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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · 16d

We interviewed @alienmelon.bsky.social and discussed text games, Interactive Fiction, social media, tech fascism, and lots more.

A Conversation with Nathalie Lawhead

Nathalie Lawhead joined us on Zoom to talk about their work, interactive fiction, internet subcultures, social media and lots more.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Sep 5

For our second contribution, Kaelan Doyle-Myerscough reflects on their first entry into IFComp, the joys and problems of insular art cultures, and the boundaries of interactive fiction.

My Waltz into the IFComp

Just a month before I entered it, I had no idea what the IFComp was. The year was 2017. I was dealing with a triple-whammy spring season: I broke up with my long-term partner, lost my cat to kidney ...

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Aug 29

For the first essay in our Interactive Fiction issue, @highimpactsex.bsky.social writes about the shrinking available space for personal art through the metafiction of Repeat the Ending.

Repeat the Ending: Where Do Personal Games Go?

If anything, outsider art exists because our expectations of art are not at all inclusive. We don't need excuses like historical significance to justify the existence of personal games like Repeat th...

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Aug 29

For the first entry in our Interactive Fiction @highimpactsex.bsky.social writes about the shrinking margins where personal art can flourish through the metafiction of Repeat The Ending.

Repeat the Ending: Where Do Personal Games Go?

If anything, outsider art exists because our expectations of art are not at all inclusive. We don't need excuses like historical significance to justify the existence of personal games like Repeat th...

www.tier-review.com

The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jul 24

Thanks to a grant from the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, we are doing an mega-issue on the interactive fiction of the 2010s! This will be the first of many themed issues to come...

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jun 25

@phoenixsimms.bsky.social likens thecatamites creative mode and visual culture to Dada and the avant garde movement.

Killing Interactive Art…and Loving It!

At its core, AOTK has an anti-establishment philosophy, much like the avant garde. Especially with its penchant for remixing, and therefore subverting, bourgeois expectations of art objects and texts....

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jun 23

@gracemachine.bsky.social divines the haunting nature of Anthology of the Killer's settings. She also compares and contrasts the game collection's notion of history against the film Tár and personal memory.

Every Second is a Narrow Gate

Any place humans have lived in for sufficiently long is haunted.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jun 17

For our first essay on Anthology of the Killer @phantomcobra.bsky.social explores its ancestral ties to adult cartoons like Home Movies.

Laughing at the absurd, the ugly, and the awful

An Adult Swim game for a more overtly bleak era, using cartoon violence, the surreal, and the absurd to satirize life after the End of History.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jun 4

Kicking off our issue on Anthology of the Killer with something a little different.

An Interview With SEQUENCEBREAK// Curator Nilson Carroll

SEQUENCEBREAK// is an in-person exhibit of "artist's games," showing until June 28, 2025 at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. It includes work by Stephen Gillmurphy (thecatamites, th...

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · May 26

Coming soon...

A banner featuring the character BB from the indie game Anthology of the Killer. White text over the image reads "May 2025 - Anthology of the Killer".

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Reposted by The Imaginary Engine Review

Nathalie Lawhead @alienmelon.bsky.social · May 20

i published a post about conversations i had at A MAZE, on an important topic…
Conversations About Curation And The Future Of Games Crit:
www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/con...
"The future is something wildly different. One that will function outside of these outdated norms and compromised values."

Conversations About Curation And The Future Of Games Crit (reflecting on this year’s A MAZE) – The Candybox Blog

www.nathalielawhead.com

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Apr 7

Phoenix Simms analyzes how the irreverent tone of Lovely Lady RPG often undermines its potential as a queer anti-capitalist narrative.

Consigning Meaning to the Void

Lovely Lady RPG's strongest narrative exists in the concept of the void, but the game's self-aware tone often sells itself short.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Mar 25

We are launching our issue on Lovely Lady RPG with Grace Benfell on science fiction, memes, and idealized selves.

Difference Is Resonance

Even when Lovely Lady RPG strains toward complexity, it cannot leave its clichés behind.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Feb 17

Coming soon...

A red and blue image of a rat with the text "February 2025 - Lovely Lady RPG"

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Feb 10

lotus digs through Heisei Pistol Show's messy and fulfilling resonances, in relation to trauma, transness, and simple human frailty.

Inscrutable Desires, or, The Heart Wants What It Wants

Hey, player. Sometimes, I struggle to understand which world is real.What is a lie? What is the now? Where are the boundaries? Is this a dream? Is this real? Is this my world? What would be best? Mayb...

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jan 21

Also we are now @tier-review.com!

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jan 21

Our editor @gracemachine.bsky.social wrote about Heisei Pistol Show's ever-shifting selves and why sometimes men are women.

What You Got Under Your Skirt Will Make Them Pay For The Things That They Did

It is that tender gap, between what is known and what is, between what is felt and what is real, that Heisei explores so vividly.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Jan 17

Putting the finishing touches on our last two essays on Heisei Pistol Show and hard at work on our next issue. Hoping to have a more consistent schedule in the new year, but also we take this at the pace we can so we can keep it going. 🖤🙏💪

The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Dec 30

In the next entry in our Heisei Pistol Show issue, ludzu wrote about Parun as a collage artist and RPG maker as a patchwork canvas.

Parun's Quilt—Poems in the Patchwork Collage of RPG Maker

"It hurts so much, but this is all for you I write a letter to you in my red blood" - Translation of lyrics to "Fushigi Na Shiawase" (Mysterious Happiness) by NejiP feat. Hatsune Miku - From the soun...

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Reposted by The Imaginary Engine Review

grace @gracemachine.bsky.social · Dec 18

Also also! We have goals now! Things we could do with more subscriptions like book reviews, poetry submissions, and just more money for everyone who makes TIER happen.

The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Dec 18

New on the site: a "support us" page which shows our current budget and our ambitions for the site should we obtain more money. If you like what we do, please consider subscribing!

Support Us

TIER is a reader-funded publication, supported entirely through donations and subscriptions. You can support us directly on the site or via our Patreon. Thank you to all who subscribe or otherwise sup...

imaginaryenginereview.ghost.io

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Dec 18

For $1,000 a month, we would add feature poetry in every issue. Poetry would be relevant, but not necessarily directly related, to the game we cover that month.

The text "$1000 Poetry Submissions" superimposed over an color print of a woman licking an envelope.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Dec 18

At $600, we could publish short book reviews alongside every issue.

The text "$600 Book Reviews" superimposed over a ink sketch of trees and a bridge.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Dec 18

If we made it to $350 a month, we could support an additional contributor each issue.

The text "$350 Four Essays Per Issue" superimposed over a medieval comic.

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The Imaginary Engine Review @tier-review.com · Dec 18

New on the site: a "support us" page which shows our current budget and our ambitions for the site should we obtain more money. If you like what we do, please consider subscribing!

Support Us

TIER is a reader-funded publication, supported entirely through donations and subscriptions. You can support us directly on the site or via our Patreon. Thank you to all who subscribe or otherwise sup...

imaginaryenginereview.ghost.io

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