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robinbombus.bsky.social
Robin Bea
@robinbombus.bsky.social
2K followers 1K following 740 posts
Game critic/reporter at Inverse, co-host of @girlmodepod.bsky.social, @insequence.pictures, and twitch.tv/parallelplayers!
🏳️‍⚧️she/her🏳️‍⚧️
robinbombus@gmail.com
robinbea.carrd.co
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robinbombus.bsky.social
When god closes a door (anxiety-induced insomnia) he opens a window (150,000+ word slow burn Aerti fic)
January 4, 2026 at 7:46 AM
Reposted by Robin Bea
solfleet.bsky.social
I just called my congressperson and left a message, I plan on calling back Monday again. Look up how to contact your representative.
whatsarasaid.bsky.social WhatSaraSaid @whatsarasaid.bsky.social · 19h
Call your Congressperson now. It will be logged as “Holy cow we got X calls on the week end”. If they’re Dems they need these calls to pressure worse Dems & better Republicans. Don’t give up the ship yall.
celestepewter.bsky.social Celeste Pewter @celestepewter.bsky.social · 19h
Candid answer - as someone who handled constituent affairs calls for years - while they’re not checking the phone right now, the urgency of the moment is important.

Show them you care enough to make the weekend call, and be counted that way. Staffers will clock and report this upstream.
January 3, 2026 at 4:32 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
for my last piece written in 2025 and first published in 2026, I got sappy about the games that helped me feel more connected during an otherwise pretty alienating year

so glad I got to work with @lexluddy.xyz and @kellymerka.bsky.social on this too!
January 3, 2026 at 9:00 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
(I'm cleaning out an old screenshots folder and forgot I saved this one to make this joke when I was playing tales of the shire)

OK chaser
screenshot of a messed-up looking gandalf in the Tales of the Shire video game saying "I have a special interest in Hobbits and their business."
January 2, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
critdistance.bsky.social
Thank you all for your patience! Without further ado, it's This Year In Videogame Blogging 2025, complete with a bonus This Week In Videogame Blogging, December 28, 2025!

critical-distance.com/2026/01/01/t...
critical-distance.com
January 1, 2026 at 6:28 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
I'm so happy with both year-end episodes, but the Girlies especially feel like such an encapsulation of our deal. It's weird and funny, there's like four WLW categories, game jam submissions get awards, bad take-havers catch strays for no reason, and we get embarrassingly personal about our GOTY.
girlmodepod.bsky.social Girl Mode Podcast @girlmodepod.bsky.social · 3d
Wow it's the Girlies! Listen to hear all about the year's best horses, trees, bad opinions, and more!
Thanks for listening to the show this year! We'll back with more in 2026 and we mean that as a threat!
shows.acast.com/girl-mode/ep...
Episode 154 - The Fourth Annual Girl Mode Awards | Girl Mode
The awards show the games industry deserves
shows.acast.com
January 1, 2026 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
themountaingoats.bsky.social
snakes leave behind whole skins. all manner of flying creatures, not just butterflies, do them one better, whole new selves from wriggling worms. rocks into gems. mystics die to the flesh to be reborn in the spirit. rebirth is the rule, not the stray exception, if we can grasp it
December 31, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
devindecibel.bsky.social
THE GIANT'S BENEVOLENCE

If you see a Bug in your home that shouldn't be there, safely transport it outside. When you do so, gain a Bug Boon.

If something nice happens to you later, you've expended your Bug Boon. Say "Thank you Bug!" and acknowledge the Bug spirits.
ehronlime.bsky.social Aaron Lim 林家丰 @ehronlime.bsky.social · 4d
I need everyone to make a shitpost game that fits into at most 3 posts on here before the end of the year otherwise thr sun will not rise again
ehronlime.bsky.social Aaron Lim 林家丰 @ehronlime.bsky.social · 4d
Not enough shitpost games though
December 31, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
nadiaoxford.bsky.social
Me on my way to have a chat with the higher-ups who demand writers slip “Clair Obscur” into every headline because these people have dog shit where their hearts and brains should be:
a woman in a wheelchair is walking down a hospital hallway with a man
Alt: Tony Soprano about to take care of business with a pillow
media.tenor.com
December 29, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
tk13-ueuuee.bsky.social
December 27, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
girlmodepod.bsky.social
For this year's holiday game exchange, we're talking about Wanderstop and Baby Steps to determine whether making tea or climbing a mountain is the better path to finding yourself
shows.acast.com/girl-mode/ep...
Episode 153 - Finding Our Way Home in Wanderstop and Baby Steps | Girl Mode
shows.acast.com
December 25, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
humblegoat.bsky.social
one of my absolute favorite things we’ve recorded this year. i had a wonderful time exploring comics from the ShortBox Expo - which i’d somehow never heard of before this year! - AND, honestly, i haven’t been able to stop thinking about my long read pick for 2026 since the in-recording reveal…
December 25, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
merorinee.bsky.social
#FF7 #aerti
October 29, 2024 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
nrcgray.bsky.social
Ivalice Miku:
December 20, 2025 at 12:55 AM
robinbombus.bsky.social
He is at best the embarrassing uncle who indie games no longer talks to at thanksgiving
danthat.bsky.social Dan Marshall @danthat.bsky.social · 17d
Okay please let's not call him that
Headline "Jonathan Blow interview- the father of indie gaming on video games in 2525 AD"
December 18, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
emilyprice.bsky.social
I’m planning a column about women and games next year. I want to discuss how stories about women are told/received in games, and how does womens’ criticism exist- where/what is it? If you are a woman game writer/dev/critic and would like to share your thoughts, dm or email eaprice.work@gmail.com !
December 17, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
girlmodepod.bsky.social
This week Willa and Robin run through all the announcements at The Game Awards, including: Tomb Raider for the straights, DILF Leon, and Control with a man. Boooooo. Also, more Old Skies talk because it's just that good!

shows.acast.com/6393ec46b89a...
Episode 152 - Recession Indicator Lara Croft | Girl Mode
shows.acast.com
December 17, 2025 at 1:57 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
there's no one better at making games about and for gay trans communist rats
poppyzone.bsky.social Digital Poppy Poppy Zone @poppyzone.bsky.social · 18d
THE CITY STARVED LAST WINTER. DON'T LET IT STARVE AGAIN. Waterhead is the next game set in The Lovely Ladyverse. Can Ida Guggenhofer convince the Hornek family farm to aid Red Vina before winter bites - or will she return home empty handed? Check it out -> lovelyladyverse.com/waterhead/
December 16, 2025 at 7:56 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
that's great man, it's so inspiring when I'm playing a game and I can tell everyone who made it was more or less OK how it came out
December 16, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
chuckuddin.bsky.social
Samus
December 15, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
mickyde.bsky.social
Me at 13: This shit bangs Me at 32: This shit bangs
December 13, 2025 at 4:45 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
nothing better when you're catching up on games for year's end than the feeling of, I was so smart to pick this up when it launched and so stupid to wait this long to play it
December 13, 2025 at 6:44 PM
robinbombus.bsky.social
the things I do for @thewillarowe.bsky.social
screenshot from the end of Baby Steps. Nate, a grown man in a onesie, stands in front of a log cabin in the snow
December 13, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Robin Bea
brendanlh.bsky.social
I beat Metroid Prime 4 a couple nights ago. 100% items, it took 16 hours and change. It did weird things to my brain, and I needed to write about it. So enjoy this unplanned meditation on the fourth Metroid Prime game.

Please repost and share it around :)
Within the first hour of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Samus is imbued with psychic powers. From that moment onward, I spent my 16-hour first playthrough wishing I had psychic abilities, too. Not because I want to move things telekinetically or see into the future, but because I wish I could beam my thoughts about Metroid Prime 4 directly into someone else's mind. Your mind. Maybe I wouldn’t have to talk about this game--because, frankly, I think we’ve all talked about it too much already. Instead, you could know—feel—my experience with the game first-hand. If I had psychic powers, you would know what it feels like to have actively, stubbornly, held Metroid Prime as your favorite game these past 25 years, and the self-inflicted expectations I struggled against in the lead up to Prime 4’s launch. And you would know how it felt for all that to dissolve the moment I viewed an unknown world from behind the familiar HUD of Samus’ visor. If I could share my memories with you, you could trace in yourself the same shape of the emotions I felt while exploring Ice Belt--my awareness flitting between the unease in my gut and melancholy in my chest. The sense of scale I felt seeing the megalithic storm clouds of Volt Forge’s skybox. My surprise that Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano somehow found such an alien electric guitar tone, but also chose to feature it prominently throughout the soundtrack. The familiar compulsion to break every green crystal and return to locations to collect lingering items, long before the game asked me to. The way a single unimportant scan in a Lamorn shrine evoked vivid images of the species’ final hours. How else, than with psychic abilities, could I convey the way the dissipating mist in Fury Green’s Cargo Launcher platform never lost its novelty? Or how it felt to look up from the depths of the Great Mines, see the gray sky peeking through the broken rock hundreds of feet above, and think, “This is all I’ve ever wanted from Metroid.” And if I could invite you into my mind, then you, like me, would also question if the only reason these familiar “Metroid-y” moments meant something is because they’re juxtaposed against my frustrations with the story; my disappointment in the brevity of Flare Pool and linearity of The Great Mines; my lingering apathy towards Samus’ companions and underutilized rival; my skepticism about whether this is the direction I want the series to take, if it continues. You would see how these highs and lows blend uncomfortably, echoing the unpleasant dissonance I felt between the oversaturated orange and purple hues of Sol Valley against the dense, dark, moody atmospheres of the on-foot biomes. Or the ways radio calls and escort missions impinge on segments of sublime isolation and engrossing visual design. Maybe after all of that, you, too, would struggle to resolve these contradictions and distill the totality of this arc into a succinct statement of quality, much I like am. Alas, I do not have psychic powers, so these words must suffice. Written & Designed by Brendan Hesse Proofreading & Feedback - Abram Buehner Special thankt to THE CRAWL Patraon Supporters
December 12, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Robin Bea
girlmodepod.bsky.social
hope everyone enjoyed the Girlies pre-show last night! the real awards will be here in a couple weeks, brought to you by our sponsor Gain, the laundry detergent for Gamers™️
December 12, 2025 at 3:51 PM