I’m reading a book right now about how a lot of the discoveries and inventions in math and science that are traditionally attributed to the ancient Greeks might very well have actually come from other parts of the world. It’s thought-provoking stuff, and the book’s called Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi, if you’re curious. But I’m on a section about Mesopotamia right now which brought to mind today’s word.
ziggurat, noun – a stepped pyramid
Learned from: Quake (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, XBox One, XBox Series X/S)
Developed by id Software (Nightdive Studios for the PS4/5, Switch, and XBox One/ Series X/S)
Published by GT Interactive (1996, 2021 for modern consoles)
Quake was a game I took awhile to get any good at, namely because it was the first first-person shooter that let you look up and down. Doom and its clones never gave you that option, and at the time, I went through at least two different control schemes before landing on the now-standard keyboard & mouse. It was new territory, and I’d always played other FPSes with just a keyboard–were you supposed to bind a couple keys to look up and down? Or was there a way to somehow translate all the inputs to a joystick? (It worked for Descent.) It seems laughable to say it now, but using a mouse for looking around didn’t even seem intuitive at the time. And I barely had access to the Internet back then, so I couldn’t just Google (or Lycos, or Altavista) “how the hell do you aim in Quake?”.
As such, my early forays into Quake were…frustrating, to say the least. If you’re a PC gamer, and you think aiming on a controller is bad, imagine trying to do a rocket jump by hitting K to look down while in the air, then smacking Ctrl and the space bar at just the right time, to get it to work, and then adjusting your aim back up with I, and trying to see where you’d land. Now, imagine trying to do anything with that kind of control scheme in a secret level with about 1/4 gravity.
That was the Ziggurat Vertigo, a hidden level built around, you guessed it, a pyramid. Even a regular jump would send you soaring a good distance up the central structure, and having any idea where you’d come down using just a keyboard to look was damn near impossible. And when most of the area that isn’t pyramid is submerged in lava, well…you can guess how that went. I loved the idea of a level that messed with something as basic as gravity (Again, these were the early days of FPS games. I remember finding a fan patch later on that actually made water transparent, and it blew my mind!), but man was it an infuriating experience until I discovered the magic of mouse-aiming.
Okay, I swear this thing was taller when I played this as a teenager; a jump may have actually carried you all the way over the top. Also, the damn thing isn’t even stepped! False advertising!
We’re currently undergoing a remodel where I work, and it’s…not really going as planned. They just got all of the offices usable again, a week and a half behind schedule, the new desks they put in take up like 75% of the floor space, and one–and only one–of the offices has carpet that looks like dirty, bare concrete. It’s not mine, but I really have to wonder if the CEO just doesn’t like that particular person or something. But beyond being behind schedule, this whole project is seeming like a worse and worse idea as time goes on: We’re losing workspace on the teller line (I work in a financial institution) that we really kinda need during shift changes. No one seems to know where we’re putting the printers, since we’re losing counter space. Actually, no one seems to know what the final product is going to look like–but somehow we’re putting in a waiting area for our members…that’s going to be in the same general vicinity as the entrance to the vault. Is there going to be any sort of wall or dividing barrier between the general public and the vault door (not to mention our bathroom)?
It’s almost like nobody stopped to think this through. But hindsight is 20/20 as they say. Which brings us to today’s word.
vigesimal, adj. – base-20, as in a numeric system
Learned from: Subject 13 (Playstation 4, Mac, PC, XBox One)
Developed by Microids
Published by Microids (2015)
Subject 13 is an adventure game that came out during a time when that particular genre seemed to largely be dead, or at least forgotten. Thankfully, the genre is experiencing something of a renaissance these days, but there was a span of a good 20 years when any adventure game that actually got released was worth checking out, just for the novelty of it.
At a glance, Subject 13 paints a decent picture of itself: attractive, pre-rendered environments; a mysterious sci-fi setting; varied and creative puzzles. Seeing it in motion is…less impressive, as the animations leave something to be desired. Hearing it also doesn’t do it any favors; the sound effects feel almost public domain, and the voice acting is flat-out bad (though, I understand the developer is French, so English dubbing might’ve been lower on their budget list than the rest of it. Not every small French game studio can have the production values of the folks at Sandfall). But again, pickings were slim in those days, so any port in a storm. Speaking of…
The real issues I had with the game though, are with the console port. I played this on PS4, and in converting it for that console (and presumably the XBone), Microids made some of the most baffling decisions I’ve ever seen. Some of it’s understandable: There’s no mouse interface (and nobody programmed for that touchpad thing on the PS4 controllers). So rather than just clicking where you want your character to go, you have to stumble around the not-as-big-as-they-look pre-rendered backdrops like a drunken orangutan, trying to get your guy to go up a flight of stairs or whatever. That’s…acceptable. The baffling part is pretty much everything else.
See, a lot of the puzzles require you to manipulate objects in ways that, again, would’ve been intuitive with a mouse. But for the console release, virtually everything requires you to hold down a trigger, and then rotate a thumbstick, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. Turning a dial? Rotate the thumbstick. Sliding a panel? Rotate the thumbstick. Trying to enter a number into a device? Rotate the damn thumbstick! And it’s even worse, because the sensitivity on this interface is all over the damn map. You could be trying to move some device one notch to the left, but have to rotate the thumbstick in the opposite direction you’d expect, only to have it whip past half a dozen notches before you can stop. It is legitimately one of the worst control schemes I’ve ever come across, and when you combine it with the awful navigation to get your guy from point A to point B, it made some of the otherwise inventive puzzles almost unplayable.
I realize I haven’t talked about the story yet, and while it’s also a bit of a mess, I should at least do broad strokes. You play as Franklin Fargo, a professor who’s tried to end his own life by driving his car off a bridge, for reasons that become clearer as the game goes on. But your plan is foiled when you find yourself waking up in a futuristic pod, with no idea of where you are, how you got there, or if you can trust the disembodied voice that starts talking to you. But the voice eventually leads you, GLADoS-style, through an abandoned research facility and into a bizarre plot involving the nature of consciousness, multiverse theory, and Mayan prophecies (heavily leaning into puzzles based on their vigesimal number system). It’s…weird. Nowhere near as unhinged as, say, Indigo Prophecy, but it really does try to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And in an adventure this short, that’s a pretty tall order.
All in all, Subject 13 isn’t a bad game, per se, but it’s certainly rough around the edges–even without the limitations of the console versions. If you’re curious, I can only in good conscience tell you to pick it up on Steam, and avoid the awful PS4/XBox ports.
Speaking of awful, just look at this, and tell me you see anything but the concrete floor of a steel mill that’s been abandoned for years. The other carpeting jobs are nowhere near this bad.
It’s been a weird week when it comes to entertainment. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert got cancelled for “financial reasons,” which is a weird way of spelling “fear of retribution from a petty tyrant.” But then, mere days later, the same company renewed South Park for several seasons, and the first thing the creators did was spend an entire episode mercilessly mocking the toddler-king. It’s good to see Trey Parker and Matt Stone haven’t lost their edge, but it did make me nostalgic for simpler times when the show could just be silly jokes about anal probes and World of Warcraft; or even further back, to when I didn’t even know what fascism was. Which brings us to today’s word.
nazi, noun – a member of Germany’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party
Learned from: Into the Eagle’s Nest (Apple II, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, PC, ZX Spectrum)
Developed by Pandora
Published by Pandora, Mindscape, Atari Corporation (1987)
A note to kick things off: I know that the word is supposed to be capitalized, but I’m taking a page from the excellent tabletop RPG about vampires sent to kill Hitler, Eat the Reich, and refusing to give it that dignity.
With that out of the way, I was probably too young to really appreciate Into the Eagle’s Nest, when 7- or 8-year-old me plucked it off the shelf. I’d heard of WWII, at some point I’m sure, but that had been like, 40 years ago by that point, practically ancient history. Certainly something that was over and done with, and that couldn’t possibly end up being relevant in contemporary society. No, instead I saw screenshots on the back of the box that looked kinda like Gauntlet–but the guy on the front had a gun! And he was about to storm a castle, of all things! I didn’t really know what nazis were, but from the art, I went in expecting a weird fantasy/modern mashup, where a lone soldier had to save his squadmates from a Medieval castle crawling with enemy soldiers, sure–but also maybe monsters? It was a castle, after all.
Needless to say, young me was disappointed when, instead of the action-packed combat of Gauntlet, I instead found myself with my first introduction to the stealth genre. This was a slower, more methodical rescue mission that I…really didn’t know what to make of at the time. It didn’t help that the graphics on the Apple II left a lot of ambiguity as to just what it was you were looking at sometimes. Sure, long tables and crates of guns are pretty straightforward, but what about the featureless squares? Looking back after all these years, they might’ve been sandbags, but who knows. Or the green circles? Barrels, maybe? But while I seem to remember you could break them, I don’t think they exploded in classic video game fashion, so, who can say?
Suffice it to say, the presentation, and the gameplay style combined to make a frustrating and underwhelming experience that I never really went back to after I was old enough to possibly appreciate it. These days, I don’t even think it’s available on GoG, so it would be hard to revisit, even if I wanted to. And honestly? I think there’s enough wannabe-nazi bullshit going on in real life to make the prospect seem depressingly relevant.
I mean, look at this cover–dude looks like he’s about to kick down a drawbridge and shoot Dracula in the face or something!
You might be expecting me to be talking about a horror game today, with a title like that, but nope. Bit of a story behind what brought this word to mind:
So, my wife and I went to see the fireworks downtown last week. Our city is situated on a lake, so we went down to the lower harbor and found a spot to sit right by the water while we waited for it to get dark. At one point, I took them off to rub my eyes or something, and they just slipped out of my fingers, skidded across the concrete embankment, and disappeared 20+ feet underwater. I’ve been using a pair of cheaters since then (though a holiday weekend and several hundred dollars later, I do have a new pair of actual glasses ordered), but walking around with them on feels like I’m inside a fishbowl. That means, when I’m at home or work and I need to move around, I’ve relied a lot on remembering where stuff is. And in a roundabout way, that brings us to today’s word.
homing, adj. – finding one’s way to a target or location through memory or technology
Learned from: Raiden (arcade, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbographx-16, PC, Atari Lynx, mobile)
Developed by Seibu Kaihatsu
Published by Tecmo (1990)
Raiden, to me, is the quintessential vertical-scrolling shmup. Other games are flashier, or have deeper mechanics, or fill the screen with more bullets, but there’s something about Raiden that keeps me coming back even after all these years. The sprite work is solid, the levels all look distinct, and there’s just something to the overall gameplay that simply feels right.
I don’t even remember if there’s much of a story, but sometimes all you need is to hop into the cockpit of a red or blue jet, decide if you want lasers or a spread of bullets, dumb-fire missiles or homing ones, and mow down wave after wave of enemy tanks and planes. Raiden is an emblematic arcade experience: difficult but fun, simple but addictive; it’s one of my favorite arcade games of all time, and one of these days I’ll beat it on a single quarter.
I don’t even need my glasses to see this is a Crystal Castles arcade cabinet with the Raiden logo slapped on the side. Bizarre.
2025 has been an absolutely incredible year for games so far, which makes for a nice high point to distract us from, well…everything else. But the year’s only half-over, and we’ve already had Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (my presumptive GOTY, unless something else really floors me), Look Outside (a fantastic pixel art cosmic horror game), Blue Prince (an architectural roguelike, of all things), and the very underrated The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (a visual novel/strategy RPG from some of the creators of Danganronpa and Zero Escape). That last one brings us to today’s word.
buskin, noun – a knee-length boot
Learned from: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (Nintendo Switch, PC)
Developed by Too Kyo Games, Media.Vision
Published by Aniplex, Xseed Games (2025)
When you go into a game with this kind of pedigree, you know you’re in for something a bit weird. Danganronpa is built around high school students getting kidnapped by a three-foot-tall, psychotic bear mascot and being forced to kill one another without being caught. The Zero Escape games are essentially escape rooms set in exotic locations, and filled with math puzzles and eccentric characters who might not be who they claim to be. Hundred Line tasks a group of unwilling highschoolers with defending a school surrounded by eternal flames, from alien(?) invaders for 100 days, because something hidden inside could doom humanity. But despite how bonkers these concepts are, the narratives they weave usually end up being surprisingly engaging.
Hundred Line has the same pedigree of quirky characters as the earlier games I mentioned, from a mascot character who doesn’t seem quite as evil as Monokuma from the Danganronpa games; to an orphan who hates the world and doesn’t care if it burns; to a thug with a heart of gold; to…someone whose initial impression can only be summed up as “Japanese Harley Quinn.”
Darumi is a clearly depressed, possibly psychotic ball of chaos, who goes into this situation fully expecting it to be a game of death (hello, fourth wall), and disappointed when she’s not expected to kill her fellow students. She has a penchant for ultra-gory horror movies, flings herself into combat with wonton abandon, and claims to not be very smart, while periodically peppering her dialog with (sometimes jumbled) philosophical references, and ten-dollar words like “phonemic” and “buskin.” At least I think it was Darumi who made some reference to a “sock and a buskin,” which it turns out are actually also terms for the classic Comedy and Tragedy masks from ancient Greek theater, since the tragic characters would wear longer boots, while comedic characters would parade around in thin tights referred to as “socks.” For a game about cartoonish space aliens, and teens with superpowers, that’s a pretty deep cut, and part of what I love about the writing from these creators.
I might be wrong in attributing that reference to Darumi, but it seems like something that would come out of her mouth.
I really wish I’d learned the word “haboob” (a dust storm) from a game, because it would be perfect, considering there’s one sweeping across Florida right now. Also, I guess I am perpetually 12 years old. But speaking of 12-year-olds, Elon Musk attested today to the worst-kept secret in the world, by saying Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. And in a roundabout way, that does bring us to today’s word.
seraglio, noun – a harem
Learned from: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS)
Developed by Intelligent Systems
Published by Nintendo (2017)
I don’t think I need to elaborate more on the connection between this word and the Epstein files. But even in the context of the game, it seems damningly relevant.
The story takes place on the continent of Valentia, where the warlike nation of Rigel, and the peace-loving nation of Zofia find themselves at the disastrous end of a long truce. The fantasy hippies of Zofia have gotten so decadent that one villager opines that the king is “more likely to frolic in a seraglio than actually rule” (which, again, seems oddly apropos), while the warmongers of Rigel…well, they didn’t need much more reason to make their move. War is brewing, and your group of backwater youths gets caught up in the middle of it.
Echoes is one of the odd Fire Emblem entries that foregoes the “weapon wheel,” where swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords, making it feel a bit less like a part of the overall series than most installments. Further differentiating it from the classic Fire Emblem style, are dungeons that you can actually run around in, in real-time, finding secrets and trying to get the drop on enemies before launching into the more standard tactical battles. It’s a unique game in the series, but its differences often work to its advantage, letting it stand out from the crowd.
Oh yeah, and I guess some sort of new console from Nintendo came out today, too, or something. So, there’s that.
And it probably will. Speaking mainly to my US readers here, but I mean…*gestures broadly*. In a month, they’ll probably have banned schools, and sent children back to the mines, with breaks only for a few hours of sleep, and witch burnings where attendance is mandatory. I mean, what, do we expect kids older than seven to eat for free? What kind of traitorous, commie BS is that?
You might say that this country is broken. And that rather than fixing anything, the people in charge are just stomping on the pieces until they’re small enough that nobody will complain. Which brings us to today’s word.
banjanxed, adj. – ruined, broken
Learned from: Small Saga (PC)
Developed by Darya Noghani
Published by Darya Noghani (2023)
Small Saga falls into that timeless subgenre of fantasy that crops up every now and then, centered on tiny creatures that live among humans, and their hidden, unnoticed civilizations behind our walls and below our feet. The earliest example I’m familiar with is The Borrowers, published back in 1952, which is probably because Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty (2010), is a direct adaptation of it. But there’ve been plenty of others in between, from The Littles, to The Indian in the Cupboard, to The Secret of NIMH, and possibly Redwall (I never read that series, so I don’t know if there are humans in it). The point is, there’s something endearing about the thought that tiny animals (or people) are living complex lives all around us, just beyond our notice.
Small Saga takes that premise, and gives it a bit of a darker twist. Humans are seen as literal gods; their tools are seen as holy (or at least incredibly powerful) relics; their pets are guardian beasts out of legend. And they are not kind to rodents. You play as Verm, a young, aspiring mouse knight, whose foray into the gods’ food vault goes horribly wrong. The real story picks up when you’ve gotten older, more jaded, and filled with an enduring desire for revenge against the Yellow God (an exterminator in a hazmat suit), who ruined everything.
Along the way, your quest for vengeance will see you joined by various other rodents (and rodent-adjacent animals), from a squirrel with a flute made from a hollowed-out pencil, to a mole wizard who secretly collects human relics (including a not-Gameboy with a banjanxed screen). They make for quite a colorful cast in a JRPG-style adventure that truly has a lot of heart. And it’s even more impressive, considering I think this game was made by just one person. It’s nowhere near as astounding a feat as Expedition 33, but if that smash hit has got you curious about other worthwhile indie RPGs, Small Saga is definitely worth a try.
It’s always a little surreal for me, when a piece of news takes the world by storm, and I personally end up finding it hard to care less. Nothing against those who do, but when all everyone’s talking about is some British monarch getting married, or some celebrity having a baby, and I’m sitting here with my life not having changed one bit, it’s just…weird. It’s the same thing with the new pope. But since it’s functionally the only piece of news for the day, I figure I may as well use it as a lead in for another word.
zealot, noun – a religious fanatic
Learned from: Diablo II (PC, Mac)
Developed by Blizzard North
Published by Blizzard Entertainment (2000)
Okay, okay, put down the pitchforks and stop building the pyre, because–plot twist–this word is not in any way a direct commentary on the new or previous pope. Francis seemed like a genuinely kind, compassionate person from what little I read about him in the news, and while Leo, the new guy, might get less glowing reviews from the LGBTQ community, he doesn’t sound too bad overall. If nothing else, any prominent figure who pushes back against the policies of the current US government has to have something good going for them. Because honestly, the red hats seem to embody zealotry far more than Pope Leo–his followers might actually hold him to certain standards of conduct.
But enough about real-world cultists; let’s talk Diablo II. Act 3 of the game takes you to a sprawling jungle, filled with ruined temples, sodden caves, and enough dead-ends and switchbacks to make it my least-favorite section simply due to all the backtracking. But amidst all the tribes of poison dart-spitting pygmies and swarms of giant spiders, you’d find bands of crazed followers of…I think he was a fallen paladin, or something? It’s been a pretty long time, but I remember having to cut my way through swathes of zealots at various points, to press forward. That, and the fact that they were about the only things in the entire bloody jungle that weren’t poisonous in some way, shape, or form.
The fact that I have so few solid memories of Act 3 is a testament to how little impact it left on me, despite being one of the bigger parts of the game. But even the bad parts of Diablo II can still be pretty fun…sometimes.
Dimly lit, full of dead-end paths, broken up by rivers that make progress take even longer…I can’t defend this. I’m not in a cult.
As I write this, it’s May 2nd, 2025. If you’re in the United States, that means it’s 5/2/25: a number that looks the same if you flip it upside down, at least in certain typefaces, and so long as you ignore the slashes and the first two digits of the year. If you’re in other, saner parts of the world that list the date in a more sensible day/month/year order, then this happened back in February. Sorry, we Americans do a lot of things in the stupidest way possible. Anyway, this brings us to today’s word.
strobogrammatic, adj. – something, as a number, that appears the same upside down as it does right-side up
Learned from: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch)
Developed by Simogo
Published by Annapurna Interactive (2024)
I’d always thought that numbers that looked the same upside down were neat–I mean, who didn’t spell out “BOOBIES” on a calculator at some point as a kid? Though in that case, it’s not a true strobogrammatic number, since the result isn’t identical to how it looks right-side up. Or like when we got a verification key fob for one of the stations at work, and I inadvertently read it upside down and got us locked out of the system.
Anyway, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes pulls a lot from real-life escape rooms, being full of number and word puzzles, some of which are strobogrammatic. The game, itself, is…weird. It’s like if you threw Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone, Clue, and an international film festival into a blender, and topped it with a dash of The King in Yellow. It casts you as an artist(?) called to a remote mansion at the behest of an eccentric filmmaker, who wants to use your talents to create a truly transcendental work of art that may unmake reality itself…maybe.
Or maybe not. It’s a very surreal game that’s open to interpretation nearly every step of the way. I don’t want to say much else, because it’s very much worth playing. It’s a very unique, memorable narrative that stands out among…pretty much anything else out there.
It works with words sometimes, too! Turn this upside down, and it spells “abpa.”
If you’ve been on the Internet at all this week, I think it’s statistically impossible that you haven’t heard about the Oblivion remaster. I have mixed feelings on it, but the original did teach me some words, so let’s get that out of the way first.
alembic, noun – an obsolete device used in distillation
Learned from: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)
Developed by Bethesda Game Studios
Published by Bethesda Softworks (2006, 2025 for the remaster)
Alchemy can be a big part of Elder Scrolls games if you want it to be. You can start with stuffing random toadstools in your mouth, and end up with an entire collection of beakers and tubes to distill more potent tinctures.
There, I’ve got the word out of the way. Now I want to talk about this remaster, starting with the good: It’s more or less an entire remake from the ground up, and it looks fantastic…and it costs $50. In an age where Nintendo is selling remakes of 8 year old games for $80+, this game that’s old enough to vote looks better than the shinier versions of Zelda, undoubtedly took more work, and is selling for at least thirty bucks less. That’s admirable, and I think more people should be talking about it, because it’s selling like hotcakes and it blows Nintendo’s bullshit pricing out of the water.
Unfortunately…it’s selling like hotcakes. Look, the industry is positively drowning in remakes of games we’ve already played. And the hotcakes sales of Oblivion Remastered is only adding weight to that trend. Plus, there are other games coming out–including some very, very good ones this very week–from indie developers who could really use the sales.
Want another RPG? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been incredible, just in the few hours I’ve gotten to play of it. Gorgeous world. Likeable and well-written characters. Engaging combat. Surprising emotional notes. Also $50.
Is horror more your jam? Post Trauma looks to be a decent stab at the Silent Hill formula, and came out the same damn day as Oblivion Remastered. I’ve seen no one talking about it–and yes it’s a different genre, but that doesn’t stop all the attention on the Internet from being on Oblivion. Oh, and it’s only $15, and I’m sure the developers would love to make another sale or two.
Hell, one of the creators behind Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a mix of visual novel and turn-based tactical RPG from the minds behind Danganronpa and Zero Escape, has reportedly sunk his life savings into this project. And here comes Oblivion Remastered to possibly drive him into poverty. This is the most expensive, at $60, but also potentially the most distinctive of the three I mentioned.
Look, I’m glad people are enjoying revisiting a game they grew up with, or discovering it for the first time, and I’d never tell them to stop having fun. But I really feel like I need to highlight that other games do exist, that actually have original concepts and fresh ideas. Just…look around at what else is out there? Please? Bethesda doesn’t need your money as much as some of these smaller developers.
Brain Rot 