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Pixel a Day

Pixel a Day

@pixeladay.bsky.social

1.5K followers 90 following 170 posts

Youtube video essays critically analysing games and how they make us feel (youtube.com/pixeladay). Articles published in Uppercut, Into the Spine, Kritiqal, Gamers With Glasses. She/her. Support: patreon.com/pixeladay

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Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 11h

It's no wonder Del Toro had his audience chant "fuck AI". This film is such a fuck-you to AI and even the over-reliance on digital effects in film-making. It feels hand-crafted with overwhelming thoughtfulness and love. It's a film with so much heart goddamit.

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 11h

And much of the reason it all hits is because this film is so handmade. Every jaw-dropping set was hand-built. Every detail is meticulous and deliberate. It's almost all practical effects and prosthetics so when Victor saws through a leg or dumps a bag of arms on the ground, you feel it in your gut.

Frankenstein in the lab

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 11h

All the original story's themes are there and more. Del Toro makes exactly the changes needed to accentuate them (including a mercifully expanded role for Elizabeth). And, unlike the book's tragic ending, it ends with forgiveness and hope - a perfect revision for a story about fathers and sons.

the monster and Elizabeth

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 11h

Oscar Isaac is the quintessential Frankenstein - handsome, brooding and crazed. Jacob Elordi as the monster is a marvel. Both are such tragic characters - the disappointed son who became the disappointing father, the innocent creature who learned to hate itself. Del Toro captured them so well.

the monster

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 11h

The sets and costume design are out of this world. In typical Del Toro style it all perfectly straddles the real and the fantastical. Everything feels larger than life, and also grounded at the same time. I couldn't sleep properly last night the images from this movie kept intruding. It's incredible

the characters

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 11h

I'm crying today because I can't believe I got to see one of my favourite directors adapt one of my favourite stories. Frankenstein is everything it needs to be: grotesque, beautiful, unbearably heartbreaking, dramatic but not melodramatic. Del Toro nailed every fucking thing.

monster in the lab

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 2d

My internet chugged when posting this, like it was resisting putting such a crap joke into the world

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 2d

Time for me to finally...Playdes

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 4d

I mean, yes, it's the best thing ever posted

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 4d

Evergreen

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 6d

I loved it you guys.

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 8d

How do I move on? How do I live my life now, with no more vaporwave romances or mascot events in which I help a weeping block of tofu get through a slightly-too-small door? Where's my city of obelisks and goat statues? How do I live without Sam Day Break and Captain Sign in my life?

Captain Sign.

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 8d

But Kaizen have gone so hard on this ridiculous world that, it works? You spend the first few hours going, "what the bloody fuck is this" and then by the end you're cheering on your best friend the giant talking finger as you help her run for mayor. And then it ends and you're like, what now?

Pinky the finger

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 8d

This game is so goddamn absurd I can't even describe it. It's like a crazed Japanese fever dream. A driving game / business management sim / visual novel / card game in which you save a small town and help a bunch of magical freaks operate vending machines and fight swarms of bees

A livestream in which a giant block of tofu is attacked by bees

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 8d

I finished Promise Mascot Agency last night, and @kaizengameworks.com have once again absolutely cooked. What stuns me about their work, from Paradise Killer to PMA, is their ability to create the most bizarre worlds and then completely commit to those worlds with their entire heart and soul.

A screenshot of the characters in the game, fishing.

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 8d

Ghostwire: Tokyo is Haunted by the AAA Design Curse - how adherence to AAA open world tropes prevented Ghostwire: Tokyo from reinterpreting Japanese folklore in any kind of interesting way. bit.ly/pixeladay_gh...

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 17d

Make the XS size available and I'm in!

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 17d

I love him! "Weary gamer" is also a 100% accurate description of me

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 18d

Also can the folks at @kaizengameworks.com confirm or deny whether they were inspired by Mr. Blobby. The similarity (unhinged mascot constantly fucking shit up) seems too great to be a coincidence

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 18d

Literally the same day I published my Ghostwire: Tokyo article complaining about how the game fails to interpret kappa and other yokai in any kind of interesting modern way, Promise Mascot Agency came into my life @kaizengameworks.com

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 18d

Have you read my new article on Ghostwire: Tokyo? You should! It is good and contains several ball-related jokes bit.ly/pixeladay_gh...

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 19d

Thank you so much, that's really wonderful to hear 😊😊😊

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 19d

Mostly though, at least when it comes to studios I love going AAA in recent years, this is the way it's gone. They instantly start putting out much worse games. I know for a fact it's not for lack of talent.

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 19d

I'm sure there are exceptions. Remedy seems to be managing it well

Pixel a Day @pixeladay.bsky.social · 20d

Between Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, Hellblade 2, Still Wakes the Deep and now this, I'm starting to think indie / AA dev studios shouldn't branch out into making AAA games

Keza MacDonald @mackeza.bsky.social · 20d

It is unfortunate for Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 that I binged AMC's Interview with the Vampire series before playing it. One of these is a masterful, frightening, sexually charged and deftly comic reimagining of vamp mythology. The other is *okay*.

www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 review – an interestingly toothless piece of noir fiction

Arriving more than two decades after the original, this sequel was mired in development disaster – resulting in an interesting almost-failure

www.theguardian.com