Big Game Hunger

Marie Enger, artist and game designer, combats a fear of one of the prompts:

• Shrieking
• Worms
• GPS augmented reality phone game

And they do that by making a game called Worm Calling, a geocaching-esque game where you must uncover a little worm friend using audio cues. Try to pinpoint a worm's location by following the audio trail on your phone - just make sure you beat the birds to it!

Follow Marie on Bluesky @SoEngery,...

Bree Paulsen, author and artist of graphic novels like The Firelight Apprentice, brings a lot of spooky scary coze to the podcast with the prompts:

• Cerebral
• Premise: a worker at a temp agency is mistaken sent to the underworld and has to ferry souls down the river styx and she must navigate it and figure out how to do that, Title: Charon is Caring
• 2D fighting game

A spooky/cerebral experience grounded with the str...

Sophia Ricciardi, host of Moviestruck and member of Rolling with Difficulty, helps create an alibi for a totally new word:

• latibulative (to hide in a corner)
• Sidekick
• FMV point and click

In Sideclick, you play as a hero's best friend, helping them on their day off... but finding a mystery where there is none! This extremely Philadelphia-based game sees you sneaking around the lairs of beloved Philly bullies like The F...

Charles Harte, Associate Editor at the newly returned Game Informer, get a little bit distracted by the Switch 2 business but eventually get down to task at hand with the prompts:

• Feral
• The Slenderman's Arms, an English Pub/Inn
• Mobile game who's gameplay is wildly different from the ads

In Splended Man: Steamy Hills, things are less scary and more horny than you might expect. Within the halls of the local pub lies an...

Haley MacLean, a video game lawyer and host of Pew Pew Bang, gets down to work with the prompts:

• Lovecraftian
• Blue collar job simulator
• Bleak Play-to-Lose, Papers Please-style

In "Porous," you must track down the long sticky tendrils of Pore-Bearer, the elder creature clogging up the city's pipes. But that's not the greatest horror: you also have to do paperwork! Keep the city and your family safe from the pollution w...

Emmett Watkins Jr, writer for VGU.tv and host of Player's Club Podcast, brings his expertise of traversal games to the prompts:

• Speedrun Optimized
• Cycle of life for a forest
• knowledge-gated progression

A surprisingly environmentally-focused game, "Amazon Vine" sees you replanting a forest using sick stunts, and reaping the benefits in later stages of the forest. Plant a grove of bamboo to get height and bounce, encour...

Danny O'Dwyer, documentary maker and founder of NoClip, tackles some difficult questions, like how do you create truth in history, and some difficult prompts, like:

• Psychadelic
• A time-traveler arrives from the future to stop you from committing an unspecified act that leads to catastrophe on their timeline. The setting is flexible and can be determined by the adjective, but the player character should not have a conventi...

Izzy Kestrel, indie game dev and Gexpert, tackles a special returning prompt with:

• borborygmic (“of or relating to a rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines)
• Surgery
• all control inputs are opposite

The resulting game, "Reflections of a Surgeon: Control Issues," will test your patience as you work on patients in a number of mirror worlds. Start out with a normal keyboard layout, then ...

Francis Zierer, creator of CreatorSpotlight, pulls us back together again as a people with the prompts:

• Sticky
• cursed game from the future
• maze game - tilting

Play three different modes in "All the King’s Horses: A Terraforming Game"! As earth itself, trying to reform Pangaea and reset humanity down to a certain threshold, as a world leader trying to reform Pangaea and preserve human life, or as extraterrestrials tryi...

Lynda and Tim, co-devs of D'Avekki Studios, lend their game-making expertise and total lack of mushroom knowledge with the prompts:

• wild
• mushroom hunting
• phone game

It may seem like a simple mushroom-identifying phone app, but "Professor Morel's Bad Trip" has so much more going on. Delve into the mysterious mushroom that killed Professor Morel and pinpoint who could have done the deed. Was it the celebrity chef hoping...

Huld Martha, FMV actress and power-lifter, is ready to harness the power of science fiction with the prompts:

• Fierce
• movie tie in that should have happened
• Centrifuge

Huld and Jenna pitch a very subtle tribtue to Galaxy Quest called "Cosmos Odyssey: Fred Kwan played by Tony Shaloub from Galaxy Quest and Literally Just Some Guy’s Zoo Day." In this multiplayer-game, one person controls the platformer Guy and another, th...

Sam Winkler, Narrative Director on Borderlands 4, helps Jenna break a curse with the prompts:

• shakespearean
• teaches you how to commit crimes
• moody indie platformer

They make "William Shakedown: Bard from Entry," a moody edutainment game where William Shakedown has to break into manor houses and castle to find the material for his next play. Outrun guards, fans - and a bear or two - in this delightful platformer.

L...

Jesse Galena, GM, writer, and Second Wind contributor, brings his RPG expertise to the prompts:

• shakespearean
• teaches you how to commit crimes
• timeloop

In Cryptick, play as a junior spy trying to cover up the fact that they have lost their secret spy decoder key. Try to decipher strange clues and riddles to complete the necessary spy actions. But you can't let your spy master know that you messed up! You need this jo...

Jay, an indie game dev and co-founder of Second Wind Group, and Jess, editor and creator for Second Wind Group, are the first ever DUAL GUESTS on the show! With significantly more brain power in their brain skulls, they tackle the terms:

• shakespearean
• teaches you how to commit crimes
• timeloop

The cheekily named game Prophicide ;) features a surprisingly amount of soup related content for a game about murdering a king....

KC Nwosu, creator with Second Wind Group and a community moderator, is ready to dismantle some corrupt systems using the prompts:

• shakespearean
• teaches you how to commit crimes
• timeloop

In "Revolt Report Repeat," play as an investigative journalist on the trail of a child sacrificing cult. Track down the identities of the five shadowy cultists, and quickly now - because they've all seen your face. Thankfully tim...

Nick Calandra, editor in chief for Second Wind Group, melds his love of action films with Jenna's love of action films and the prompts:

• shakespearean
• teaches you how to commit crimes
• timeloop

You're being hunted by the ultimate assassin, ane he's so good the only person who could him... is himself! "Recyclcide" forces you to maneuver henchmen around to trick an assassin into wiping himself before he can take you...

Jack Packard, GM for Adventure is Nigh and host of Red Letter Media, has got a sicko inside of him and he is not letting it stay dorment. Thankfully we've got a lot of space to play with the prompts:

• shakespearean
• teaches you how to commit crimes
• timeloop

Play as an Elizabethean actor trying to break up an alliance the easiest way possible; by seducing one of the participants in a marriage between kingdoms! In "...

Phil Salvador, the Library Director of the Video Game History Foundation and returning guest, is ready to apply his archiving expertise to the prompts:

• taste-o-vision
• fourth-wall breaking
• QTE

His grounded approach to game preservation keeps Jenna from making a vape game, which is truly for the best. And weirdly, his additional expertise in Frasier finds its own part to play in "Frasier: Dinner Roles." But for th...