Phil Bothun

@phil.70percentcomplete.com

1082 Followers 473 Following

Co-founder and Editor of 70% Complete, an independent publication exploring power, philosophy, and play through games. www.70percentcomplete.com www.youtube.com/@70percentcomplete

A Chevy press release from 06-25-2015 for the 2016 Cruze that is, confusingly, written almost exclusively in emoji. #ChevyGoesEmoji is written at the bottom.
A top down map or Broadacre City, Frank Lloyd Wright’s utopian city with a key on the left hand side.
Nine video game box art images, from top left to right: Duskpunk, Camille and Laura, As Long As You’re Here, Ambrosia Sky Part One, Hypnos, Out and About, Without a Dawn, Amberspire, The Magnificent Trufflepigs
The episode set for Point to Point. A blue and pink gradient overlays a hooded sweatshirt displaying the Project Helix logo. The text “Point to Point” is shown in the bottom third of the image.
An email message from Ugmonk announcing a new collaboration. The email reads: “A Special Collaboration We just launched a limited edition collaboration with Perplexity, one of the leading Al search engines. It gives you direct answers with sources instead of endless links to sort through. When they first reached out, I was curious. Why would an Al company want to make leather journals and mousepads? Turns out, we had more in common than I expected. The Perplexity team understands something important: the best thinking often happens away from the screen. Their tools help you explore and gather information digitally. Our tools help you process and create on paper. It's not Al versus analog, it's how they work together for better thinking.
Title card for the video game Prey (2017). It shows a person in a red space suit walking like a cool guy towards the camera as scary smoke wisps reach out to them
Sciel standing on a precipice in the key art of Expedition 33
Which is why I’m here today. One of these posts was about what they called the “one-sided writing” in Avowed and it’s been burrowing into my brain for a month now. Not because the poster was wrong, but because by asking the question, they tell on themselves a bit. Like a lot of people—both online and in reviews—I think they ended up fundamentally misunderstanding the game, mistaking it for open-world playground, not a piece of art with a point. Which, in all honestly, is an easy mistake to make. Games rarely present themselves as a piece of protest or timely critique. Often times they _are_, but, especially in these times, flaunting your counter-culture gets you death threats, not laurel wreaths. So, let’s talk about the “one-sided writing” in Avowed, what that means, and the pursuit of “nuanced” narratives in video games.
A screenshot of Google showing an Amazon store page for the Xbox 360 game, Dante’s Inferno with a summary block above saying “100% loved the story”
A Reddit comment saying “I would not say that Avowed is a nuanced portrayal of colonialism.”
The cover art for the 1994 film, Timecop
You can feel all sorts of ways about the Elden Ring movie, but instead of digging into the deep lore or explaining why Boc: Tailor to the Elden Lord is the movie I expect Alex Garland to make, I’d like to pitch you on five games that A24 should tap their directors to make instead of Elden Ring. Senua’s Sacrifice by Robert Eggers
A 3d printer case over a kindle screen
A messy desk with calipers, an open notebook showing rough sketches of an electronic device, and a circuit board
A screenshot showing that the next episode of the 70% Complete podcast is releasing on Thursday May 22, 2025 at 5AM EDT.
The title screen of Dishonored. The title is listed in large text with menu options below: continue, new game, missions, load, options, and quit game.
A person cosplaying as a RuneScape character
The poster art of cinematic masterpiece Timecop starring Jean-Claude van Damme
A screenshot from the Xbox app showing achievement data for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. All 60 achievements have been earned.
A screenshot from an interview from Polygon.com with two members of the Marathon team. The text “in our game, you can’t opt out of the PvP experience” is highlighted
A screenshot of a video game labeled Scripture Solitaire
A YouTube thumbnail for a video titled Avowed: You are what you read
Comic image of Fred Flintstone giving three Neanderthals money. One Neanderthal says “what the?” Fred responds “it’s money.” A second Neanderthal asks “what am I supposed to do you this?” Fred Flintstone responds “I don’t know. But something someone else hated making.”
A screenshot of a News app showing a headline from Fox News: Feral hogs terrorizing Texas town, infuriating locals: “I can’t go out there and start blasting”
A screenshot of a tweet from thomas_violence reading: ok guys it’s that time of the year!!!! You can only keep ONE of these Thanksgiving dishes, choose carefully - creamed eggs, - candied nubbins, - baked chowder, - gurkey