Krish Raghav

@krishraghav.bsky.social

688 Followers 528 Following

Bullshit comic book artist. Chaoyang Trap stagehand // krishcat.com Co-organizing [Untitled Games Event], a monthly space for experimental games in Amsterdam // untitledgamesevent.nl

The German countryside from the back window of a train
An S-Bahn Berlin train in red and yellow
Pulling out of Hannover station, last stop before Berlin.
A new red DB locomotive is coupled with a train.
A blue train charter locomotive drives off
Crossing the IJssel river into Deventer.
An Alstom 1700 locomotive, painted blue and white with the text "Train Charter"
A train pulls away from Amsterdam Centraal, with the skyline visible behind. It's an overcast day with ominous black clouds. The video is shot from a train window
The GoVolta train to Berlin on the NS app - it shows just a yellow-blue NS locomotive with no carriages.
A video of a train on platform at Amsterdam Centraal station, under an impressive steel-grid dome roof. The train is blue-white and says "GoVolta Economy". The destination is Berlin.
The logo for the game "Don't Get Your Hopes Up" sits above the logo for the "New Media Writing Prize"
A mosaic of screenshots, from card game LINKS and How a Body Sounds, to Benches and Plum Road Tea Dream
A group of 30ish people, some standing others sitting on low benches, listen to a panel of speakers seated on a couch in the corner.
A poster for [Untitled Games Event] on Sunday the 18th, in Amsterdam! Sunday 18 Jan 2026 5-7PM Tussen de Bogen 46 1013JB Amsterdam (canal side through the gate)
A phone showing the Substack dashboard, with 888 subscribers
A poster for the game "Don't Get Your Hopes Up", showing the game's logo and main character - an Amsterdam grey heron.
Krish's favourite music of 2025: BITOI - Sirkulu Snakeskin - We Live in Sand Ida-Urd - Duvet Tiberius b - Neverything TAMTAM - Where they Dwell glinted01 Simon Frank - Victim of a New Age Ogre You Asshole - Nature and Computers Ganser - Animal Hospital Sara Udon - II = II Smote - Songs from the Free House Nusantara Beat
Krish's favourite books of 2025: Dominic Pettman and Eugene Thacker - Sad Planets Helen Phillips - Hum Jean-Baptiste Fressoz - More and More and More qntm - There is not Antimemetics Division Sofia Samatar - The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain Rebecca K. Reilly - Greta and Valdin Em Reed - More Bugs Paz Pardo - Shamshine Blind Adam Shatz - The Rebel's Clinic Kyla Wazana Tompkins - Deviant Matter
Krish's favourite films of 2025: On Falling No Magic for Socialists Un Gran Casino Fiume o Morte! Do You Love Me Endless Cookie Removal of the Eye On Becoming a Guinea Fowl The Messiah Letters from Wolf Street KOREAM DREAM: The Nama-Jinheung Mixtape Boys go to Jupiter
Krish's Favourite Games of 2025: Blippo+ Phoenix Springs Wednesdays Many Nights a Whisper Mind Diver Onto Maizilind Unto Infinity Strange Jigsaws Plum Road Tea Dream Hypogea Slot Waste Ooo To a T
A short video of a fish with a bulbous nose, looking sketchy, swimming around the Two Oceans aquarium in Cape Town
A man on a red buggy watches a DC-3 plane coming in to land on a forest clearing acting as improvised runway. The setting: the Colombian Amazon
A promotional banner revealing that the game Don't Get Your Hopes Up is an official nominee for the 2025 Indie Game Awards
A beautiful, colourful laurel says "Official Selection, Playtopia 2025" for the game Don't Get Your Hopes Up
A screenshot from Anthology of the Killer episode 5. Two horror nurses are reading a zine and commenting that it is. "Truly heinous document" on account of mentions of "Cannibal Blood Feast" and "More Knife Murders". The protagonist BB replies, distraught: "Those are BANDS!!! It's called a scene report!!"
A screenshot from the game Don't Get Your Hopes Up shows the protagonists texting each other about a cursed apartment
A screenshot showing sources of traffic to the game Don't Get Your Hopes Up on itch.io. the sources indicate incoming hits from Microsoft Teams and Slack apps.
A t-shirt from Amsterdam with a cartoon drawing of a Eurasian Coot, with the text "meerkoet minder politie", a play on words that roughly translates to "more coots, less police"
Text from an article about the game "Don't Get Your Hopes Up". It reads: "I think I've probably already written about my thoughts on subtlety when trying to explore an issue before (e.g I don't think it's necessary. Sometimes you want three power chords and a chanted chorus). This said, characters being this definitionally villainous in a "You'll never achieve your perfectly reasonable dreams, wayward heroes!" way does make me wonder where the line is. I bring this up because I think it's fair to describe at least one of the parallel journeys I took with the game as me challenging it to overcome a certain automatic weariness I have for projects that are very distinctly "about" something in a polemic sense. It doesn't take much though, honestly. Be righteous - just be charming about it. Luckily, this thing is charming as hell."
A poster for the game "Don't Get Your Hopes Up", with a laurel showcasing its selection for the 2025 Game Devs of Color Expo
A poster for the videogame "Don't Get Your Hopes Up", revealing a release date of September 16, 2025. The game will be free to play on Steam and itch.
A poster for a playtest for an upcoming game about the Amsterdam housing crisis called Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Saturday 16 Aug, 7pm onwards at Electric Shadows Amsterdam: Lauriergracht 116 D2. There will be a game making workshop (covering Bitsy, Downpour, and Ink) and drinks/snacks.
A poster for a "bookclub turned lifestyle discussion" event at Post Office Amsterdam, on Thu 17 July 7:30pm. The videogame Don't Get Your Hopes Up will be demo-ed, alongside a discussion of the novels Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, and Things by Georges Perec.
A paragraph from Robert Macfarlane's "Is a River Alive?". It reads: "We walk Kotturpuram together. Seen through Yuvan, Sridevi and Mithul’s eyes, I begin to realize, this little slice of woodland, sandwiched between a roaring road and a dying river, bustles with life. A Burmese lynx spider waits in its hunting pose: a lethal assassin, legs bristled as blackthorn boughs. A leaf-cutter bee snips an intricate doily out of a banana frond. A lacewing nymph has created a collaged carapace out of the bodies of beheaded ants and snippets of snail shells, before gluing its folk-horror assemblage to the bark of a tree and retiring inside it to consider its options."
A batch of cardamom buns with korarima or Ethiopian cardamom. One has been eaten :)
The artist Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan playing on stage at the music festival Roadburn 2025
Detail from Juan Gris' "The Guitar on the Table", 1913
A man in an orange vest, bored, controls the crane on a garbage truck as it lifts a trashcan impossibly high, revealing a giant understructure below.
A Screenshot from the game "Don't Get Your Hopes Up", by Krish Raghav. Text on screen reads, "Disclaimer: the following is a work of fiction. Amsterdam does not exist."
Don't Get Your Hopes Up is a good game because not only is it good commentary on the (many, worldwide) housing crisis (especially how those intersect with racism and the climate crisis), it also understands that yes, I probably would rent a flat that contained an exact replica of itself in dollhouse form, complete with a little doll me, and inside that replica another replica of another flat, another future, spiralling in on itself forever. Housing market's in shambles isn't it
A teaser trailer for Don't Get Your Hopes Up, a videogame by Krish Raghav with music by Simon Frank. The trailer, which features uptempo grimey bass-heavy post-punk music, shows various comic book illustrations from the game - a road sign warning against speeding, a grey heron, a character falling through the air.
A packet of "vegetarian satay schnitzel" from a Dutch supermarket brand
A comic book page about a man who redistributes shared bikes.
A Screenshot from alienmelon's "Individualism in the Dead-Internet Age" - text on screen reads "When convenience becomes a hook got consolidation, who really benefits?"
Screenshot from the book Hokkaido, by Tim Anderson, which reads, under the title Sapporo Miso Ramen: "Miso ramen is criminally misunderstood. Here in the UK, anyway, a lot of ‘miso ramen’ is just ordinary miso soup with noodles plonked into it. I suppose that is, technically, miso ramen. But it’s miso ramen in the same sense that instant coffee is coffee: an upsetting, watery betrayal."
Two costumed actors with beautiful orange/black termite masks and extravagant termite costumes dance around an actor in a black rubber suit meant to represent a power cable.
A front view of the Casinò di Campione in Northern Italy, Europe's largest casino
A film poster for the documentary No Magic for Socialists
A black and white photo of KOKI, a white cockatoo, entertaining guests visiting Joseph Broz Tito, the former head of Yugoslavia
A screenshot from the 2002 game Boku no Natsuyasumi 2. A 9-year old boy, Boku, stands in front of an elderly doctor at an island clinic, summer sun shining through the window. The doctor says "I have always wanted to ride a rollercoaster."
A ridiculous set of instructions laying out "possible" and "impossible" itineraries to qualify for a South Korean transit visa. The details are not worth your time or energy.
A hand drawn comic about the fictional "department of moderate obscurity" that is committed to authorize everything and popularize nothing.
A screenshot from Nicolas Gourault's Unknown Label, showing an assemblage of coloured overlays labeling parts of a image, such as "building", "human" etc.
Krish's favourite music in 2024: - Neighbours Burning Neighbours - Dummy - Free Energy - Moin - You Never End - Ex-Easter Island head - Norther - Dar Disku - Dar Disku - Saagara - 3 - Shabjdeed and Al-Nather - Rad Saree3 (song of the year) - tamtam - Ramble in the Rainbow - SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - YOU'LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING - Prince of Persia Lost Crown OST - Chuck Johnson - Sun Glories
Krish's favourite films of the year 2024: - Melody Electronics - I Saw the TV Glow - Bye Bye Tiberias - TRAINS - The Night Visitors - Everything You Have is Yours - Guras - Make it Look Real - Ghost Cat ANZU - All the Long Nights - Every Little Thing - The Substance
Krish's books of the year: - Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad - Jellyfish Have no Ears by Adele Rosenfeld - The Minotaur at Calle Lanza by Zito Madu - Veg-Table by Nik Sharma - Orbital by Samantha Harvey - Holly Gramazio's The Husbands - Ducks by Kate Beaton - One Eight Hundred Ghosts - Side Affects by Hil Malatino - Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera - Chin. Ind. Rest. Cookbook (Dutch) - Yan Cong's "I Love Comics, Who Loves Me?"
Krish's favourite games of the year 2024: - Xenosphere - Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - Arranger - Universe for Sale - 1000xRESIST - Nine Sols - Harold Halibut - Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley - Still Wakes the Deep - Wilmot Works it Out - The Invincible - Downpour (the whole platform)
An extract from a Laotian cookbook showing a recipe for "stuffed lemongrass stalks"
A person stirring a pot of milk and wheat starch into a gooey paste