoyed working on this image! Congratulations @suckerpunchprod.bsky.social and @erikaishii.bsky.social on the release of Ghost of Yōtei! 🧡

It looks stunning, and I can't wait to play it myself!

Steam screenshot. Baby Steps, Neva and Sworn at discounted prices.

For sale:

A screenshot from Blue Prince. Text on screen: "Select a room to draft", with options "Closet", "Lavatory", "Observatory". The first two rooms fail to connect to the final Antechamber, the third option costs a gem and the player doesn't have one.

Finally checked out Blue Prince this weekend. Got as far as this this heartbreaking near-run, one gem short of the Antechamber.

Experience Ellie and Abby’s journeys in a new way with The Last of Us Part II Remastered's Chronological mode, out today.

The free update includes new unlockable skins and trophies: play.st/3Ij9sNH

iOS app icons for various SEGA games: Sonic, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage

PSA: a bunch of classic SEGA games are currently free on iOS ahead of being delisted. Never had a SEGA console growing up so most are new to me!

“not to be confused with a culinary sandwich plate”

Congratulations! 🎊

I feel like saying this again: creating systems is generally much easier than understanding systems' behaviour

“Play Yub Nub. Play it!”

We made that little game as university students, lovely to see it being revisited (and glad it still runs!) ❤️

🎉 Skin Deep is RELEASED! 🎉

👉 Steam store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
👉 Epic Games Store store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/skin...

This game was made with a crew of wonderful folks: blendogames.com/skindeep/cre...

We hope you enjoy Skin Deep! ✨

The only review of Wanderstop that is also a review of the app Gentler Streak Burnout, shmurnout

Wanderstop is about burnout, yes, but it’s also about injury. Here’s me on ambition, pain, recovery, and stillness, in the game and in life. I’m proud of how this piece turned out, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Complete collection, Team Jackson VS Team Seattle. #TheLastofUsPartII #tlou

YouTube video by PlayStation Marathon - Reveal Cinematic Short | PS5 Games

Congrats to the @marathonthegame.bungie.net crew on the Marathon reveal, looks incredible! www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Xw...

No Return – Bill & Marlene The Last of Us Part II Remastered is out now on PC, and includes a small update for the roguelike survival mode No Return. We’ve added four new maps to the rotation, and two new playable characters fr...

The Last of Us Part II Remastered arrives on PC today! And we've got a new update for No Return on both PS5 and PC. I wrote a little about the design process behind Bill & Marlene's unique character traits.

The Last of Us Part II Remastered PC Features, New No Return Content Detailed || Naughty Dog Learn about the quality-of-life PC, new No Return maps and characters, and more in store.

Excited to announce an update to No Return, coming to TLOU2 Remastered on both PC and PS5 in April. Bill & Marlene as new playable characters with unique traits, and four new maps! www.naughtydog.com/blog/the_las...