The Electronic Wireless Show S3 Episode 5: are relaxing games without goals games? Yeah, why not.

This week The Electronic Wireless Show podcast is a bit shorter because I accidentally stopped recording in the middle of it, and then had to sort of restart. Though movie magic you will never know the difference, except I just told you. Oh no! Anyway, with the Steam Next Fest ongoing, I noticed an uptick in games and demos for games that are just about making a nice diorama, and have no goals or real restrictions. Interesting! I ask my co-hosts why they think this is, if that even makes a game a game, is making your own play less fun if you’re not breaking someone else’s rules, and so on. Plus: we reveal why James was in LA before!

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You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat.

Music is by Jack de Quidt.

Links
For examples of the games we’re talking about, see: Townscaper, Dystopika, Summerhouse, and Monterona!

Another example is WorldBox, which I haven’t played for a while.
James points out that people are always creative in games. See: Minecraft.
The opposite of a game without goals is a game like Wytchwood (I think I said Little Witch In The Woods in the episode, which is also a cute game).
Here is Gregg Wallace’s Saturday.
Argylle wasn’t written by Taylor Swift.

This week we’ve been playing Apeleg’s new season, Clem (a very sweet little puzzle game), escape room game Escape From Mystwood Mansion, and Cobalt Core, a game I do not like but which is part of our Game Club. Nate has been playing Planet Zoo and making huge enclosures of chimps.

Recommendations this week are The Brothers Sun, Garth Marenghi’s Incarcerat, and the board game Successors.