Pixel Therapy Pod

Thanks for your patience on our slightly-longer than usual episode break! We're so happy to be back with each other and all of you for a deep dive into Night School Studio's Netflix-produced Oxenfree II: Lost Signals! Who doesn't love a good end-of-summer multi-dimensional haunting?

Spoiler warning: Light spoilers for the first Oxenfree throughout, as well as very light story spoilers for Oxenfree II.

1:04 - Patreon shoutouts

7:29 - First class travel

14:47 - Oxenfree II discussion

Side Quest

bit.ly/mauimutualaide

IG: @mauirapidresponse 

FB: ‘Maui Fire, Flood & Disaster Relief Group

Support Maui wildfire relief! All funds will be distributed as quickly as possible to vulnerable Hawaiians in need, prioritizing elders, people with disabilities, renters, and those who are uninsured or under insured. Needs lists and drop off locations are also being posted to the referenced social media accounts.

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

Cannes Award-winning director and animator Cedric Babouche crafts a cinematic feast for the senses in sun-soaked Dordogne, a bite-sized narrative adventure from his studio Un Je Ne Sais Quoi and Umanimation and published by Focus Entertainment. Join us as we explore a summery tale about family wounds and childhood memories that may not deliver on all of the plot points it sets up but provides a rich backdrop to explore an idyllic portrait of the French countryside -- perfect for a quiet afternoon, or while your partner hogs the TV getting bodied by Margit the Fell Omen for the 20th time (Spencer's writing this).

Articles referenced:

Dordogne, the story behind a watercolour video game - https://www.cnc.fr/web/en/news/dordogne-the-story-behind-a-watercolour-video-game_1905450

An interview with Cedric Babouche by Takayuki Sawahata - https://automaton-media.com/en/interviews/20230621-19630/

The hand-painted beauty of indie game Dordogne by Andrew Webster - https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/6/21249119/dordogne-indie-game-interview-steam-nintendo-switch

Side Quest

https://cia-oiifrance.org/

Collectif Intersexe Activiste is the only association by and for intersex people in France.

Intersex refers to the social status of people born with primary and/or secondary sex characteristics considered to fall outside typical social and medical definitions of feminine and masculine. Learn more about their campaigns to raise awareness and education about the lived experiences of intersex people, access their resource library, and donate to their community efforts at the link

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

There's no better way to close out Pride Month than crying about The Legend of Zelda, in our opinion. Join us as we dive into Tears of the Kingdom, the latest entry in Nintendo's storied, cyclical, ever-endearing saga starring a princess, a hero, a land alive with history, and the players who love them.

0:50 - Patreon shoutouts!

2:35 - Are y'all watching The Bear?!

9:53 - Tears of the Kingdom discussion

Articles referenced:

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: the Kotaku Review by Carolyn Petit - https://kotaku.com/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-the-kotaku-r-1850570840

A Link Between Genders: Trans Joy and the Legend of Zelda by Linda Codega - https://gizmodo.com/legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-link-trans-1850430832

In Tears of the Kingdom, Everyone Is Chill About the Second Apocalypse, for Better or Worse by Fran Ruiz - https://www.escapistmagazine.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-chill-second-apocalypse/

Side Quest

https://www.gofundme.com/f/queer-diy-space-in-richmond-va 

Mutual aid request! Richmond, VA is in dire need of DIY spaces for dance music and for BLACK PEOPLE!! Any donation helps as it will go towards helping DJ/producer Herbert Vasquez build a queer and trans focused DIY space where music and community can thrive.

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

Join us as we soar upon a Sunwing into Guerilla Games' long-awaited epilogue to 2022's Horizon Forbidden West, among the sun-soaked Burning Shores of post-post-apocalyptic Los Angeles! It's both a bittersweet final adventure with the late, great Lance Reddick and a new kind of journey for the emotionally distant Aloy we've all come to know and love. PS - Happy Pride!

3:35 - Let's get into the PlayStation Showcase!

24:49 - Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores discussion

29:00 - The next-gen-ness of it all

33:42 - Background and setup

45:55 - Aloy's emotional coming-of-age

53:53 - Traversal-focused gameplay

1:03:27 - SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores from here forward!

1:05:00 - "Wow" moments and scaling up enemies

1:16:00 - THAT part

Side Quest

https://neads.org/

NEADS was established in 1976 and has trained over 1,900 Service Dog teams since its founding. Check out their mission, get involved in helping working pups find their people, and donate at the link above!

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

Join us as we soar upon a Sunwing into Guerilla Games' long-awaited epilogue to 2022's Horizon Forbidden West, among the sun-soaked Burning Shores of post-post-apocalyptic Los Angeles! It's both a bittersweet final adventure with the late, great Lance Reddick and a new kind of journey for the emotionally distant Aloy we've all come to know and love. PS - Happy Pride!

3:35 - Let's get into the PlayStation Showcase!

24:49 - Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores discussion

29:00 - The next-gen-ness of it all

33:42 - Background and setup

45:55 - Aloy's emotional coming-of-age

53:53 - Traversal-focused gameplay

1:03:27 - SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores from here forward!

1:05:00 - "Wow" moments and scaling up enemies

1:16:00 - THAT part

Side Quest

https://neads.org/

NEADS was established in 1976 and has trained over 1,900 Service Dog teams since its founding. Check out their mission, get involved in helping working pups find their people, and donate at the link above!

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

I was an agender explorer in a polycule with a hot alien and a goth loner. I was a lesbian scientist who betrayed my lover to save our home, my relationship torn apart by regret and shame. I was a queer botanist who saved our space colony from famine and discovered an ancient civilization. I was all of these people and more in Northway Games and Finji's award-winning I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, released in 2022! Join us as we dive into this story-rich and lovingly rendered RPG/life sim!

2:56 - Guardians of the Galaxy 3!

11:37 - Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom FOMO

16:17 - I was a Teenage Exocolonist discussion

Side Quest

safewithusanimalrescue.org

Safe With Us Animal Rescue is a registered, nonprofit 501(c)(3) animal rescue located in Massachusetts. They are an all-volunteer, shelter-less rescue. Check them out, get involved, and donate at the link above!

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

CONTENT WARNING: Persona 3 Portable contains themes and imagery of death and suicide that are discussed in this episode.

Break out your eyeliner, let your hair down (preferably over one eye), and dust off your PSP (RIP) -- it's time to dive into everyone's favorite emo high school RPG: Persona 3 Portable!!! It's like Pokémon, if the protagonist wandered into Hot Topic and got REALLY into My Chemical Romance. In the best way. P3P is messy, intense, a little cringe, and a little silly -- but its blackened heart is still beating, and it boldly tackles themes of death and absurdity that the series hasn't quite approached in the same way since.

1:05 - Patreon shoutouts - Welcome Ava & Sammi!! <3

10:42 - Jamie saw the Mario movie lol

19:54 - Persona 3 Portable discussion

Side Quest

www.walkout2learn.org

On April 21st, Floridian high school and college students are walking out of class to reclaim their rights! Black, queer, trans, and female-identifying people and their histories are the targets of government censorship, and students are pushing back against the government’s authoritarian takeover of public education. Walkout2Learn is coordinating student walkouts across the state of Florida on April 21st, where students plan to join together, register to vote, and receive 5-minute banned history lessons from one of their peers, who will have been trained by Harvard educators. Learn more, get involved, donate, and spread the word by visiting walkout2learn[dot]org!

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

Let's get into it! This episode contains spoilers for both Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part I and HBO's television adaptation starring Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal. This episode brought to you by Dunkin' oat milk macchiatos and Jamie's slow descent into tsundere romance anime.

0:37 - Patreon shout-outs and check-ins!

6:43 - Reflecting on 10 years as TLOU fans and initial thoughts on the adaptation

21:12 - About that ending...

41:15 - Is TLOU the "greatest story ever told in video games?"

43:23 - On being Joel vs watching Joel

48:31 - Any critiques of the show?

1:01:57 - The David debate

1:13:32 - Is HBO's TLOU the best video game adaptation of all time?

Thanks as always for your support!

Side Quest

MushroomsformyFriends.com

Over the past decade Tyler Akabane has been showing people how to search for and safely identify mushrooms on forest floors, tree trunks and decomposing wood piles. Akabane wants to demystify the magic of mushrooms through workshops, conversations, and culinary exploration. For groceries, education, and exposure to more mushrooms, check out their IG (@mushroomsformyfriends) or visit The Mushroom Shop in Somerville, MA!

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

This week we're covering Scavengers Studio's SEASON: A Letter to the Future, where a bike riding journey to make an apocalyptic scrapbook had us examining the connectedness of all things and turning to the teachings of Octavia Butler, Grace Lee Boggs, and Renata Price's excellent review for Waypoint to wrap our heads around its poignant, heartwrenching message. Join us in the space between storytelling and memory as we explore this incredible game!

0:58 - Patreon shoutouts and intros

11:58 - Scavengers Studio's 2019 controversy and accountability updates

24:25 - SEASON discussion and deep dive (Note: While we don't have a spoiler section this week, mild spoilers are included in the discussion, with the intent of illustrating the worldbuilding, themes, and mechanics of the game.)

1:27:41 - Wrap up and Side Quest

Side Quest

https://esii.org/

The Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute

Emergent strategy is a path that invites us to think about change as a constant state of being and how to align and direct it towards that which affirms and creates more life. ESII is a portal for people who are transforming from the current paradigm of racial capitalist, patriarchal, power-over, scarce and disconnected existence into one that is adaptive, relational, resilient, post-capitalist, feminist, BIPOC-centered and full of possibility. We invite people into a liberatory experience, giving people in movement both theoretical offerings to help them learn emergent strategy, and practice ground to help them embody it. The Institute developed out of adrienne maree brown’s obsession with writers, thinkers and organizers Octavia Butler, Grace Lee Boggs, Charity Mahouna Hicks, and Margaret Wheatley.

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

This week we're all about Mojiken Studio and Toge Productions' A Space for the Unbound: a slice-of-life adventure game with beautifully detailed pixel art set in rural Indonesia in the late 1990s - following high school sweethearts Atma and Raya as they grapple with coming of age as their world falls apart and the very fabric of reality is tested. Ah, youth!

CONTENT WARNING: A Space for the Unbound includes depictions of anxiety, depression, and suicide which are discussed during this episode.

0:53 - Patreon shoutouts, eyebrow bleaching, and Ant-Man

6:44 - A Space for the Unbound discussion

46:27 - SPOILERS START HERE! (Discussing specific emotional beats and themes upon completion of the game)

1:07:00 - END SPOILERS - Closing thoughts and reflections

Side Quest

Let’s Adopt! Indonesia Animal Shelter

paypal.me/letsadoptindonesia

Saving animals through education and partnership. TNR as well as adoption services. Check them out on IG and Facebook!

About Pixel Therapy

New episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod