Wallace

@exalclaw.com

1368 Followers 835 Following

Wallace Truesdale: Runs exalclaw.com | Seen at Unwinnable, Stop Caring, Mothership, etc. | Weak against soft cookies | he/him 📬: exalclaw@proton.me

Syed Salahuddin (Co-Founder of Babycastles): I believe Hey Baby and Shawn Alexander’s game [Treachery in Beatdown City] were two we’ve shown before at Babycastles. We wanted to have at least five games I believe, so we probably picked a couple as well. Kunal: Hey Baby was a game set in a fictional New York where women could freely roam the streets without consequence. Syed: That game was actually curated [for an older Babycastles show] by Leigh Alexander, who has gone on to do a bunch of stuff within media and video game design. Treachery in Beatdown City was [a New York City-themed fighting game] made by Shawn Alexander, who went on to become a pretty prolific independent game designer.
Workers shared what practices they’d like to see standardized across the industry, from AAA studios to smaller indie projects, to better accommodate the needs of caretakers. Multiple people brought up better parental leave policies as they lamented having to return to work after only a short time at home with their newborns. Others discussed having more healthcare options that cover a broader range of dependents. A couple workers also called for a reexamination of work structures, with an emphasis on switching from systems organized around mandated work hours to deliverable-based systems. Other ideas for standardized practices across conversations included better project planning, paid overtime, relocation packages, four-day work weeks, and unionization.
However, my favorite part of the Video Game House series is how well it captures the feeling of discussing video games online and within smaller communities. This is something that adaptations of video games often fail to do. These million-dollar projects visualize the worlds and problems their characters face, but rarely the off-screen reality that is just as much as a factor in video games. For better and worse, the communities that form around these interactive experiences are crucial parts of the medium’s existence.
Antar in the Red Fortress next to two masculine statue figures, one covered in blood and the other lightly splattered by blood. In the background are volcano-like structures exploding red.
Antar underwater surrounded by jellyfish that have hands at the end of their tentacles and electric bubbles around their heads. Their hands are skewered.
The black man-white man arms holding meme where one side says “Gamers/Game press at the end of another year of record layoffs,” the other says “Soccer fans/press after watching FIFA corrupt the integrity of their sport yet again,” and in the middle it says in quotes “but the games were good”
Mario has been a million and one things on-screen, but, most honestly, he is one of the world’s most successful entertainment companies’ biggest money makers. He is only rivaled by the likes of Mickey Mouse and Superman. Mario’s games sell millions. His movies earn billions. Even now, as the Nintendo Switch 2 has enjoyed a successful release that’s included hits like Donkey Kong Bananza, Pokopia, and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, many are salivating in anticipation of the next 3-D Mario game. Nintendo knows and revels in this.
Vantage Points Meditations on games, culture, and the worlds that produce both. hold right by myself | gAmeDHD Sam Vu Nguyen learns to look beyond the grindset mentality, in Cairn and in life (Further Reading: Steven Santana on Cairn). Mark Phillips Is My Favorite Mario | Exaclaw Wallace Truesdale profiles an online comedy troupe with its finger on the pulse of Black gaming culture. Repairing Historical Memory in Koyamachou | Gamers with Glasses Dídac Jiménez Torras tends to trinkets, to memories, to lives in a small jam game about a watch repair shop (Further Reading: Franny on Undusted: Letters from the Past)
One of the most sobering scenes in the Video Game House series comes from Crash Bandicoot in Episode 3. As a car packed with Mario, Luigi, Master Chief, and Link talk about Sonic (“He’s about to fall off, no one’s playing his shit anymore,” Mario proclaims), Mario suddenly asks Link to roll the windows up. This is because the plumber just spotted Crash on the street corner, characteristically shirtless but now with a cup in his hand. It's painfully obvious what's happening: Crash is homeless. The other characters theorize that he’s broke due to his remakes failing. As Mario puts it, “Remakes and remasters never hit as hard as the original, Luigi. You know that.”
A pre-owned PS2 copy of Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Botttom. Spongebob is on the cover wearing a military helmet while saluting. A yellow sticker that reads “$12.99 Pre-owned” sits on the top right of the cover.
Black Man sitting in the car with his girl who is pissed that her man, who she thought was applying to jobs, gave himself the superhero name Black Man
At the end of the interview, Ellison says “it would be my delight if this game set a trend and all of the arcade bang bang games that turned kids into pistol packin’ poppas and mommas were subsumed into games like this in which ethical considerations, and using your brains, and unraveling puzzles became the modus operandi. It would be my pleasure if that was it. I don’t think it’ll happen. I think you like being diverted too much.”
thinking the story lost some of its initial horror and shock more as a consequence of Ellison’s unfamiliarity with games. In Issue 225 of Game Informer which featured a piece about the game by Jeff Cork, then-Cyberdream developer David Mullich even mentions how he had to explain certain medium conventions to the author. Independent of that,
A screenshot of the YouTube video “Harlan Ellison “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” interview where text on screen asks “What do you think about the OJ Simpson trial?”
Bluesky message where Wallace says “Def one of those games where if someone ask me to make a best of the year list I’d have to ask “Best Games of 2026 or Best Games I Played In 2026,” cause shit Id sneak it in there”
The title screen for the game Reunion, set to Classic, where a fox and a hedgehog are side-by-side in a forst during the daytime.
Camp Half-Blood in Poptropica. A satyr in front of a cave that has the words "Percy jackson" above the opening says "Come on in and see percy and his friends!" The player character has a crown and a tail. A sign to the right reads 'Welcome Half-Bloods!"
billy woods in Beatdown City Survivors in a character menu. Text says "billy woods: Engimatic. Skill spawns a shadow to fight alongside you for 10 seconds."
The Buzz Chancla, a weapon-type item in Beatdown City Survivors that "spins around, inflicts bleed", is displayed on the screen. Surrounding UI shows a small map with halal carts and police on it in the bottom right, a list of items including a magnet and shoes on middle left, and a list of weapons including the Buzz chancla and a wood plank at the bottom left.
A picture of page 254 of Vol. 1 of Stop!! hibari-kun where Hibari unloads an assault rifle toward the reader. The entire panel is rull of TAT TATs and THMMs and PEWWs sound effects, in english and kanji, around her.
User “@armouros” commenting “you are grate at questioning… you really are a detective” on Exalclaw’s youtube video interviewing game developers making murder mystery games
A logo for Exalclaw’s website. It’s a speech bubble with blue and pink accents, a light orange background inside the speech bubble, and in solid orange text inside reads “Exalclaw!”
A YouTube thumbnail with a red background. Text to the left of the screen reads “Who’s developing whodunit games?” To the right of the text is a monochrome character with a small fro, red glasses, a camera around their neck, and a cigarette in their mouth looking off to the right.
How is a game set at various points in 20th century Japanese history, all of which are prior to Tupac's birth in 1971, the ideal place to try and dig into who he could have been in 2026? If this was a modern day Like A Dragon entry, then maybe, but Stranger Than Heaven's whole jazz-infused shtick is that it's a look back to a country's past and the formation of the Tojo Clan.
A screenshot from Stranger Than Heaven’s webpage on the sega site showing the games eras. It reads: Cities: Five eras, five cities, each modeled after real locations of their respective eras. 1915, Kokura, Fukuoka. 1929, Kure, Hiroshima. 1943, Minami, Osaka. 1951, Atami, Shizuoka. 1965, Shinjuku, Tokyo.
When Game Informer brought that up to Yokoyama, the developer said that the studio sought approval from both likeness rights holder Whalley and Tupac's living family. "Of course, we wanted to have the family involved in every step along the way to make sure this is respectful to his legacy and honors who he was," he continued "But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, 'Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That's what we're trying to [do], not going into his past, but rather his potential future."
A graph trending upwards where the left side of the x-axis reads "11 May" and the right side reads "10 Jun." In the top left, under a label that reads "Members", is the number 50. To the right of the number, in a small green square with an arrow pointing up, is the percentage number 28.
A screenshot of the 2D-pixel black and white game Ratcheteer where a man, wearing winter clothes, travels in a cavern tunnel only lit by his lantern and a small fire spirit. There are three hearts in the top left corner, a spring coil and a lantern icon in the top right, and a depleted light meter in the bottom right.
Volume 1 of Stop!! Hibari-Kun. On the cover, the titular character Hibari is in color on the top half. She is blonder, sipping onna deink, and straddling a guitar while wearing a sleevless summer dress. On the bottom half, she is in black and white with a close-up on her smiling face. In the bottom left corner is the character Kohsaku looking flustered in the direction of Hibari.
i hate things that remind me about death and its ability to be a mercy, or about life and its tendency to be one joke after another. leave it to me to trip into one of faux paradise's few blindspots, leave it to me to nestle underneath such a natural scab. magnet for mistakes that i am, i wish i had a similar talent for summoning the courage to end this misery faster. but I'm not. I'm going to die here worse for it. sorry for the self-loathing, but i'm tired and out of time to heal. let me indulge in the only painkiller i have left here.
An older woman in a blue vest, black shirt, and gray cargo pants, along with a blue conductor hat, is standing inside a cliff wall. She is stuck. The surrounding UI is from the game Paralives in build mode. Icons to the left are a house, a room, furniture including a bed and lamp post, terrain including trees, and a magnifying glass. The bottom left shows a picture of a blue house and another picture of a close-up of the older woman. In the top right are icons, from left to right, including a cursor, a sledgehammer, an eyedropper, a bulldozer, a redo and un-redo arrow, stairs, a cube, a thumbs up and thumbs down, the letter i in a circle, a small sun, a camera, and three dots.
Screenshot of the game Mina the Hollower soundtrack bought on Bandcamp. The album art is the titular character, a mouse in a black coat with a serious look, holding a curled flail as she looks forward.
Emma Wake, wearing a train cconductor cap and a blue sleevlesless vest, stuck inside a cliff in Paralives
Paralives FAQ question that asks How much will Paralives cost? Answer: Paralives will cost $39.99 USD during Early Access. After that, the price will increase. Paralives will never have paid DLCs, only free expansions.
My Para, a spectacled black man with a short top fade and green shirt, playing Among Us on mobile
Strength from Esoteric Ebb, pictured as a muscular torso with six abs with a sword skewered in the middle of its abdomen, saying “Be more.”
A screenshot of Wallace's Ourlands demo island. The bottom left shows a small field of grass with three sheep frolicking and a bench to watch them. Above the field is a three story high piece of land with a flower patch at the top. To the bottom right are two houses (one of them covered by a cloud) surrounded by palm trees and stacked boxes. At the top of the screen, bridged to the bottom by a short strip of sand, is a small square island full of palm trees and sheep. To the bottom left of that island are three tents surrounding a fire. In the middle of the island is a two to three story chunk of land full of trees, sheeps, and flowers. On the lowest level of that land are two benches next to table overlooking a cliff. To the upper-right of those benches is a house.
In a world where one can ask, would I rather see a game called Plantation Simulator on a storefront or just have been a called slur, Steam does the bold thing and makes space for both
With that said, how Denhop’s VN gets its message across goes beyond words. A small choice that goes a long way to capturing the tone is how each scene is constructed. Most of the game takes place in 3D spaces visualized through a diverse range of fixed camera shots. Trees and leaves will sway in a dream-like way, accompanied by music that is reminiscent of stargaze, but characters themselves are often as fixed as the concrete structures they hang around.
These moments consistently reminded me how much a person is the people around them. Each relationship is a world within itself with different timelines and canon events, making a single person feel like a solar system when it’s all charted together. It’s a bittersweet ordeal — in learning how much depth there was to the relationships Maya’s father had with these scholars, she discovers how much she’ll never get to know now that his perspective is unreachable. Every story will forever leave her wanting more. While the game’s actual story progresses in a way that’s somewhat predictable, the conflicts simmering within the House never strays from its central focus on relating grief’s power over our lives.
A screenshot of Motorslice where protagonist P, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with a chainsaw attached to her back, hangs from a yellow bar above a pit that looks bottomless.
A YouTube comment from “shadow357” that says “respect the fact you’ve got an actual website, don’t see that much these days”
Stardew Valley in the More Like This sectioj of Plantation Simulator
A YouTube comment from douglascollyer3042 saying “Really interesting conversation”
Paperback versions of sayaka murata’s life ceremony and Earthlings
SUPERJUMP I was wondering: why was it important for you that this game was accessible via web browser since it was technically already playable through the Flashpoint project? MATT For me, there was a lot that I saw I could improve with the game. For one, if you ever download Flashpoint, the user experience is not good — it’s good for what it is, but the user experience of playing the actual game is bad. That’s irrespective of Flashpoint; that’s not their problem. That’s the Shockwave, right? Because the game launches into a 400-pixel window which on today’s monitors is tiny. The user experience there is really, really bad. So why can’t we scale it to make it the size of the monitor? And I was just thinking about these things.
A black cat scampering near a forested area
A screenshot of Set Yourself on Fire showing the two protagonists, Michelle and Alex, as white outlines sitting next to each other. The background is a big white cloud in a bue sky. Text on screen reads "But in some way you're my reality."
Email Subscriber Goals 50 subscribers - A review of RDCworld’s Video Game House YouTube series 100 subscribers - A review of every SpongeBob SquarePants game developed by Purple Lamp
A screenshot of Set Yourself on Fire where a soldier says “I’m terrified.”
A screenshot of Set Yourself on Fire where Michelle shares a piece of strawberry ice cream with Alex
A screenshot from Titanium Court showing a mirror inside a yellow square frame. The reflection is empty.
A man, in blue and pink colors, looking horrified.
A man in blue and pink holding his face in his hands. He looks horrified at whatever he's seeing.
A man, colored in blue and pink, holding his hands to his face. His expression is fear.
One particularly funny anecdote about showing off the game involves AP Thomson’s mother. She was one of the first people to do a playtest back in 2021 — and it almost ended the game’s development. Thomson went on to elaborate that “the playtest went so poorly that I, for a couple days, was legitimately considering abandoning the project. My mom did not even finish the first tutorial before she was like, can I stop playing now?” While he was
Wallace w/ goatee
A member counting showing the number 30. Next to the number is a 50% signaling growth over last 30 days.
A screenshot of Dosa Divas where the sisters Samara (right) and Amani (left) are eating a meal together on top of their pink mech Goddess.
An excerpt from Exalclaw’s interview with increpare. increpare says: “So one thing, and it was suggested to me before I think anything about Egging On came out, was people had said [brings the wooden egg closer to his camera] if you’re rolling, oh wouldn’t it be nice if I jump from my tip, would I jump higher? People independently were asking this. I was like nah, I don’t want to do that, because for me if you’re an egg, it’s very easy to roll this way [rolls egg horizontally between hands] along the ground. Physically, this [stands egg upright on hand and attempts rolling it vertically] is a very unstable motion. In my game, it also is the case that it’s actually very difficult to just stand on your tip. It’s very unstable, it doesn’t want to stay there, so I was like I don’t wanna go near that.”