Hello

Would love to join the Cult.

If you have arrived here after looking at my CV, thank you for taking the time. I thought this was a great opportunity to let you learn a bit more about me.

Here are my top 5 favourite games. Well, today’s answer anyway. These change around slightly, because choosing is far too hard.

1. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 This is the first game that really awakened me to games’ potential as a storytelling medium. The dialogue, the world and the themes are all so good, and Soul Reaver 2 is where the franchise’s story comes together in the best way for me. The actual gameplay may not be the best ever, but every cutscene is 10/10.

2. ICO Now I know most people would put the excellent Shadow of the Colossus in this place, and I get it, that game is amazing. But my adventure with Yorda through that treacherous castle, with just my stick to protect us both, has always stayed with me. The level design of the castle, the mechanics with Yorda, and the minimalist nature of the game all hit so hard because every element matters.

3. What Remains of Edith Finch This walking simulator… God, I hate that name… is a game I absolutely love, and also one I have got a few complete non-gamer friends to play. They were blown away by the storytelling. I love how each family member’s story is presented in such a unique way through gameplay, but what always remains with me is the tragic story of Lewis Finch. The way that story is presented, where you are multitasking and the control scheme feels so alien at first, then slowly becomes easier as he gets better at building this whole world in his head, is incredible. It is one of the times I have felt the actual controls were perfectly in sync with the narrative of a game.

4. IMMORTALITY IMMORTALITY is one of those games that feels like it could only really exist in this medium, even though it is built out of cinema. I love how it turns watching, pausing, rewinding and noticing small details into the actual act of play. It makes you feel less like you are solving a puzzle in the traditional sense and more like you are obsessing over a lost piece of art, trying to understand the people behind it and the strange shape their lives left behind. I find it fascinating as a game about performance, authorship, image-making, exploitation and preservation. It is also just incredibly bold: three films that do not exist, an entire career that never happened, and somehow by the end it feels like you have uncovered something real. I love games that trust the player to look closely, make connections and sit with ambiguity, and IMMORTALITY does that beautifully.

5. 1000xRESIST I truly believe that in the next couple of years this will be viewed as a modern classic of the medium. The way it juggles so many themes, fleshes them out enough and intertwines them is something I am in absolute awe of. This is a game I think about weekly since playing it on release, and it is the game I try to get anyone to play if I think they might connect with it.

A few other things you may want to know about me: I am a small Twitch streamer with a dedicated and lovely community. They mostly enjoy watching me play indie games, and people seem to trust my choices. I know my streams have even sold a few copies of some games.

I love this new wave of physical media dedicated to games. I have all the Lock-Ons, several design works, and the pride of my Lost in Cult collection is the Heterotopias deluxe physical edition of 001-003. It is not just Lost in Cult in my collection either: I have the full collection of A Profound Waste of Time, several books from Read-Only Memory and a growing collection of art books.

I know I come from a different industry, but I have a true passion for this stuff and I would give this 100%. I am a quick learner, I care about the work, and I genuinely think I could be an asset to the Cult.

Thanks for stopping by — Philip