Welcome to the Oldest House 🔻
Watch now on YouTube or listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts!
This Week’s Brew ☕
Happy New Year! We’ll start 2025 with a new job title: Director of the Federal Bureau of Control. Time to figure out what exactly that means! In this episode, not only do we delve into our first impressions as we start Control: we also share some of our most anticipated games of the year and what we got up to over the break!
As an aside — I’ve also been slowly (but surely) working on updating the website with our updated logo, fresh colors, and - hopefully - more easily accessible content. My big goal is to work backward and make sure all the older stuff is updated and archived for anyone who wants to check it out in the future, now that I know my workflow, but we’ll see how fancy I get with everything. 😁
Pour Over
Snag some pour-over coffee and pour over (heheh) these supplementary recs to expand your gameplay experience and understanding!
Watch. Control draws inspiration from a lot of media and the trope of the government or paranormal “research agency”. If you’re looking for movies or shows to watch, check out Men in Black, Twin Peaks, Roswell, and The X-Files for some additional supernatural viewing.
Read. If you love weird horror and the paranormal and you haven’t heard of The SCP Foundation…it is time. It’s essentially a collaborative project and fiction writing format that has grown into a database of documents all exploring the overarching question: What if paranormal phenomena were real? There’s much more to it (this is a major simplification) but if you’re intrigued — or you want to read the SCPs folks have written — check it out. (Shoutout to Hana in Discord for this one!)
Write. Want to go a step further? Why not try out the SCP formula and brainstorm your own phenomena? Their team created a page to guide curious writers who’d like to give it a try.
Reflection Question
As you play this week, take a moment and reflect on this question:
While we control Jesse as a player, our perspective also shares a second character: Polaris. Based on what we know, what do you think Polaris is? What is her goal in sticking with Jesse?
Have a response to the reflection question? Want to share other thoughts on the game? Leave a 60-second voice message and you’ll have the chance to be featured on a future podcast episode!
Next Week’s Brew: We’ll continue savoring and discussing Control! Play from “Old Boys’ Club” until you unlock “The Face of the Enemy”. The discussion episode releases on Feb 14th! Enjoy ~
The Pastry Case 🥐
Most Anticipated Games of 2025
While there are WAY more games we could list, we each identified three titles to highlight!
Jenny
Blue Prince - A shifting house? Political intrigue? Count me in!
Promise Mascot Agency - Manage misfit mascots in this narrative game about a exiled yakuza.
Moth Kubit - Weird RPGs are my jam, and this one about a bug salaryman investigating the mysteries of his workplace has my spidey-senses tingling.
Joel
Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game - For any fan of Lord of the Rings!
Split Fiction - What happens when sci-fi and fantasy meet? What looks to be a unique take on co-op games.
Ghost of Yotai - Fingers crossed it doesn’t have the “map reset” moment of its predecessor!
Play/Watch/Listen/Read
It’s been a minute since we’ve been on a break — and we’ve gone through LOTS of media. This week, we’re gonna keep it brief and just list ‘em out!
Jenny
Games: Infinity Nikki, Balatro, Spirit Swap (playtesting, but we launch on Feb 3rd! YAY!)
Books: Wind and Truth, Attack from Within
TV: Squid Game 2
Joel
Games: Metaphor Re: Fantazio, Neva, Mario Kart Tourney
Books: Wind and Truth; Heavenly Tyrant
Movies: Nosforatu, War of the Rohirim
Upcoming Releases
Games launching this week we think may be worth checking out ~
Unless
***Free Demo Available***
Bellwood Studios / Bellwood Studios
Take a trip back to the nostalgic era of pure platforming games built without gimmicks and minimal story. Race through bite-sized levels solo, or with a co-op helper in pursuit of achieving elusive S-Rank times. (PC)
Hope you all have had a good start to 2025 — I’m VERY excited for Geeks & Grounds this year, and I feel like we’ve got lots of fun discussions, hangouts, and games in store. I look forward to making this little corner of the internet a great place to be, and find more ways for us to enjoy our time together.
Until next time! 💛
