It’s been a busy and stressful week so I’m a bit late with this episode of Side by Side. If only I could have got another version of myself to post this on Wednesday!

Well that’s sort of the idea behind Chronobot, a free 1v1 competitive local multiplayer game where each player co-operates (hah!) with previous timelines of themselves to jockey with the other for different objectives. Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I were pleasantly surprised, and confused, by this one.

There’s been a lot of balls this season. First, the not-so regular Regular Human Basketball, followed a little later by the zany Anyball, and now we’re on to our third (but not final): Waynetron’s Birdsketball, which is undoubtedly the most straight forward of the lot. Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I adored this which translated to one of our favourite episodes of the season.

Last night I attended a special screening of Transformers: The Movie, which was held around the country. It was crowded and energetic, full of old fans like myself and with parents who wanted to show the movie to their young kids. It’s not what you could call a good film, objectively speaking, but it’s a film I love. I remarked aloud, leaving the movie, that it’s essentially the same movie as Infinity War. “Just skipping around incoherently from set-piece to set-piece, brutally killing off beloved childhood characters.” I paused and added, “I guess at least in Transformers, the soundtrack is better.” The guy next to me remarked: “And the acting.”

And it’s almost true. The big heavy of the film is Orson Welles, in his last role. He is phoning in a performance voicing what is effectively the robot devil. The audio is distorted to high heck because of his failing health at the time. It’s not a complex character role to play. But in spite of all that, the work is at least evocative.

Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I put our fingers on the big red buttons in a bid to annihilate each other in Sven Ahlgrimm’s Nuclear Reaction, a one button whirling nuclear war game for up to four fingers. Local only, unless if you’ve got really long fingers.

As I mentioned in my previous review, I just got back from PAX West 2018. Here’s a by no means complete list of games I played there and thought were interesting!

I’m not going to talk here about upcoming AAA releases like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Devil May Cry 5. (Though if you didn’t know that both of those games are coming out, they are!) Instead I’m just going to talk about small/indie games that caught my interest. Not only do I love indie games, but the lines to play them are a lot shorter, so you get more game in your day. Win/win!

Watch Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I momentarily trade the dog-eat-dog for… fox-help-raccoon in Piece of Cake’s split-screen asymmetric stealth action game Hacktag. This is the first — and unfortunately only — co-op title in this season of Side by Side.

Remember when I used to write words about video games? Man, good times.

On this the week after PAX West (which, was basically the last time I seriously wrote about video games one year ago, as the mood struck me), I decided to jump in on the release of Ben Esposito’s Donut County. I attended Ben’s GDC talk about the development of the game a few years ago, and I wanted to see how the final product ended up.

My momma always said “itch.io is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get”. She wasn’t wrong, but thanks to some handy search tools it’s easy to get some real treats. This week’s treat is Totemori, a local multiplayer… uh, tot’em up? Tot’em up. Yeah, that sort of works.

Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I see whether it all stacks up.

Side by Side’s been a bit twitchy so far hasn’t it? Well in this week’s episode, Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I take a look at Cuckoo Curling to break that run up a little. It’s curling meets Connect 4 for up to four players and it’s a lovely gentle thing.

Earlier in the week Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance published our fourth episode of Side by Side where we wrangle with Anyball, a loosey-goosey local multiplayer sports game where the rules and equipment keep changing. Yikes!

In this week’s Side by Side, Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I take on the trippy channel hopping arcade madness of Tuned Out.

Next up Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and I play Slampunks’ adorable slippery cephalopod racer Muddledash.

We’re back and this time we’re actually on a couch side by side. It’s only taken four seasons. I even got some pictures hung up on my back wall.

This year’s Rezzed in London was a smörgåsbord of local multiplayer delights and I was fortunate enough to tuck into a plateful of them with Joel Goodwin, friend and fellow Side by Sider over at Electron Dance.

Up-front trigger warnings make me dubious. They often read like attorney-mandated ass coverage instead of any actual effort at sensitivity. I tend to mentally translate them into the most sarcastic, least considerate reading I can imagine. Thus in my brain, the one preceding Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice goes like this:

This game has crazy people, so FYI if you’re a crazy person or if crazy people make you sad. Also check out our website. Because hellbladehelp.info is totally what you’d visit to learn about mental illness.”

I mean come on. As disclaimers go, it’s not even comprehensive. What if Hell makes you sad? Or blades make you sad?