And speaking of inaugural episodes, it should be noted that @nathangrayson.bsky.social at @aftermath.site covered the game *before* this trend started, in his great interview with @ramiismail.com.

And we're immensely excited to check out @doougle.net and @chadtoprak.bsky.social's new show!

Since then, @theguardian.com and @pcgamer.com (among others!) have covered the game, too!

The same day our episode went live, @polygon.com ran a piece that seems to have gotten the ball rolling.

It's been amazing to see more coverage, and *good* coverage besides, for Dreams on a Pillow!

And if you want some bonus essays on Lies of P nd the Super Mario RPG remake, as well as some cut interview material with Bryant Cannon talking about Disco Elysium, then you'll find those very things on our Patreon. www.patreon.com/etao

You can find the show wherever pods are casting.

And then there was our most WNYC-ass episode so far. It's about Dragon's Dogma II and the moral hazard of meaningfully uncomfortable games that sell comfort-based microtransactions.

But also about how the game is like a DnD campaign where the other players are dogs.

Also opera.

Also, um, death.

Next up was Helldivers II, and the question of how to make art about fascism without making art that's useful to fascists. (The game is somewhere between Starship Troopers and The Producers in its approach to that goal, as the QAA podcast recently, synchronistically pointed out).

First, he talked about Palworld, giving the game a ludic reading (as in, what's it actually like to play it?) and a Luddite reading (as in, what's potentially fucked up about it, production-wise?)