DEREK EX MACHINA, created by author and editor Derek L.H., is a blog dedicated to exploring the effect that video games and film have on people.
All in Talking Point
Wildwood is a movie so good that it begets thought about how we deserve more instances of the escapism that Wildwood effortlessly captures. And yet, that escapism was, in fact, captured by rigorous effort, resources, and heart. That much is self-evident with every frame of animation.
To fixate on length of games is to disregard what brings us to video games in the first place. We play games because we want to experience something that activates our brain, our soul, our essence. Wanting games to arbitrarily hit a certain length for the sake of it undermines what art should be game and all art should be about.
Digger is weird, flawed, ambitious, and exactly what I want to see more of - and if large companies like Skydance and Disney won’t greenlight projects like that in the future, then that means it’s more important than ever to support independent filmmaking, smaller distributors, and emerging talent.
The quality of Saros’ storytelling is a byproduct of the many developers, systems, and layers of presentation that come together to create the package that is Saros. On a narrative front, they fail to align and elevate the core narrative that I see quality in at the very heart of this game.
The games industry needs another blue ocean because the writing is on the wall, just as it was for Nintendo over twenty years ago. A looming crisis is going to severely impact how accessible and affordable games will be for people, and the only way to circumvent this tragedy-to-be is to brainstorm another way forward.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
