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Killscreen

@killscreendotcom.bsky.social
26 followers 12 following 58 posts

Written by Jamin Warren Est. 2010 Games, play, and culture. Interviews with the artists who keep coming back to play as their medium. One free email a week, plus Playlist for members. killscreen.com/start?ref=bluesky-bio

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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Modernist plazas became skateboard terrain. Does brutalism do the same for parkour games? Danny Snelson's read on VHOLUME: speed through concrete, chasing paperwork. Kafka on crack. Episode 36.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Cezar Mocan: AI has changed the texture of not knowing. It used to mean the information was missing. Now it means you cannot curate what you already have. Not scarcity. Overproduction. www.killscreen.com/cezar-mocan-...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We treat the overhead view as a God's view: omniscient, catching everything, seeing more than we can. So we trust it more than our own eyes. Cezar Mocan builds a satellite that runs on exactly that trust, then contradicts itself. www.killscreen.com/cezar-mocan-...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Satellite images get presented as irrefutable proof. Lisa Parks went and looked: often blurry, often very low resolution, often needing heavy interpretation before they mean anything. The certainty is in the narration, not the picture. www.killscreen.com/cezar-mocan-...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Nuclear plants in France are pixelated on satellite maps. Elsewhere the same buildings are plainly visible. Somebody decided that. Cezar Mocan's question is what happens when the blurring is automated and a system decides who gets to be seen. www.killscreen.com/cezar-mocan-...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Explorers found islands that weren't there. Atlases printed them for centuries. Then someone sailed back, found open water, and the islands had to be undiscovered. Cezar Mocan calls that the precedent for ground truth breaking, and builds a satellite that lies. www.killscreen.com/cezar-mocan-...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Symoné learned circus from YouTube. Her first show was the Olympic Torch Relay at King's Cross. Her new one puts a game controller in one audience member's hands, and two dancers perform the love story that person steers.
killscreen.com
Can Your Body Know What a Screen Never Will? Meet Symoné
London-based interdisciplinary artist Symoné merges circus, pole dance, and live game design into a production that asks what your body knows that screens never will.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Japan didn't legalize the birth control pill until 1999. Five years earlier its biggest videogame handed the world to two 18-year-olds whose bodies had been altered without their consent, then spent forty hours making you stop finding them strange. @kathrynthehuman.bsky.social wrote this in 2016.
killscreen.com
Magic and gender in Final Fantasy VI
Japan legalized the pill in 1999. Five years earlier, Final Fantasy VI handed the world to two 18-year-olds whose bodies had been altered without consent.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Oneohtrix Point Never thinks nostalgia is "unfair" — the past isn't better, just another place to speculate from. The music that actually haunts him: Metroid. www.killscreen.com/oneohtrix-po...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Six questions, about forty seconds, one game worth your weekend — plus the piece we wrote about it and the episode where we argued about it. Every pick is a game we actually played and wrote about, not a chart. www.killscreen.com/what-to-play...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
On a palace in Mantua, the keystone over the main arch was built oversized on purpose, so it reaches out over the pediment like a tongue. Ario Barzan's essay traces that same instinct into Bloodborne's Yharnam. www.killscreen.com/understandin...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A year after the University of Minnesota Press book, Danny Snelson rebuilt its resources as a clickable fake operating system. thelittledatabase.com is a desktop you browse. www.killscreen.com/the-little-d...
killscreen.com
The Little Database expands into a desktop directory
A year after the University of Minnesota Press book, UCLA's Danny Snelson rebuilds its resources as a clickable fake OS.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Ola Rogula was a geneticist before she started making dress-up games. Each one takes about six months: when she added three body types, every piece of clothing had to be redrawn by hand. www.killscreen.com/awfulness-an...
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
You play a cancerous pathogen, so the health packs have to die first. Intron Interactive's roguelike turned healing into a moral problem, and the comments got there immediately. www.killscreen.com/the-health-p...
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The health packs in POLYMORPH have to die first
Intron Interactive's biological roguelike casts you as a cancerous pathogen; the comments immediately turned healing into a moral problem.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
There are four places on earth where a person can dive into a volcanic vent. Jakob Kudsk Steensen went to one, got ten minutes before the gases pushed him out, and smelled of sulfur for three days. He was down there recording it, so the place survives after it doesn't.
killscreen.com
The Places We're Losing Are Becoming Jakob Steensen's Worlds
He rebuilds vanishing places inside a game engine, starting with a volcanic vent you can only survive for ten minutes.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Helsinki named the creator of Cruelty Squad an Artist of the Year. Ville Kallio shares the city's 5,000-euro award with a soul singer and a knitwear designer. www.killscreen.com/helsinki-nam...
killscreen.com
Helsinki names Ville Kallio an Artist of the Year
The Cruelty Squad creator shares the city's annual 5,000-euro award with soul singer Emilia Sisco and knitwear designer Juha Vehmaanperä.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Bennett Foddy (QWOP, Getting Over It, Baby Steps) once saw Oxford wine experts score a bottle 10/10 that novices called gasoline. His games work the same way — the deeper you get, the more you crave what beginners reject. www.killscreen.com/bennett-fodd...
killscreen.com
Bennett Foddy's Games Taste Like Gasoline
The Baby Steps game designer reflects on jadedness, embodiment, and building a failson from two decades of human movement
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Five minigames from an unreleased album played on Factory International's Media Wall, on a controller covered in the artist's own 3D-printed sculptures. Murlo, at Aviva Studios. www.killscreen.com/murlos-luddi...
killscreen.com
Murlo's Luddite rhythm games wrapped a run at Aviva Studios
Five minigames from the unreleased Something Beautiful played on Factory International's Media Wall, on a controller covered in the artist's 3D-printed sculptures.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A woman in The Witcher 3 asks Geralt for a fencing lesson. He gives her one. She's never in the game again. He went to the forums sure he'd broken the quest. He hadn't. Nothing was supposed to happen. Tolstoy, Dickens, and games that only pretend to be open.
killscreen.com
Dickens and the Impossible Romances of Video Games
The Witcher 3's greatness has more to do with Leo Tolstoy than you'd expect.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The mouse is a demonic latex hand. @freecultureapi.bsky.social built an idle game about autonomous weapons into a field-deployable hardshell case, and the critique lives in the hardware. www.killscreen.com/the-mouse-in...
killscreen.com
The mouse in this AI war game is a demonic latex hand
freeculture.api built an idle game about autonomous weapons into a field-deployable hardshell case, and the critique is in the hardware.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
In 2014 we wrote about a game with four levels of consent. The highest one required a signed medical waiver, then started sending actors to your door. It was supposed to launch "early next year." That year was 2015.
killscreen.com
One of the most elaborate alternate reality games ever is launching early next year
Four colour-coded levels of consent. The highest one sent actors to your door, and required a signed waiver before you began.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
A whole triennial took its name from a platformer's grace period. Alice Bucknell's Coyote Time, an eco sci-fi text adventure, gave Counterpublic 2026 its title. www.killscreen.com/alice-buckne...
killscreen.com
A whole triennial is named for a platformer's grace period
Alice Bucknell's Coyote Time, an eco sci-fi text adventure premiering at St. Louis's City Museum this fall, gave Counterpublic 2026 its title.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Larry Achiampong furnished a museum with a playable living room. The Gaming Room, at the Boijmans, treats four decades of consoles as memory, kinship and diaspora. www.killscreen.com/achiampong-t...
killscreen.com
Four decades of consoles move into the museum
Larry Achiampong's The Gaming Room furnishes Pixel Pioneers at the Boijmans with a playable living room, games as memory, kinship and diaspora.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Sahej Rahal built an entire fictional civilization for ifa's ARE YOU FOR REAL, and it's still playable on New Art City. The browser as exhibition hall. www.killscreen.com/sahej-rahal-...
killscreen.com
Sahej Rahal's Azalabad salvages a drowned village
The open-world civilization built for ifa's ARE YOU FOR REAL is still playable on New Art City, the browser as exhibition hall.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Mitch Anzuoni is building a money laundering simulator. Offshore, made with Pete Christian, treats the criminal network as a sign system, where reading the signs is the gameplay. www.killscreen.com/mitch-anzuon...
killscreen.com
Mitch Anzuoni is building a money laundering simulator
Offshore, made with Pete Christian, treats the criminal network as a sign system where signification is the gameplay.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Kevin Peter He and Dan Gorelick staged PASSAGE at an off-SIGGRAPH night in LA, with the visuals and the score working as two instruments answering each other live. www.killscreen.com/kevin-peter-...
killscreen.com
A sculptural camera turns a game engine into cinema
Kevin Peter He and Dan Gorelick staged PASSAGE at an off-SIGGRAPH night in LA, visuals and score as two instruments answering each other live.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A game whose only verbs are walking, sitting and listening just gained a mausoleum. Jira Duguid's level joins six other sanctuaries built by an avatar called S. www.killscreen.com/plum-road-te...
killscreen.com
Plum Road Tea Dream's grief sanctuary gains a mausoleum
Jira Duguid's level joins six other sanctuaries built by an avatar called S., in a game whose only verbs are walking, sitting and listening.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Zach Cregger says he set out to write a game as a movie, and copied Resident Evil 4's healing items exactly. The save-point typewriters are props doing work the film cannot actually run. www.killscreen.com/resident-evi...
killscreen.com
Save-point typewriters turn up in the Resident Evil film
Cregger says he set out to write a game as a movie, and mimicked Resident Evil 4's healing items exactly. The props do work the film cannot actually run.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
In 2014 Burial broke cover for the first time. Not to announce a record. To apologize: Dark Souls 2 was coming and he needed to play that game a lot. Still our favorite story. @hyperdub.bsky.social killscreen.com/previously/a...
killscreen.com
In our favorite story ever, Burial chooses Dark Souls 2 over producing new music
He named himself in public. Then he said the record would be late.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Players are asking for a physical map with no you-are-here marker, and road signs instead of a minimap. In Boring Car Stories the entire HUD is a paper notebook, and they want more friction, not less. www.killscreen.com/boring-car-s...
killscreen.com
A paper notebook is the entire HUD in Boring Car Stories
Players are asking for a physical map with no you-are-here marker and road signs instead of a minimap. They want more analog friction, not less.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
You move through a science-fiction landscape as a bundle of qi, aligning your breath with the planet's carbon cycle. @wendiyan.bsky.social made meditation the mechanic and scripture the technology. www.killscreen.com/wendi-yan-in...
killscreen.com
Wendi Yan built a puzzle game out of Daoist inner alchemy
You move through a science-fiction landscape as a bundle of qi, aligning your own breath with the planet's carbon cycle.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Letta Shtohryn's live XR performance starts at a 5,000-year-old Maltese temple and ends with the avatar slipping loose from the body driving it. When the mocap drifts, the drift becomes the choreography. www.killscreen.com/letta-shtohr...
killscreen.com
When the mocap suit drifts, the drift becomes choreography
Letta Shtohryn's live XR performance starts at a 5,000-year-old Maltese temple and ends with an avatar slipping loose from the body driving it.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Game, cabinet, UI, voice, animatronic head and a custom trackball each get their own credit. @wonderville.nyc's new machine crosses a Zoltar with vector graphics. www.killscreen.com/wondervilles...
killscreen.com
Wonderville's new cabinet Step Right Up! crosses a Zoltar machine with vector graphics
Game, cabinet, UI, voice, animatronic head and a custom trackball each get a credit.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Visitors are so far inside ONLY SLIME's computer-game opera at FACT Liverpool that they're asking for a reset button. www.killscreen.com/only-slime-r...
killscreen.com
ONLY SLIME rebuilt their computer-game opera as AFTERLIFE
Visitors are so far inside the game they're asking for a reset button.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
A month at Akiyoshidai International Art Village turned into a watercolor game about Shinto animism, where the player is in relation with the ecosystem rather than in charge of it. www.killscreen.com/jeremy-griff...
killscreen.com
Jérémy Griffaud started a watercolor game built on Shinto animism
A month at Akiyoshidai International Art Village went to game design, Gion Matsuri and an ecosystem the player is in relation with, not in charge of.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The answer to an internet run by bots turned out to be a room full of salvaged iMac G3s. Paizley Lee's Y2K LAN night in LA. www.killscreen.com/paizley-lee-...
killscreen.com
Paizley Lee filled DEAD INTERNET THEORY's second LA night with a rainbow of iMac G3s
The response to an internet run by bots turns out to be a room: a Y2K LAN night where salvaged hardware does what the feed no longer can.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Two performers at a desk with controllers, walking their characters toward each other across a Red Dead server whose weather nobody in the room controlled. Kara Güt staged it at a Dutch film festival. www.killscreen.com/kara-gut-my-...
killscreen.com
Kara Güt staged a two-person play inside Red Dead Online at a Dutch film festival
Two performers at a desk with controllers, walking their characters toward each other across a server whose weather and respawns nobody in the room controlled.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
A 2001 net artwork that grows a 3D Garden of Eden out of any website's HTML just entered SFMOMA and ZKM together. It took a restoration to make it collectible at all. www.killscreen.com/sfmoma-and-z...
killscreen.com
SFMOMA and ZKM jointly acquire Eden.Garden 1.0, 25 years after its debut
The 2001 net artwork grows a 3D Garden of Eden out of any website's HTML, and it took a restoration at ZKM to make it collectible at all.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Every set in @amanita-design.net's new adventure was cut and glued out of real cardboard first, then digitized. A handcrafted city where the Leader rules by loudspeaker. www.killscreen.com/amanita-desi...
killscreen.com
Amanita Design built a dystopian city out of real cardboard, then digitized it
Every set in the anti-authoritarian adventure was cut and glued in paper first, a handcrafted city where the Leader rules through loudspeakers.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Type an opinion into [OP]erator and 100 X accounts post their own variations of it back at you. Playfool built a working bot farm, then handed over the controls. www.killscreen.com/playfool-bui...
killscreen.com
Playfool built a working bot farm that hands you the controls
Type an opinion into [OP]erator, and 100 X accounts post LLM-varied versions of it back.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Bonheur Suprême shot a 17-minute documentary entirely inside Skyrim, about cruising as an "Arab" on gay dating apps. It premiered at Visions du Réel. www.killscreen.com/bonheur-supr...
killscreen.com
Bonheur Suprême shot Homunculus, a documentary short, entirely inside Skyrim
Seventeen minutes of machinima about cruising as an "Arab" on gay dating apps, premiered at Visions du Réel, built from the mod community's tools.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Just how Stephen Gillmurphy drew it up
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
She's allergic to curtains. One of many tiny details Stephen Gillmurphy built into his lead character, mostly unplanned. He calls it building constellations, rotating pieces until the policeman coming back just feels right. Full thing: killscreen.com/stephen-gilmurphy-anthology-of-the-killer/
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Guys with buzzsaws whose shirts just say the economy. That's the horror in Stephen Gillmurphy's games: not a metaphor hiding under the story, it IS the story. Whole thing here: killscreen.com/stephen-gilmurphy-anthology-of-the-killer/
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Artist Nikima @imtwelve never had to tell their own high school story to make work about it; they filmed collaborators instead, letting each carry a slightly veered version of something true. A way to identify with an experience without handing over the real thing.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Artist Nikima @imtwelve filmed inside Basically, a made-up world they built as a live performance, for six years, following six characters, shooting documentary-style. Then it became clear: the world was already built like a game, so its record had to be one too.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
"They have these rules that they then have to navigate" — artist Nikima Jagudajev on the one structure every performer returns to across a six-hour piece: Walk in the Park.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Artist Nikima Jagudajev just compared making art inside an institution to sneaking around the rules in high school: passing notes, burn books, carving your name into a bathroom stall. They call it frivolous. Nikima also calls it anti-capitalist.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Two ways to use technology on a body. One treats the process as extraction. The other treats the people inside it as collaborators.
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Killscreen @killscreendotcom.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
We can die physically. We cannot die digitally. Lisa Jamhoury arrived at that line while making Lossy, her installation about what we lose when we live through our captures. And it came from Vonnegut.
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