Shannon Liao

just a note that Inverse Gaming is accepting freelance again in general, so I’m also opening this up to general gaming essays or reported features pitches as well. in general, we like stories about the craft behind video games, the amusing historical game lore you wouldn’t expect, etc.

amazing!!

quick update on this: the outpour of emails has been incredible! we have assigned out the Best RPGs list already, but I'm still open to hearing end-of-year pitches for trends you noticed gaming and/or reported features!

ooh that would be an interesting one!

hi all, the awaited day has come: I'm looking for freelance writers to pitch Inverse Gaming for end-of-year coverage! namely, I'm looking for someone to contribute our best of RPGs this year list ($350), and pitch us on some year-end lookback essays ($500+). please pitch me: shannon@inverse.com

!!! good point, I missed that part

belatedly caught up on the NaNoWriMo (November's National Novel Writing Month) saga. tl;dr: the organization behind came out in support of AI and caught tons of flak. it then shut down. now a few replacement events have sprouted up. RIP nanowrimo, you were once really fun

that’s a good point! I remember trying an alien one a few years ago that was a bit too complex for friends to just casually pick up

I'm glad they're still trying this stuff! Jackbox has made a couple of previous attempts at social deduction over the years, and they've been kind of hit or miss.

The Next Jackbox Party Pack Has A True ‘Among Us’ Rival One of the mini-games in the new Jackbox Party Pack 11 is an immediate stand-out — and a real Among Us competitor.

i just played some Among Us with friends. but we were dogs, not astronauts. and the setting was film noir, not outer space. it was actually jackbox party pack 11, i'm not even joking. woof dunnit, as they say www.inverse.com/gaming/jackb...

that is so fair. and I hear it’s got more privacy features too? I may make the switch just to try it

honestly, you may be onto something

I just choose duckduckgo as the search engine since it allows you to disable AI overview and filter out images (for the most part)

now this is just weird

things are so delightfully quiet here now. wow

i'm so late to this but today I learned you can just type "-AI" minus AI on each google search to hide the AI overview. incredible

right?! plenty of room to aimlessly wander down the hallways next to all sorts of VIPs

I stayed home instead of going to twitchcon this year, but based on my previous years' experiences, I can say that internal security within the building always looked a bit lax 😬

just came across Anthropic’s Claude merch and… I’ve never seen a dumber pun 🙈

mortifying that the Nintendo alarmo has two processes you need to clear to make sure the alarm is set, so that’s something you always have to keep in mind, especially the day after the weekend

best way to spend a Sunday night: super smash figuring out how to beat out the npcs

started watching veep on hbo max tonight for the first time and it’s so interesting to see how the show has aged since 2012, and how much it ends up predicting

got this ad today in the App Store, not sure why hello kitty is on the ground?

by the way i don’t know who needs to hear this, but this meat buns package doesn’t actually contain any meat, despite the photo… I just opened up the bun and was severely disappointed

The Best 7 Games To Play During The Mid-Autumn Festival Celebrate cooler weather, vibrant foliage, and the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival with these seven fall games.

happy mid-autumn festival to those who celebrate! and thanks to @theloniusly.bsky.social for this timely round-up! www.inverse.com/gaming/mid-a...

Was great getting to talk about this fantastic game with Shannon, and starstruck to be quoted next to the fantastic Kishonna Gray! Thanks for writing this piece Shannon! And everyone check it and Consume Me out

She Counted Calories as a Teen, Then Created a Game About It

gift link to read it for free: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/a...

She Counted Calories as a Teen, Then Created a Game About It

the NYT story on Jenny Jiao Hsia’s game Consume Me is up! “Consume Me nods back to the confessional style of YouTube videos from the early 2000s, and also contains skill-based gameplay in its six-hour run time, adapting scenes from Jiao Hsia’s life in inventive ways.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/a...

'Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s Trip To Paris Is Full Of Nostalgia — And Surprises 'Pokémon Legends: Z-A' is a highly anticipated RPG and we just got another good look at what's to come.

I rode up the rickety Eiffel Tower elevator with trepidation… it was time to play Pokémon Legends: Z-A for an hour. Read more here: www.inverse.com/gaming/pokem...

you may not know this because I sure didn’t, but love is blind france is like roughly 75% Asian. it’s my new favorite Asian drama 😌