At their core, video games are an expression of humanity. They are an expression of fun. And for the health of the industry, I think we need to return to projects that unrelentingly cognizant of that.
All in Talking Point
The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Fan Service (and How We're the Problem and the Solution)
How much fan service is too much? At what point does fan service cause the broader experience to deteriorate? Does having fan service necessarily make something worse, and how so? We’re certainly part of the reason why fan service exists in the modern media landscape to the degree that it does. But we are also the reason that it can be kept in check.
Top 15 Movies of 2025
If 2025 was an indicator of anything, it’s that we all deserve to continue allowing art to surprise us, and open our hearts enough for new, unexpected stories to reshape how we think about the world. Here are the 2025 films that did just that for me.
Top 5 Games of 2025
Between the domination of indie developers throughout the year to the sheer variety of ideas posited in many of the year’s best games, 2025 was, in my eyes, a net gain for the overall direction that the games industry is headed on. Here are my top five games of 2025!
Hundreds of Beavers is a Reminder that We Should Just Make Cool Shit
I had fun while watching Hundreds of Beavers - but more crucially, I felt alive. Getting to engage with something alongside others in such a visceral way was the precise experience I needed at this moment in my life.
Tron: Ares is Exhilaratingly Cool and Stylish and That's Enough (Review)
Tron: Ares provides comfort through its immersion, and the coolness embedded into the very essence of this movie only further drenches the film in style. It’s enough for Tron: Ares to be a cool film above all else, because such an emotion and style is one that we don’t see much of as a primary emotion elicited in blockbuster films such as this.
Trials of Mana's 2020 Remake Salvages One of My Least Favorite JRPGs (Review)
Cracks of the original game’s shortcomings still manage to reveal themselves in this 2020 update, but Trials of Mana’s remake manages to at least surround those cracks with an armor that’s as pretty as it is promising. Trials of Mana is a promise about the potential of simplicity and how much of a place there is for games that meld simplicity and complexity.
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge and the Power of Difference
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge’s commitment to being different is an act of creative bravery - the kind of which we deserve to see more of in video games and beyond. Being different is an essential part of making art and we need to reward and celebrate the instances of game developers choosing to embrace making their games different from what’s come before.
How Open World Design Can Suppress a Game's Focus (featuring Batman: Arkham Knight)
Making a game work in an open world context isn’t something that can be done by just taking a game and having it take place in a larger, non-linear environment. It takes strong direction to make open worlds work, and even then, there are many instances where an open world is simply incongruous with realizing a game’s greatest potential.
Mario Kart World, P-Switches, and Why Micro-Challenges Make for Great Bite-Sized Game Design
Illustrating what a game’s entire design looks like in a relatively short amount of time goes a long way at convincing the player of a game’s mechanical depth and diversity. Micro-challenges help accomplish this. Through creating brief snippets of game design that compartmentalize and test different mechanics, players can get introduced and brought up to speed with various facets of a game without ever being bombarded with multiple mechanics at once.
It's Time to Rewrite the Narrative About Turn-Based RPGs
We need to rewrite the narrative about turn-based RPGs. Instead of being a genre often obstructed by the scary possibility (as perceived by some publishers, at least) that turn-based games inherently sell less because they’re perceived as outdated by the gaming masses, we should instead be celebrating and empowering developers for having the courage to make the games they truly want to make.
Animation is Going Through a Creative Resurgence - With More Momentum, It Could be a Creative Renaissance
We’re in the midst of a quiet but powerful revolution in animated filmmaking. Through giving animated movies your time and support, we can turn this quiet revolution into a full-blown renaissance - one where the place of animation greatly expands and becomes a widely respected side of the industry that sees consistent innovation, creativity, and reminders of why movies are so special in the first place.
Mickey 17, Creativity, and Dismissing the Requisite of Prior Success to Get Weird
Weirdness is a vital component to storytelling - one that fuels human creativity in a way that nothing else can. It is for that reason that the conversation around weirdness in media needs to shift.
Top 20 Movies of 2024
2024 was unquestionably a year where indie films dominated my mind for most of the year. Whether it’s through inventive horror or non-verbal animation, 2024 offered some of the best films of the last decade.
Top 5 Games of 2024
Against all odds, this year still managed to bless us with incredible video game experiences, many of which will be sticking with me for decades to come. This is Derek Ex Machina’s definitive list of the top five video games of 2024.
5 Easily Accessible, Beginner Friendly, and Must-Play JRPGs for Genre Newcomers
The JRPG genre is not as hard to get into as some may think. The games discussed here are proof that the genre is capable of being welcoming to newcomers. Regardless of which JRPG you start with, know that the genre is beloved for a reason. They transport players to other worlds to explore, offer various characters to talk to, and deliver gameplay experiences that can be strategic, stylish, and satisfying.
Four Years On, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Still Feels Magical
Breath of the Wild offers an unprecedented amount of adventure to the player - so much so that, even after four years, there are still many more adventures that the game invites players to embark upon. Breath of the Wild is ruthless in its devotion to keep players coming back to learn more and make more discoveries about it. That, above all, is what makes the game so unique and so magical, no matter how much time passes.
Final Fantasy VII Remake and Cyberpunk 2077: Two Opposite Sides of Hype Culture
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy to announcing a project, nor is there a one-size-fits-all strategy for promoting a game pre-release. However, the differences in CD Projekt Red and Square Enix’s approach to marketing their biggest titles of 2020 do highlight that some strategies are more healthy and responsible than others. In an age where hype culture is so prevalent in the realm of gaming and in a year where two games suffered significantly different fates in large part due to how they were hyped and presented to the public, the term “hype responsibly” rings ever true.
Implementing Challenge and Teaching Mechanics in Nioh
Nioh is a reminder that games do indeed still offer challenge to players, and through that challenge, it crafts players into becoming more attentive, more empowered through overcoming hardship, and more confident that they can learn any skill and conquer any challenge if given perseverance, adaptation, and the will to continue learning and mastering what’s available to them.
Red Dead Redemption 2 and the Open World Question
In a time where open world games are becoming more and more common, I feel that now is as an important a time as ever to bring into question when an open world enhances a game, and when it drags the entire game down. If this genre is to have a healthy future moving forward, it needs to be known when an open world game has mechanics that makes use of its open world and when it lacks mechanics that can cause much of its world to go ignored and uninhabited by players.