Even without knowing the term "isekai", you have probably at some point encountered a story or piece of media that follows its basic framework. A Japanese term meaning "another world", isekai stories deal with the notion of being adrift in a setting quite unlike one's own; they follow protagonists who are ripped away from a world much like ours and dropped into an unfamiliar place or time. Be it Edgar Rice Burroughs's depiction of Mars as a futuristic kingdom in the Barsoom books or the fantastical realm of Oz, the specifics matter less than the intent - to challenge the protagonist's preconceived notions and lead them to personal growth in the face of unexpected conflict. I lay all of this out for you because I think the intent with Heir to the Queen, a small-scale adventure game, was to hit the basic points of the isekai journey under the constraints of a threadbare budget and no larger media presence. That's speculation on my part, though, sinc...
When it comes to the Game Awards, there’s an unspoken understanding of how events will progress and how we inevitably will respond. It goes something like this: everyone get hyped up to see their favourite games get a nod (or pissed as hell because something they loved was snubbed), the speculation runs rampant as to who or what takes the prizes for any number of reasons, and then on Award Night we all get worn down by the slow pace of the show itself, the abundance of product placement and advertising, and the growing realization that a lot of awards are destined for the normiest of normie titles that best posture as outsider art. Credit where it’s due, host/showrunner Geoff Keighley and company have this down practically to a science. But if we must engage with the Awards – and barring anything else compelling happening during this mostly frigid, empty, and miserable time of year – then we can at least have some fun attempting to pre-game the show itself. Yes, I’ve decided to partake...