I write about video games

I specialise in writing feature articles on video games, and I’m particularly interested in weird and surprising stories from the history of gaming.

My work has been featured in publications such as The Guardian, Eurogamer, Retro Gamer, PC Gamer, EDGE, GamesRadar+, PCGamesN, Kotaku UK and Rock Paper Shotgun, and I am also the founder of two popular gaming blogs: A Most Agreeable Pastime and 101 Video Games That Made My Life Slightly Better.

I’ve highlighted some of my favourite articles here, and below that is a complete list of my work.

‘Kids raised in the digital era are yearning for this’: the people making new games for old consoles (The Guardian)

This year, veteran video game developers Garry Kitchen and David Crane released a new game for the Atari 2600 – despite the fact that the console was discontinued some 30 years ago. And they’re not the only ones. Companies such as Limited Run Games and Strictly Limited Games are manufacturing brand new cartridges, and sometimes never-before-released games, for consoles that predate the smartphone. “The market’s not remotely dead for these consoles,” says Josh Fairhurst, head of North Carolina-based Limited Run. “There’s a lot of demand, and it’s only growing.” (read more)

The Painstaking Beauty Of Stop-Motion Videogames (WhyNow)

There’s something mesmerising about stop-motion animation. It’s the sense that you’re watching real things, actual models that have been lovingly crafted by hand and that exist in the real world, not just on a hard drive somewhere. Fingerprints left in clay are an imprint of humanity, a reminder that a person spent hours bending a maquette into this shape and that, giving it life… (read more)

The menagerie of ways AI is transforming video game creation (L’Atelier)

In 2022, social media feeds flooded with astonishing creations from artificial intelligence (AI), chiefly the tools DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. Users could generate seemingly any imaginable image with incredible fidelity by typing a few simple words. 

Artist Martin Nebelong, who landed a job with Media Molecule for his impressive creations in Dreams, posted a thread of eye-opening images he generated using Midjourney last August. They range from an “elderly Norwegian queen” to “futuristic traditional oriental buildings.” In each, the quality of the AI-created artwork is incredible, practically indistinguishable from something made by a talented human hand.

Seemingly overnight, AI tools went from being a novelty—a way to generate silly Pokémon names or psychedelic Mona Lisas—to a technology that could revolutionise how we work, notably in video games. Indeed, someone has already created a shoot ‘em up made entirely with art generated from Midjourney. (read more)

Meet the man behind the astonishingly successful Arcade Club (Eurogamer)

Andy Palmer, the man behind Arcade Club, is having the time of his life. He feels like he has been given a second chance, a chance to do something he absolutely loves, day in, day out. “It keeps me alive,” he says of the arcade chain he started in 2015 with its mix of beloved retro machines and cutting-edge games. “It’s actually given me a reason to live again. Because I’m 48 this year, which is tragically near 50, and when you get to your forties and you think you’ve not done as much in your life as you would like to, or you think you should have done, everyone starts getting a bit cynical and a bit down. So this has really given me a shot in the arm in a big, big way.” (read more)

Back from the dead (PC Gamer)

Genesis LPMud is one of the oldest online multiplayer games in the world: it’s been running continuously for nearly 30 years. But six years ago it almost came to an untimely end. This is the story of how an enthusiastic cadre of fans rallied to save this important piece of gaming history from extinction… (read more)

Amiga Addict

  • The Story of the Guru Meditation Error (issue 19)

L’Atelier

Convergence

I contributed several chapters to the book Convergence: How The World Will Be Painted With Data by Charlie Fink.

  • AR and Journalism
  • AR and AI
  • Pokemon Go on and on and on
  • Niantic’s Real World Platform
  • Rokid company profile

EDGE

  • Play: Tchia (issue 383)
  • Knowledge: Forging Ahead (issue 383)
  • Studio Profile: Wadjet Eye (issue 382)
  • Hype: SteamWorld Build (issue 382)
  • Hype: Arctic Awakening (issue 382)
  • The Making Of… Citizen Sleeper (issue 381)
  • Feature: Augmented Development (issue 381)
  • Knowledge: Ready to Comply (issue 381)
  • Knowledge: Sea Change (issue 380)
  • Hype: Ninja Or Die (issue 379)
  • Knowledge: Do-It-Yourself Dungeons (issue 379)
  • Knowledge: The Cloud On The Horizon (issue 379)
  • Hype: The Siege and the Sandfox (issue 378)
  • Knowledge: New Builds (issue 378)
  • Feature: The Preservationists (issue 377)
  • Hype: Tactical Breach Wizards (issue 375)
  • Hype: Death of the Reprobate (issue 375)
  • Hype: Old Skies (issue 373)
  • Knowledge: Selfloss (issue 373)
  • Hype: How To Say Goodbye (issue 372)
  • Play: Not For Broadcast (issue 369)
  • Hype: Swordship (issue 368)
  • Hype: Inua: A Story in Ice and Time (issue 367)
  • Hype: Silt (issue 366)
  • Knowledge: Smokestack lightning (issue 334)

Eurogamer

GAME Magazine

  • Everyone deserves to play [interview with the head of gaming charity SpecialEffect]

GAME MEDIA

For E3 2019, I wrote news articles for UK retailer GAME’s online news portal.

GamesRadar+

The Guardian

The Indie Game Website

Kotaku UK

LADbible

Nintendo Life

PC Gamer

PCGamesN

Retro Gamer

  • Ultimate Guide: Cannon Dancer (issue 241)
  • The History of Legacy of Kain (issue 240)
  • The Making of Demon Attack (issue 237)
  • The Story of E3 (issue 234)
  • The Making of The Simpsons: Bart Vs The Space Mutants (issue 224)
  • In The Chair With Violet Berlin (issue 221)
  • The Making of Balance of Power (issue 220)
  • Back to the 90s (issue 218 cover feature, sections on 90s magazines and TV)
  • The Making of Wizkid (issue 217)
  • The Story of Special Reserve (issue 215)
  • The History of Turrican (issue 214 cover feature)
  • The Making of Lure of the Temptress (issue 211)
  • The History of The Settlers (issue 209)
  • The History of Destruction Derby (issue 208)
  • The Making of Skidmarks and Super Skidmarks (issue 205)
  • The History of Commandos (issue 204)
  • It’s Good To Talk: Retro Gaming Podcasts Special (issue 203)
  • Ultimate Guide: Street Racer (issue 202)
  • The Making of BITS (issue 201)
  • The History of Videogame Magazines (issue 200)
  • Ultimate Guide: Super Star Wars (issue 197)
  • The History of X-COM (issue 196)
  • The Making of Amiga Power (issue 195)
  • The Strange Story of the Casio Loopy (issue 193)
  • Minority Report: Amiga CD32 (issue 192)

Rock Paper Shotgun

Time Extension

WhyNow

Wireframe