Edmund Toomey, Author at Outermode

DATA MUTATIONS SHOWS US AN ALTERNATE WORLD OF VIDEOGAME DEVELOPMENT

09/04/2018

On March 8th 2018 the White House revealed its weirdly abstract violence-in-videogames supercut to minimal applause. Game enthusiasts and Trump nay-sayers were quick to point out the obvious cherry-picking that...

THERE’S A GAPING HOLE WHERE ABSOLVER’S HISTORY SHOULD BE

Edmund Toomey

20/11/2017

Opinions

Released at the end of August, Absolver is an unusual, finessed take on the beat-em-up. Where stalwarts of the genre like Street Fighter have long relied on the hackneyed memorisation of button combos and anima...

HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER IS AN INTIMATE TAKE ON ILLNESS

Edmund Toomey

30/08/2017

Interviews

Released in early 2016, Hyper Light Drifter is yet another critically acclaimed indie darling that initially passed me by. Funded by a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign and orchestrated by precariously-unw...

PANNING FOR GAMING GOLD WITH THE KLONDIKE COLLECTIVE

Edmund Toomey

07/08/2017

Interviews

The Klondike collective is a group of ten video game creators and multimedia artists based in Northern France. Over the past few years Klondike have released an eclectic mix of autobiographical projects, analog...

WIRE WOOD DAUGHTERS IS A LOVING DECONSTRUCTION OF HOW WE REMEMBER

Edmund Toomey

22/07/2017

Reviews

Wire Wood Daughters leads you on a bewildering wild goose chase through a scattered memory. Marrying 8-bit, two-tone aesthetics with sparse, textural sound design and a disjointed narrative delivered in hushed ...

ISLANDS: NON-PLACES EXPLORES THE MUNDANE UNITS OF URBAN LIFE

Edmund Toomey

16/06/2017

Opinions

A muted exploration of the modern city that detractors might describe as a non-game, Islands: Non-Places has mastered the Windosill-like wonder of surrealist interaction and focused it on another familiar targe...

POTATO APPS AND THE COLLAPSE OF LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM

Edmund Toomey

08/06/2017

Opinions

Welcome to Potato Week, Outermode's celebration of all things spud-ly, inspired by the rather singular Spaceplan. To read more, check out the rest of the Potato Week collection. In honour of Potato Week ...

EXPLORING THE SPUD SCIENCE OF SPACEPLAN

Edmund Toomey

15/05/2017

Opinions

Spaceplan is probably the best idle game currently available for $2.99/£1.99 – and you can’t say fairer than that. With a sales pitch as beguiling as it is bonkers, Spaceplan’s ‘total misunderstanding of Stephe...

IN LITTLE NIGHTMARES THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED IS CONSUMERISM

Edmund Toomey

03/05/2017

Reviews

The puzzle-platforming worlds inhabited by cartoon-headed videogame children are always high-stakes of late. In the kinds of stories popularized by Limbo and Inside, and their many imitators, death is waiting a...

COSMIC STAR HEROINE IS A LOVE LETTER TO THE 16-BIT RPGS OF YORE

Edmund Toomey

28/04/2017

Reviews

90s SNES classic Chrono Trigger is a game that has haunted me from a young age. Not in a Woman in Black kind of way – more a Casper the Friendly Ghost style haunting. I first witnessed its enchanting pixelated ...

Author Edmund Toomey