The Imaginary Engine Review

Our Otome issue continues with a dive into the margins of Square Enix history and a rigorous questions of "otome" genre form by @zweiteturm.bsky.social

@phoenixwritesdown.bsky.social connects patterns of protection and care during a crisis in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure and Collar x Malice.

With fall comes an update for the state of the current issue, what's in store, and of course a roundup of what's keeping @gracemachine.bsky.social and @phoenixwritesdown.bsky.social inspired behind the scenes.

dusting off this account for something im about to post in a few minutes to bring up that i wrote this!

Kicking off our issue on Otome with an essay from Ludzu on sublimated eroticism, violence and realism, and anti-romance.

One of the things that is extremely lovely about @tier-review.com, as a project, is that whatever the industry's turmoils and trials, we can continue humming along, basically uninterrupted.

We wrap up our issue on Forget-Me-Not with a contribution from @gracemachine.bsky.social on video game dolls, agency, and labor.

@phoenixwritesdown.bsky.social starts off the Forget Me Not: My Organic Garden issue with a long essay about how @cavyhouse.bsky.social's satirical clicker is positioned within the storytelling tradition of the magic shop.

Curious about what's up next for TIER's spring season? @gracemachine.bsky.social and @phoenixwritesdown.bsky.social report on what's in the works and what's inspiring us behind the scenes in our second report.

@phoenixwritesdown.bsky.social interviewed experimental filmmakers Sonya Mwambu and Nada El-Omari about the multifariousness of the digital and pandemic era home and kinship.

FINALLY, I wrote about 24 Killers and its interest in good things grown from gunfire and unburied corpses.

Wrapping up our issue on 24 Killers, @gracemachine.bsky.social muses on its overgrowth of military infrastructure.

@phoenixwritesdown.bsky.social reflects on @stopcar.ing's 24 Killers piece and how the game exemplifies home as a concept that cannot be claimed or contained.

//TIER Report is a new series at our humble website where we talk casually and share future plans. Within are our conclusions from the recent reader survey!

Librarian and researcher Talita Valle delves into "the rolling stacks of digital archives" and offers a nuanced analysis of B.J. Best's LAKE Adventure. They remind us of the importance of paratexts and Barthes' concept of the indexicality of a cultural object of expression, such as the IF.

@stopcar.ing kicked off our last issue debut of the year with a piece on 24 Killers and what home really is. She effortlessly captures the strange, funny yet bittersweet themes of the game and its eclectic yet personal tone as well.

@phoenixsimms.bsky.social reflects on why there was an increasing emphasis in the 2010s on IF storytelling via interfaces like desktops and apps.

For our IF issue, Mazen Haggag explores the tortured logics of Horse Master and how the game creates terror out of a lack of agency.

For our next contribution to our IF issue, @coledone.com joins to talk about interlinked form and the fundamental poetry of text games.

We interviewed @alienmelon.bsky.social and discussed text games, Interactive Fiction, social media, tech fascism, and lots more.

For our second contribution, Kaelan Doyle-Myerscough reflects on their first entry into IFComp, the joys and problems of insular art cultures, and the boundaries of interactive fiction.

For the first essay in our Interactive Fiction issue, @highimpactsex.bsky.social writes about the shrinking available space for personal art through the metafiction of Repeat the Ending.

For the first entry in our Interactive Fiction @highimpactsex.bsky.social writes about the shrinking margins where personal art can flourish through the metafiction of Repeat The Ending.

Thanks to a grant from the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, we are doing an mega-issue on the interactive fiction of the 2010s! This will be the first of many themed issues to come...

@phoenixsimms.bsky.social likens thecatamites creative mode and visual culture to Dada and the avant garde movement.

@gracemachine.bsky.social divines the haunting nature of Anthology of the Killer's settings. She also compares and contrasts the game collection's notion of history against the film Tár and personal memory.

For our first essay on Anthology of the Killer @phantomcobra.bsky.social explores its ancestral ties to adult cartoons like Home Movies.

Kicking off our issue on Anthology of the Killer with something a little different.

Coming soon...

i published a post about conversations i had at A MAZE, on an important topic… Conversations About Curation And The Future Of Games Crit: www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/con... "The future is something wildly different. One that will function outside of these outdated norms and compromised values."

Phoenix Simms analyzes how the irreverent tone of Lovely Lady RPG often undermines its potential as a queer anti-capitalist narrative.

We are launching our issue on Lovely Lady RPG with Grace Benfell on science fiction, memes, and idealized selves.

Coming soon...

lotus digs through Heisei Pistol Show's messy and fulfilling resonances, in relation to trauma, transness, and simple human frailty.

Putting the finishing touches on our last two essays on Heisei Pistol Show and hard at work on our next issue. Hoping to have a more consistent schedule in the new year, but also we take this at the pace we can so we can keep it going. 🖤🙏💪

In the next entry in our Heisei Pistol Show issue, ludzu wrote about Parun as a collage artist and RPG maker as a patchwork canvas.

Also also! We have goals now! Things we could do with more subscriptions like book reviews, poetry submissions, and just more money for everyone who makes TIER happen.

Our issue on Heisei Pistol Show begins with @phoenixsimms.bsky.social discussing the RPG Maker classic’s relationship to Menhera subcultures.

An aside, with no paywall, about something very important to us.

Wrapped up our issue on the anti-metroid OVERWHELM with an essay from @gracemachine.bsky.social on its terrifying obfuscations.