Describing The Skybox

Describing The Skybox
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WELCOME TO DESCRIBING THE SKYBOX! We are a fortnightly, book club-styled podcast in which we attempt to go in-depth on an individual video game and figure out what makes it unique. Episodes are around an hour to an hour and a half long and primarily feature free form discussion on themes and mechanics present in each episode’s titular game. Bear in mind that we are not reviewers, so as far as we critique the games at hand, our intent is not to convince you to play any particular work. SPOILER WARNING: Given the depth at which we intend to cover the games in question, those which feature a story, plot, mechanical surprises, fun moments you may not have heard about or otherwise will be fully discussed, likely at length. Given this, it is advised that you go into each episode with the understanding that these elements will most likely be spoiled. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, we recommend that you either play the game before listening to the podcast, or skip the episode altogether. (Though the latter option would make us all very sad!)

  1. Episode 16 - Surprisingly Little All Star - Dreams

    24 May

    Episode 16 - Surprisingly Little All Star - Dreams

    You may say I’m a podcast, but I’m not the only one. Welcome back to Describing the Skybox! This week for our second episode of Mystery May this year, the die has decided we play Dreams, the game development software slash game on the Playstation 4 (and 5). Dreams is an odd one to talk about in our format to some degree, as a lot of what defines what this game is is tied up in the tools it provides for designing not just logic but also 3D models and music, which are robust in their capabilities but weirdly restricted to being used with a controller. It is difficult to get used to, but surprisingly capable once you do. Additionally though, Dreams is also a games browser with surprisingly good discovery tools. So, in addition to the creation tools, we played and will discuss a number of games that reflect what you can make with the tools provided. We’re going to be talking about the distinctive “Dreams-like” feeling of the games, the strengths developers can lean into and weaknesses they try to avoid, and we talk probably for too long about a meme game. Thank you for joining us again this week! Dreams was a time killer game for us a while ago so I was a little surprised at how interesting parts of it were when we took a deeper look. Have you ever made anything in Dreams? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Mystery May served us a bit of a weird one this week, and it’s going to continue into next time as well because we’re talking about the Earthbound Halloween Hack by Toby Fox, so we hope you’ll join us then.

    1hr 17min
  2. Episode 15 - Harshened the Blow - Fez

    17 May

    Episode 15 - Harshened the Blow - Fez

    A great podcast has been revealed to you. Welcome back to Describing the Skybox! Today, as our first episode in Mystery May, we’re going to be talking about Fez, a now shockingly 14 year old game. Fez is a puzzle platformer, emphasis on the puzzle, but not a complete dis-emphasis on the platformer, in which you move around on a 2D plane, but have the ability to rotate the play area, adding a bit of 3D thinking as well as some perspective-based puzzles to work through. This carries the game surprisingly well, with it feeling very clever but also surprisingly intuitive. Along the way, there are numerous hints and secrets to find which could lead players to an ultimate secret about the world of the game, but are more often than not just additional collectibles to pick up. This cleverness and emphasis on secrets in the exploration are both the game’s strengths and its weaknesses, as it does create an atmosphere that makes you want to explore, bolstered by the fun, cartoony art direction, but also asks a lot of the player to even get from place to place. Navigating can be a little stilted as your destinations aren’t clear and exits to each zone are not necessarily immediately visible with multiple angles to look through. If you’re looking for a fun, light, platformer game, don’t be fooled by the game’s visuals and presentation, but if you want to dedicate some time, Fez does feel like a kind of pioneering game in the indie space. Thank you for joining us again this week! Fez has been on the list about as long as we’ve been doing the podcast, so we thank the Mystery May die for finally pushing us into doing it. Fez is such a hot and cold game, emblematic of the indie scene at the time it came out, with equal parts misguided ambition as well as genuinely clever design. Did you fall down the Fez rabbit hole when it came out, or did you bounce off of it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Dreams, the game development software slash game browser for the Playstation 4, so we hope you’ll join us then!

    1hr 3min
  3. Episode 14 - A Misleading Thumbs Up - Super Mario World

    3 May

    Episode 14 - A Misleading Thumbs Up - Super Mario World

    Mario must be ready to face the podcast ahead of him. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Super Mario World. Undeniably one of the most iconic games on the Super Nintendo, if you are involved in the platformer space at all, you will see Super Mario World come up pretty much every day. This more than any other game defined what 2D platformers could be throughout the 90s, and it’s a very easy game to look back on because of just how refined it is in terms of level design and control. I don’t think there’s too much more that needs to be explained about one of the most well known games of all time, We’re going to be talking about polish vs. innovation and which parts of this game you find by tracing back its legacy, the iconic presentational elements of this game like its music and credits sequence, and we pitch yet another way Nintendo could improve Pokémon Snap for some reason. Thank you for joining us again this week! Obviously this is a very old and well regarded game, so we’re hoping that having a new player will give us a fresh perspective on it 36 years down the line from its original release. I highlighted this as one of my top 100 games on our 10th anniversary, but is this a title you have a particular history with? Are you way too young to be playing games that are pushing 40? Let us know over on our Discord or in the comments! Next time, we begin Mystery May, where we let fate decide which episodes we are doing and for the first roll this month came up Fez! So we hope you’ll join us for that and to find out which game gets randomly decided on during that episode. We are absolutely dripping with tension this month.

    1hr 17min
  4. Episode 13 - In My PJs - Resident Evil Requiem

    18 Apr

    Episode 13 - In My PJs - Resident Evil Requiem

    The silent treatment, I hope. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline Resident Evil game and one that mechanically resembles the RE Engine games. Like, all of them, because this game is both a first person survival horror title as well as a third person action game at different points, and the balance between them and how you approach each is going to be the ultimate deciding factor if this game really works for you. Grace’s segments are slow and focused on enemy avoidance and puzzle solving, while Leon has a giant inventory and much more effective weaponry. Both are given their time to shine, with large sections dedicated to each (and a few to both, which I think is where the dual protagonist setup really sings), but I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel like one half was given a little more attention in development than the other. Visuals and sound are incredible in the way most AAA titles are like these days, with this games strengths lying in gruesome enemy art direction as well as punchy firearm sound effects. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with Resident Evil games, the narrative is a little flat, relying on the series’ long legacy to provide interest which it unfortunately doesn’t do particularly well. We’re going to be talking about the character divide and how sharp the differences really are, how both sides of the games handled their combat and boss fights, and the overlap between this and the Terminator franchise. Thank you for joining us again this week! I ended the last episode by asking Andy “can we pleeeeease do Resident Evil 9” and so here we are. As happens with big games that are overall enjoyable, we talked a lot like we hated this game’s guts, but really it is quite good, just handled less artfully than maybe we hoped. Were you looking forward to this game, and did you hope it would follow closer to RE7 or to RE4? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord channel! Next time, we’re going to be talking about one of the most unambiguously good games ever made, Super Mario World, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

    1hr 36min
  5. Episode 12 - Skyrim in Reverse - Final Fantasy

    4 Apr

    Episode 12 - Skyrim in Reverse - Final Fantasy

    The black orb podcasts ominously… Welcome back to the podcast where today we’re going to be looking at the Game Boy Advance remake of Final Fantasy. The first in what is probably the series of games most synonymous with the JRPG genre, the original Final Fantasy showcases all the hallmarks of the genre in a simple but still very functional way. The player is allowed to choose the makeup of their party from the beginning of the game and that will influence the type of gear, spells, etc., that they will be able to use throughout the runtime, characters level up and can even upgrade their classes midway through the game, and you will encounter enemies every seven steps you take. Despite some rough edges, it ends up holding up surprisingly well and, probably due to forty years of cultural knowledge of playing RPGs, it isn’t a “Nintendo hard” type game from the era either. The result is a somewhat primitive, but beautiful looking, RPG that is surprisingly comfortable to play and fairly easy to get into even from a modern context. We’re going to be talking about the clever and natural ways the game gates exploration and makes it feel like a worthwhile activity, the depth of the storytelling which was rare for games on the NES, and how the canoe is really just walking, but different. Thank you for joining us again this week! This was one we had in the chamber in case we needed to do something quickly because we had both played it and yet we still managed to be late. Classic us. Do you have experience with any of the many, many versions of FF1 that exist? Do you have a favorite? Were you born twenty or more years after the release of this game and never even considered playing it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going from one of the (technically) oldest games we’ve ever played to the newest, and talking about Resident Evil: Requiem, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

    1hr 10min
  6. Episode 11 - Dead in a Week - Roadwarden

    18 Mar

    Episode 11 - Dead in a Week - Roadwarden

    Their shouts are like spells, and will make you sick. Welcome to the final episode of Fanbruary this year! We’re going to be talking about Roadwarden, a largely text-based RPG that seemingly takes some inspiration from modern rules-light TTRPG design with a lot of richness to its text and a simple, obfuscated approach to combat and other randomness-based encounters. Set in a type of post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, Roadwarden tasks you with exploring a region and making numerous decisions in the interest of learning about the people there and surviving the wilderness. The game is full of dialogue and set events that give the player a lot of choice both in the ways that they interact with the world, but also how they shape the history of it and their place within it. On the flip side, that is also nearly all the game has. Dialogue and descriptions are many, many lines of text, and your reward for making your choices is often just more text. The mechanical side is predominately a game of resource management, with very few moments of genuine triumph to motivate you, so it falls squarely in the not-for-everyone camp. It’s definitely worth checking out if the storytelling elements of RPGs are what draw you to the genre, but you won’t get the other hallmarks of the genre here. We’re going to be talking about how the game plays against our expectations, how its difficulty creeps up on you over time, and how it somehow created an economy that perfectly mirrors real life. Thank you for joining us again this week, and a special thank you to everyone who submitted their game suggestions for Fanbruary this year! As always, we had a blast going through some games we otherwise might never have played. Roadwarden in specific is one that is easy to see the potential in even it ultimately ended up not being up our alley. Have you played the game or did our episode make you curious about it? Let us know down in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re transitioning from an RPG that has been deconstructed from the basic parts that make up the genre, to one of the games that was pivotal in shaping that genre to begin with: we’re going to be talking about Final Fantasy (specifically the GBA “Dawn of Souls” version)! So we hope you’ll join us for that.

    1 hr
  7. Episode 10 - Pigs and Other Shapes - Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil

    28 Feb

    Episode 10 - Pigs and Other Shapes - Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil

    I may leave this world, but we’ll always be a podcast. Welcome back to the podcast, and to the third episode of Fanbruary, in which we play games suggested by you the listener. For this installment, we’re going to be talking about Klonoa 2, a 2-or-2.5D platformer on the Playstation 2. This is a game that thrives on novelty, with the interesting ways it uses its enemies as items and creative foreground and background elements for both traversal and puzzle solving. And of course, being from the early 2000s it has to also feature hoverboard levels which play very differently to the platforming and boss fights. Basically, the variety makes this game novel and with a tight runtime it ends up feeling paced pretty well, even if some of the later levels drag a bit. We’re going to be talking about how the game uses, and in some cases forces, its 3D design elements, our thoughts on mascot character design, and just how many stages can be donuts. Thank you for joining us again this week! Klonoa 2 has been a recurring suggestion so we’re glad to finally play it. Unfortunately it was not suggested to us twenty years ago when we could have experienced in its original context, which I think would have helped us appreciate the unique things the game actually does. Still, it was an interesting look back, and the things that it does well are still genuinely interesting. Were you able to play this game when it came out, or is it new to you as well? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments below! Given that this is literally the last day of February, we’ll likely bleed a little into Farch, but be sure to stay tuned, because next time we’re talking about Roadwarden!

    48 min
  8. Episode 9 - Hero Bucks - Far Cry 5

    21 Feb

    Episode 9 - Hero Bucks - Far Cry 5

    Every problem cannot be solved with a podcast. Welcome back to the podcast and, of course, to our second episode of Fanbruary this year! Today, we’re talking about Far Cry 5, which is, obviously, an installment in the Far Cry franchise and, obviously, not the fifth one because of all the weird spinoffs. Still the thing that most stands out, or at least the thing that was advertised the most, that separates this from its predecessors is the fact that it is set in the United States. Ultimately, this game doesn’t do much in terms of commentary, which is unfortunate given the opportunity they had here, but it is still a novel setting for a Far Cry game. By far the most impressive element comes from the open world and its lush forests and rural towns. It looks very good. It’s an open world game with a bunch of systems attempting to create that emergent gameplay the genre is known for, and importantly, it wastes very little of your time and nearly everything you do contributes toward progressing the game. Still, it is a part of a series that gets that stuff right more often than not, and it doesn’t compare favorably in most areas to previous installments. This is particularly true in the writing, but I won’t spoil those things here in the description. It’s a good game by and large, but is let down in some key ways that make it more of a mixed bag than it could it have been. We’re going to be talking about “confidence” in games and the overstimulation of players, the progression systems across the open world, and we argue for the use of parachutes less than 10 feet off the ground. Thank you for joining us again this week! As someone who bounced off this game when it released I’m actually really glad to have gone back to finish it because there is a lot of nuance to what this game does right and wrong in my eyes. On the other hand, I can’t advocate for anyone to play it or any other Ubisoft games for that matter thanks to their awful DRM, so just take our word for how the experience is, I guess. How do you feel this game stacks up against other titles in the franchise, if you’ve played them before? And if you haven’t, how do you feel about the fact that the unusable Ubiconnect software ruins the experience of all people who try to interact with the software? Let us know over on our Discord or in the comments below! Next time, for our third Fanbruary episode, we’re going to be talking about Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, so we hope you’ll join us then!

    1hr 34min
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About

WELCOME TO DESCRIBING THE SKYBOX! We are a fortnightly, book club-styled podcast in which we attempt to go in-depth on an individual video game and figure out what makes it unique. Episodes are around an hour to an hour and a half long and primarily feature free form discussion on themes and mechanics present in each episode’s titular game. Bear in mind that we are not reviewers, so as far as we critique the games at hand, our intent is not to convince you to play any particular work. SPOILER WARNING: Given the depth at which we intend to cover the games in question, those which feature a story, plot, mechanical surprises, fun moments you may not have heard about or otherwise will be fully discussed, likely at length. Given this, it is advised that you go into each episode with the understanding that these elements will most likely be spoiled. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, we recommend that you either play the game before listening to the podcast, or skip the episode altogether. (Though the latter option would make us all very sad!)

Information

  • Creator
    Describing The Skybox
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    300
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Describing The Skybox

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