Song of the Deep Wants You To Feel Small | WIRED. I think this game is going to be greatly appealing.

An Hour With The Solus Project, A Survival Game With An Actual Story, at Kotaku.

TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Love You To Bits’ | TouchArcade. Tiny Thief is broken on iOS 9 (RIP) but this game is it’s spiritual successor, and shares a few devs.

Obduction, The Spiritual Successor to Myst, at Laughing Squid. I. Am. So. Happy.

The Gallery, VR and a fear of falling | Polygon. This game looks pretty ideal.

15 Tricks Every iPhone User Should Know How to Do | Apartment Therapy. These are pretty helpful.

Hidden Folks is a Hidden Object Game with Interactive Scenery – Gamezebo.

When Two Best Friends Make Video Games (And Only One Sells). A good examination of what’s going on in the indie market.

Beyond ‘Serial’: The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2015 – The Atlantic. See also: additional 10 Great Podcast Episodes from 2015 from Matt Thompson.

Waiting for Serial? Try Some of These, Our Favorite Podcasts | WIRED.

Nathan Grayson’s Top 10 Games Of 2015.

Take a Video Crash Course in Beginner Electronics, at Make.

Data Atsume. Tons of data for the Neko Atsume game on what to use to attract the rare cats and get the greatest fish return. Via Waxy.

Stick a pin in it! — Postlight Posts — Medium. The Pinterest Chrome plug-in is taking over your website, but only the users can see it so you might not know. If you manage a website you should know this is going on, and they offer code to stop it.

Steam VR Stealth Game Looks Like A More Violent Portal, at Kotaku. I got to try the Vive last year and part of that was a Portal demo. Scott and I spent some time wondering how you’d make a Portal game for the Vive played at home and our theories were a lot like the way this game is described.

The next game from the creators of Monument Valley is going to be a virtual reality experience, at Kotaku. I’m getting excited about VR.

Sorry Ello, the Real Anti-Facebook Is Good Old Email | WIRED. They call out the old fashioned newsletter, specifically Tiny Letter, here and I have to agree — I’ve signed up for a few newsletters in the past months and it’s like getting my journal-blog days back.

TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Dust: An Elysian Tail’ | TouchArcade.

Little Inferno creator’s new game is about programming people | Polygon. Tablet version coming soon. Yes!

The 50 Best Free Games On PC | Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Knytt is in the top ten!

Cool Tools – The Best Factual Podcasts.

At last, a handy storage solution for your phone! | Sugru. Easy, cheap, removable DIY for an iPhone holder, awesome. Via Swissmiss.

A primer and FAQ for Ingress, Google’s odd/awesome mobile game | ITworld. Via How Ingress, Google’s Real-World Smartphone Game, Got Me Out of My Shell, at Lifehacker.

A brief history of yarn in video games – Boing Boing.

Portal Stories: Mel Released Free On Steam | Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

The first episode of King’s Quest, A Knight to Remember, arrives July 28 | Polygon.

Royal with cheese: A King’s Quest primer | Polygon. We weren’t allowed to have a console as kids (I had to sneak in Mario time at a friend’s house) but we did have a PC so I grew up playing King’s Quest and Space Quest games. Me and Sierra were besties.

‘Blossom Tales’ is “A delightful mix of ‘Zelda’ and Princess Bride,” Coming this Winter | TouchArcade.

Fantastic Contraption for the Vive. 3D in VR. Wowzers. Via belong.io.

Whispering Willows Review: Riddles in the Dark – Gamezebo.

Gamasutra – Game Design Essentials: 20 Open World Games.

Your Super Mario Maker level has no chill – Offworld.

games « Indie Fund. This is a note to myself to check out more of the games that Indie Fund has supported.

What in the Hell Is a Tefifon? – The Stranger. If you’re into music technology this is pretty darn cool.

Shades Review | Touch Arcade. A Tetris-like game for the iPhone, with a free trial version of the game in case you’d like to test it out.

GLaDOS and The Sniper: A Voice Acting Love Story | Motherboard. Via Gamefilter.

What Happens When There Are No Boys in the Room: A Report from Robyn’s Tekla Conference | The Pitch | Pitchfork. Via the Two Bossy Dames newsletter.

Get ready to blindfold your friends in this neat local multiplayer game – Boing Boing. I’m not a huge fan of their earlier game Spaceteam but this looks like it could be a lot of fun.

25 Best Puzzle Games Ever Made For PC | Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers | Computerworld. Via The Wirecutter.

Could this beautiful game signal the end of our dystopia fetish? – Offworld.

The Jezebel Staff, Perfected. A demonstration of photo editing software that makes people look extra pretty. Its a send up of our overly perfected Instagram age but it kinda sold me on getting one of these apps.

Meet the Man Behind ‘Solarized,’ the Most Important Color Scheme in Computer History | Observer. Via The Wirecutter.

Explorable Explanations. Via Waxy.

A word on the iPhone 6/6 Plus and third-party headphones | The Wirecutter. What to look for to be sure your headphones will fit, and if not a few DIY solutions.

Something Has to Change in Videogames: Everything & Everyone | Unwinnable.

Replacing an inkjet printer with a laser printer | Ask MetaFilter. I recently noticed that my current inkjet printer is nearly a decade old, which means that despite zero signs of something going wrong it’s going to brick itself due to the extra attention. So, laser is what I’m looking at next as well.

Next iPhone game for a Monument Valley lover | Ask MetaFilter.

Weekend Getaway: Telltale Games’ Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent | The Mary Sue. I love this game and it’s sequel.

These are the games for iPad that I find particularly relaxing and keep around to replay after enough time has passed that I’ve forgotten how to solve most levels.

Monument Valley
This is a stunningly beautiful and simple game that plays with Escher style geometry and has a slightly spooky story. For iOS, Google Play and Kindle Fire.

Doggins
This is a short and exceedingly sweet game about what a dog dreams about. An especially stylish version of a point and click style adventure. For iOS, Google Play and Kindle Fire.

Find the Line
In this game you slide a few lines until they compose a picture and watching the lines dance through their patterns, which work as hints, is beautiful and mesmerizing. One downside: while the game is free the distributor has put video ads between each level and you cannot pay to make the ads go away. Bummer. Just in iOS.

Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake
A cartoonish and funny puzzle game with a surprising amount of levels. I thoroughly loved this game and the levels are satisfyingly tricky while the story is well developed. For iOS, Google Play, Amazon Apps and Steam.

See also the previously mentioned: Tiny Thief and Little Inferno.

The Very Worst Video Game Ever Made – Gamefilter. Desert Bus is released for iPhone and iPad and Android. Yessss!

The Eye-Fi mobi card is the real deal | A Whole Lotta Nothing.

New study says more adult women play video games than teenage boys · Newswire · The A.V. Club. “Before anyone pins this on Kim Kardashian: Hollywood or whatever, the study also says the average adult woman has played games for 13 years”.

The Best USB Battery Pack for Travel | The Wirecutter. Only $40, nice.

Meet the game that shows us the future of storytelling — The Message — Medium. Robin Sloan suggests how to play Gone Home for non-gamers and goes into why this is a form of video game that is worth paying attention to. Via Waxy.

10 Years, 10 Great Games: Jessica’s picks | Joystiq.

The secret of Minecraft — The Message — Medium. A very good perspective on what Minecraft is an exactly why it matters.

$7 Portal Mod Has Fans Riled Up | Game|Life | WIRED.

Cool Tools – Panda Ultra Wifi 1540Mbps Wireless N 2.4Ghz Adapter. A teeny tiny adapter that can work as an access point at those hotels that offer you wifi for one device. Nice.

The last of the great Twitter apps at Kottke. I’m looking at #2 on the list here, TweetBe.at, which makes it much easier to sort and edit Twitter lists. I’ve recently been asking friends about why they prefer to communicate with Facebook or Twitter and the Facebook people site overload on Twitter with Twitter list making is too time consuming to use properly. It is indeed a pain and it used to be much easier.

Monument Valley: new levels on the way | Polygon. Yes!

Tales From The Borderlands nets a nerdy voice cast | Joystiq. I’m pretty darn excited for this game to come out.

Oculus Game Lucky’s Tale Will Blow Your Mind | Game|Life | WIRED. I want to play this.

Ask a Game Dev — Why are so many people demanding AAA titles to be all feminist and stuff when women don’t even buy those games?. There are twice as many gamers who are female and over the age of 31 than there are male under the age of 18, so guess who is spending money on games. Via Andrea Phillips.

How to Make a Light-Up Father’s Day Card | Brit + Co.

Montreal-style bagel – Wikipedia. NOTE: “Montreal-style bagels are currently the only style of bagel to have ventured into space.” Via a discussion with friends.

RINGLY | Smart Jewelry and Accessories. A ring that is connected to your phone and has several vibration patterns and colored lights for different notifications – email, text, Uber arriving. Interesting! Via SwissMiss.

Ravelry and knitting: Why Facebook can’t match the social network for knitters at Slate. I’ve been telling people for years that Ravelry should be studied as the example of an ideal social networking site.

Earlier this year I recommended two games for iOS that I hadn’t actually played on iOS and I’m here now to un-recommend. But both of the games are amazing and you should play them, just on different systems.

Aquaria was released for PC in 2007 and won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at IGF that year. I played it around 2009 and fell deeply in love with the game. It was adapted and became available for iOS a few years ago and after recommending it I finally bought it for my iPad mini. Everything about it was the same but just as soon as I got into the areas where combat is required I died. Over and over again. You respawn at points very close to where you die but it was still frustrating. Why did I like the game so much upon the first play through? A little bit of memory jogging and I remembered why – with the PC version you can gently hack the settings so that your character takes damage less quickly. You’re not invincible but needing to regain energy comes at a much more reasonable pace for me. The other reason that playing on a computer has a bit of an edge is simply that there are keyboard shortcuts for triggering common things in the game that come in very handy. (One tip: If you are playing on iOS make sure you pick up your first pet before you head out to Open Waters to explore beyond the initial area of the game. Not having that was part of the reason I was expiring so quickly and why I was frustrated to the point of not continuing.)

General review: In Aquaria you play as an creature who lives in underwater caves and has no memory. You set out to make discoveries and during the course of play you uncover the history of yourself as well as a set of long lost civilizations all wrapping up in the story of the creation and downfall of a god. The game is vast and takes a long time to play. You are in an open world, meaning you can venture into almost any area of the game at any time. There are a few features that block your way until you gain new abilities but those abilities also unlock some fast travel systems later on which is great because you will be revisiting areas. There is a map and a note system so you can mark areas to return to. The game can be at times delightful and spooky and just when you think you cannot possibly find anything new everything changes completely, and then it changes again. I adore the feeling of exploration in this game, there is an amazing amount of space to search and most every area has a secret to reveal to those who look closely. If you get stuck or want hints the forums at Bit Blot are very thorough. The character development, soundtrack and story all lead to most people, including myself, having an emotional attachment. It’s one of those games to dive into in the depth of winter or if you break a bone and are immobile for a while.

Bonus points for the main character and most of the secondary characters being well developed and powerful females. Game includes impressively vast open world exploration, puzzle solving, combat, resource gathering and crafting and an amazing story and soundtrack. For game nerds I’ll point out that one of the developers went on to create a game called Spelunky, you might know it?

Available for PC, Mac and Linux (DRM free). Also on Steam.

Aquaria was made by two developers, check out their other stuff: Alec Holowka’s projects can be found at Infinite Ammo and see Derek Yu‘s site.

The Cave is a game by my beloved Double Fine that I hadn’t played yet but was on my radar. I bought it for my iPad and got stuck almost right away because the tablet controls are terrible. I was so frustrated I pulled up a bunch of reviews and the majority of them echoed my later conclusion – the game is great but the tablet controls are unsatisfactory and it’s worth playing the game in a different form.

So next I bought the game for my OUYA and loved it. The game is funny and sarcastic. In the game you choose three characters (out of an available seven) to go in and explore the cave, or rather, The Cave. Each character has a different set of abilities and can reach different parts of the cave. As you progress you learn the stories of each character, and they aren’t always what they seem. The playthrough isn’t terribly long and you can replay choosing different characters to reach different parts of the cave, though there are a few areas you will play through during each pass, which can be a little repetitive the third time you play (if you want to play all the characters). My favorites were the Twins, the Scientist and the Explorer.

Bonus points to the developer for making half the playable characters female. Game includes plot driven exploration, puzzle solving and humor. Available on Steam and OUYA.

Double Fine has been up to some interesting stuff lately, I cannot wait for the second half of Broken Age and their older games are well worth playing, there is a special spot in my heart for Psychonauts which I didn’t play until a few years ago.

Let’s talk games. I have a PS3, a PC, an OUYA and an iPad. In wintertime I want games to play in my living room so the PS3 and the OUYA are my focus, otherwise I am often looking for something to pass the time on a flight so I look for games for my iPad. My PC gaming has fallen away with the exception of a few extended story lines or games bought through Steam or Kickstarter (Dreamfall Chapters and Broken Age part 2 are what I’m currently anticipating). With all these platforms I’m only slightly aware of all the games out there that I know I’d like. (Even doing some link gathering for this post has led me to some gems that have been around for a while but are new to me.) Lately I’ve been depending on the podcast The Indoor Kids for game recommendations, and they do an amazing job but their focus as been on Xbox lately. I’m looking for a website or news source that is curated enough to not be overwhelming, my usual sources – Jay Is Games, Ars Technica, Touch Arcade – are often more information than I can parse.

So, I’m curious! Where do you find yourself looking for new games? What platform do you prefer? What news source do you trust?

PSA: How To Take Good Care Of Your PC | Best Of MetaFilter. I still primarily use PCs.

Solidoodle 4: Testing the home 3-D printer. At Slate, via The Morning News. “Consider: Once upon a time, people purchased sewing patterns (like a program from Thingiverse) and yards of fabric (like filament) and they made their own clothes. I wasn’t alive back then, but I’m pretty sure the process sucked. It took lots of time and effort and the clothes were often amateurishly constructed. … Most people would much rather just get their clothes from a store—already assembled by people employing industrial-level efficiency and a wide variety of materials.”

THREES – The Rip-offs & Making Our Original Game. Some in depth exploration and conflicted feelings on the clones. Via Waxy.

Here are the games that I’ve been playing on my iPad which have been keeping me distracted from the cold, wet darkness of winter.

Little Inferno

In this game you burn things. Toys and bricks and food and batteries and planets. For everything you burn you build up credit to buy more things to burn, which you order from catalogs. There is a plot that unfolds as you progress in the form of notes from your neighbor and updates from the weatherman as you cower indoors. This game is a criticism on video games and it skewers the way that modern games get you to obsessively play against odds and (spoiler alert) ultimately chides you for wasting your time playing this game. That said, I enjoyed every moment. The fire sound effects are soothing, each thing you burn has a different aspect or reaction (some scream, some explode) and it remains amusing throughout. The graphics are all lovingly created fun to toss around. You get a bonus when you burn things together from a pun-tastic list you can check off when you guess what “Duck Season” or “Nuclear Shave” means, which adds an extra completionist layer and will have you looking back through old objects to find a match.

This game manages to be simple fun while having you looking extra hard to find a deeper story, and you won’t be disappointed. The humor and a few subjects inside are not for young children. $4.99 in the App Store, see more at the Tomorrow Corporation website. Also for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Year Walk

This is a mysterious and emotionally dark exploration game based on Swedish folk tales. It starts without any guidance on how to play or where you are or what you are doing, all things you’ll uncover as you progress. It’s graphics and spooky atmosphere had me continue to poke around instead of giving up in frustration. The first time I played it I was on a plane and the guy next to me made a point to ask what I was playing, it really is that pretty.

One of the first objects you encounter doesn’t end up being used in the completion of the game but it does tie into the Companion game ,which is easy to simply not know about. The companion game is short but adds some explanation and depth to the original story and it, apparently, wasn’t released for a good long time after the main game which was a very interesting move.

This game deals with murder and ghost horses and dead babies and is really, really not for the young. $3.99 in the App Store, Year Walk Companion is free. Year Walk will also be available on Steam soon, see the Year Walk website.

Tengami

This is a recent addition to the app store but I’d had a preview of it last year at the Seattle Indies Expo. The graphic in this game are all inspired by origami and in the game you actually unfold objects to go deeper, it’s a fresh and intuative and frankly gorgeous form of gameplay. That said the unhappy reviews of this game focus on the fact that it’s short, which is true (but it’s worth the price) and slow, also true but the only aspect I had a problem with. Your character moves from location to location at a fairly slow pace and the first time you run through a new land it’s great to have a chance to look around and admire the origami landscape. When you backtrack to solve a try something it takes a little patience, when you have to go back for the eighth time to move something into another position in the midst of solving a puzzle you get downright impatient. A form of double-click-to-run option would solve all this and in the end it’s a trivial complaint in the midst of a deeply beautiful game. Available in the App Store now, $4.99, pre-order for OS X and Windows is on now. See more at the Nyamyam site.

Inner World

This is a new adventure game in the old school point and click style. Everything is hand drawn in a charming cartoon style and it’s set in a completely different world which is underground and dying out and guess what? That’s right! Your character is unwittingly set on the path to save it. I’ve loved this style of game since King’s Quest 1 and a thoroughly enjoyed this game, the gather-and-combine puzzles aren’t too obvious and aren’t too incomprehensible, the conversations with characters are funny (and skippable if you find yourself asking the same question), the world is quirky and unexpected. It’s a bit of a slower pace than (affect a “kids these days” tone of voice here) games these days but I loved it and played it in short bits as a sort of bedtime story for myself. There isn’t much objectionable in this game (it’s Despicable Me type grown up inside joke humor) but it probably won’t interest younger kids. $0.99 in the App store. Also available, DRM-free, for Windows and Mac on the Studio Fizbin website, it comes in German and English.

So, something in our house sprung a leak last weekend and I found water dripping down into my sewing room. We’ll be spending the week watching our ceiling get ripped out, dried up and rebuilt. We’ve been through this before and yes, it’s the same ceiling but a completely different cause this time. Let’s pretend none of this is happening and talk about video games instead!

Device 6
I’m going to admit I have not finished this yet. I tend to play iPhone games in public situations (on the bus, waiting in line) and this one will require that you either have a keen memory or the ability to take down some visible notes (codes) to enter later on. That said, it’s worth playing with your headphones on as this mostly-text game uses audible as as well as visual cues tell a story, and the game requires you to rotate and tilt the screen to advance. This game is stylish and fun. It’s won a bunch of Best of 2013 awards and I agree. Awesomeness. $3.99 in the app store.

Blackbar
This is a fun combination of fill-in-the-word and future fiction. You are a viewer into a series of digital conversations between an all-seeing dictatorship, a rebel group and a friend caught in the middle. Your only clues are the context of the story you’re reading. It can be frustrating if you just cannot get one of the words and you are prevented from advancing. That said, if you just don’t know the answer it’s easy (too easy?) to Google and find a spoiler in return. This is one of those instances where if you love the story it’s worth engaging a friend to Google the answers and give you more gentle clues. $2.99 in the app store.

PKPKT
This is a simple game that uses Bluetooth to detect other players nearby and whoever reacts first can pick the others virtual pocket. It’s amazingly fun to get a notification of somebody nearby while you’re riding a bus or arriving at a party. But, there aren’t nearly enough players yet which is why I need you all to play. It’s got the potential to be epically fun. Free.

Home Sheep Home 2
I heart everything that Aardman Studios does so I’m a wee bit embarrassed that it took me so long to play their Home Sheep Home 2 puzzle platformer involving Shaun the Sheep and his usual suspects. In each screen you’ve got to solve some puzzles to get three sheep to the exit. Each sheep has a different ability, one jumps high, one pushes heavy things, one fits through small spaces, and you’ll need all three to solve each level. The soundtrack, humor, personalities of the sheep and the crisp sound effects make a very charming game that is balanced with just enough difficulty. As you progress there are new elements presented (gravity!) and as you play there are collectibles for us completionists. That said, if you tend to play casual games in a web browser some of the levels are available online: Underground, Lost In London, as well as the original Home Sheep Home. $.99 in the app store. (Home Sheep Home 1 is also available for $.99 but know that it’s a much shorter game.)

Snail Bob
This is similar to Shaun the Sheep, you have to get the snail to the exit on each screen. You click to move things out of the way, manipulate gravity and the like and in each level there are three stars hiding. It’s not as stylized as Home Sheep Home but it makes my problem solving pleasure centers happy. You can play a bunch of Snail Bob games online for free and if you’d like to try it out Snail Bob 5, A Love Story is a good representation of what is in the iPhone game. $.99 in the app store.

Announcing The Walk Game — Andrea Phillips.

GameFace headset offers wireless, Android-powered Oculus Rift alternative | Joystiq.

The OUYA Doesn’t Actually Suck: How to Make the Indie Console Great. Emulators? PS3 controllers? Yes.

State of the Blog Union: How The Blogging World Has Changed | Design*Sponge. All these things are true, and I really like her optimistic conclusion. Still, RIP blogs as we knew them.

Cool Tools – Ulmon Offline Mobile Maps at Cool Tools. I use an app called Offmaps to save data usage and look forward to comparing these two against each other.

SteelSeries Stratus iOS 7 gamepad launches for $20 less than its pre-order price | Joystiq. Oh boy, I’d like one of these.

Size Matters | Slog. Two games to keep an eye out for.

Indie Shows Join Forces For Radiotopia | Public Radio Exchange. I seem to continuously be finding ways to seek out the best corners of public radio and so I’m thrilled that PRX has gathered them together here. Podcast lovers, this is a list you should take note of.