Skeleton Songs

What is the true 'artist's reward'? When are you pushing usefully out of your comfort zone, and when are you banging your head against a rock? Alexis and Lottie discuss developing your own creative talents alongside game design issues like the 'murderhobo' RPG outfit problem, medicine in Fallout: New Vegas and why John Constantine is a pillar of our crafting system. Support the show

Who are the 'old gods' of gamebooks? Why can we mess with rules in Travelling At Night but not in Cultist Simulator? What's 'combinatorial explosion', and why is it ruining your life? Join Alexis and Lottie for these questions alongside a potted history of text-based games, the perils of voiceovers in CRPGs and Lottie's most important rule for marketing. Support the show

What's the 'double or half' rule? Why is game design like Khazad-dûm? What the hell is a quaternion? No, really, we don't know. Join AK and Lottie for another jaunt through game dev, via narrative modifiers, infinite nuns and 'entering the Mansus', for the first time ever... Support the show

"There are games where the player is having fun and games where the designer is having fun." - Sid Meier Maps! Music! British pre-decimal currency! We discuss planning game narratives around major player choices, Mike Rosewater's 'complexity budget' and why putting little stamps on bank notes is not a good idea. Support the show

"What we want is a sort of semi-glutide octi-frenetic image that is kinda made of lighting and also is a baby..." This week AK and Lottie discuss how art direction works, how to balance being weird with being commercially viable, how we're building Travelling At Night's entirely 2D visual world, and how to paint a tree. All while accidentally revealing what we suspect might be our next Weather Factory game and answering our first batch of mail bag entries. Support the show

'My fingers are worn to bleeding nubs. I am typing this with my tongue. my keyboard is sticky with game dev drool. Do you not understand...' Thus did 2026 begin. Welcome back to the world of game dev, this time about 'murdering darlings', the Curst curse and why Newt will always trump Aliens' M577 Armored Personnel Carrier. Support the show

Our final episode of 2025! Talking Travelling At Night's alpha, the sine wave of game dev, where Fallen London's Overgoat came from and how we're attempting to solve the 'layer of plastic' in AAA RPGs. Support the show

This week in the life of jobbing game developers, we reach ALPHA. Cue period appropriate beatnik slang, a disagreement about potato croquettes and why 2D and 3D are such frenemies in isometric CRPGs. Support the show

Skeleton Songs is BACK with a game-dev-centric season all about the inside story of making an indie RPG. In this episode, find out why CRPGs are such hard work, why UI eats time, why we're scared of Disco Elysium, and what's up with Travelling At Night. Also we have a fight about jazz. Support the show

"The final victory of sci-fi is its final defeat," says AK, gnomically, before we sing the Beverly Hills Cop theme tune and talk about trombones. Join us for a discussion of 'the best fiction novel of the 20th century', A Wizard of Earthsea, and its masterful magic system: from Native American folklore to shamanism, demonic to natural theurgy, and eastern wyrms to western protodragons. Is it written for children or not? What is 'Equilibrium'? Why is 'clot of shadow' so upsetting, and what does it have to do with Cultist Simulator? In memory of Ursula Le Guin, and little Hoag. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin - City of Illusions, by Ursula Le Guin - Cultist Simulator, by us Support the Show.

Lord of the Rings + Narnia + Jane Austen = ? A smash-hit 800-page faux-Victorian novel of realist magic and alternate histories, of course! Welcome to the world of Susanna Clarke, whose rules-based, Mametian and very 'English' magic system is one of the best we've had the good fortune to meet. Join us for a discussion of made-up magical scholarship, urban versus natural magic, whether you should consider the Land of Faerie for your next holiday destination, and 'the beauty of grey'. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke - Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke - The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, by Susanna Clarke - Harm's Way, by Colin Greenland - Take Back Plenty, by Colin Greenland - Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees - The Secret History, by Donna Tartt - Cultist Simulator + BOOK OF HOURS, by us - Deus Ex, by Ion Storm - "Time Enough At Last", by John Brahm and Rod Serling Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

Author. Visionary. Dreamweaver. Plus bellhop. Meet Jack Vance, one of the most inventive fantasy authors we've ever heard of, and probably not a pirate king. What happens when fairies become too lumpen and earthy? Why are Lvl1 wizards in D&D so rubbish? Who is Larkin the Baby-Stealer, and why are you reaching for that kazoo? We talk Cugel the Clever, Vancean magic and why you shouldn't make bread from dogs. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - Lyonesse, by Jack Vance - Tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance - 'Liane the Wayfarer', by Jack Vance - Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, by Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness - BOOK OF HOURS, by us - Fallen London / Sunless Sea, by Failbetter Games - Dungeons & Dragons, by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

"If magic works, why isn't the President of the United States doing it?" After a 'brief' hiatus, we're back! We pick up where we left off and talk about the magic of Doctor Faustus, whether magic is 'liberation or damnation', and the distinction between ceremonial magic and what specialists term 'Doing A Big Spell'. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, by, mostly, Christoper Marlowe - Cultist Simulator / BOOK OF HOURS / The Lady Afterwards, by us - A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

Welcome to a new season, all about magic and literature! We talk William Shakespeare's Tempest, from women-wizards from Algiers to royal demonology. Caliban's Moth, Ariel's Lantern and AK nearly dies in a spiegel tent. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - "The Tempest", by William Shakespeare - Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations, by Alexis Kennedy - Daemonologie, by King James I - The Lesser Key of Solomon, anonymous Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

What makes games 'savoury'? Why is Twitter such a bad place to get game design advice? And is it ever sensible to push a count off a cliff? This episode, Lottie and Alexis talk art, games and critique, through architect Christopher Alexander to Jack Cohen and Brian Aldiss' fight over speculative xenobiology in Helliconia. Listen to avoid the perils of categorisation, and the pitfalls of diamonds - and hear Alexis fake his own death. Literally. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - The Devil's Elixirs, by E T A Hoffmann - The Snare of the Tree, by Alexis Kennedy - A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander - Cultist Simulator, by us - Sunless Sea, by Alexis Kennedy and Failbetter Games - Helliconia, by Brian Aldiss Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

Hiraeth? Sensucht? Saudade? Listen to Alexis and Lottie cry as we talk nostalgia, sequels and games, from 17th-century Swiss cowbells to sailing away from your loved ones into danger. We talk transmission of experience from one generation to the next, the future of games as gamers get old, and the impossible loss of childhood - and why that's not such a bad thing after all. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - Sunless Sea, by Alexis Kennedy and Failbetter Games - The Nature of Order, by Christopher Alexander - Toy Story 3, by Pixar - No Country for Old Men, by the Cohen brothers Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

The conclusion of an epic two-parter. Who would win in a fight between TRPGs and CRPGs? What happens if a giant worm swallows a city? Is a dolphin the same as a cat? We attempt to answer these questions with appeals to Simon Baron-Cohen's empathising-systemising theory, work out why TRPGs rely so heavily on rule-sets when lots of people don't follow them anyway, and end up convincing ourselves that Game of Thrones is Love Island for nerds. PROVE US WRONG IF YOU DARE. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - The Lady Afterwards, by us - The Essential Difference, by Simon Baron-Cohen - The Burning Wheel, by Luke Crane - Rolemaster, by Iron Crown - Ars Magica, by Atlas Games Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

"I don't want to be Elfstar anymore! I want to be Debbie!" Join us for a romp through tabletop gaming's earliest origins and the effect its had on modern video games. Well, that was the intention. We actually stop around the 1980s with fundamental Christianity and a woman called Janine who is bad at charades. But we talk about the defining characteristic of nerdery, Star Wars vs Star Trek, Boris Johnson and the Devil's testicles in between. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - Cultist Simulator, by us - The Lady Afterwards, by us - Dungeons & Dragons, by Wizards of the Coast - Dark Dungeon, by Jack Chick - Malifaux, by Wyrd Games Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

Real talk: APOPHENIA. Alexis and Lottie discuss subliminal pattern-seeking from its coinage by a Nazi psychologist to its use by modern indie game developers to cover up the fact we don't have any budget. Wait! We meant to make clever, co-operative immersive experiences. All via werewives, apophanies and Zhou Enlai. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - Cultist Simulator, by us - Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco - Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon - Ulysses, by James Joyce - A Dark Room, by Doublespeak Games - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Steven Donaldson - Return of the Obra Dinn, by Lucas Pope - Against Worldbuilding, by Alexis Kennedy Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.

This episode is about sex and games and the libertine novels of eighteenth-century France. From Talleyrand, the Napoleonic clergyman and diplomat, through to Cindy Crawford, Peter Bradshaw and Amouranth, the Twitch streamer scandal du jour, we talk erotica, porn and those anime sex games you see all the time on Steam. Listen for the power of 'not for me', the uselessness of banning things, and Alexis's really bizarre description of one of Lottie's favourite games. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure: - Cultist Simulator, by us - 'The Law of Boob', by Lottie - Fallout 4, by Bethesda - Far Cry 5, by Ubisoft - PUBG, by KRAFTON - Horizon Zeo Dawn, by Guerilla - DEEP SPACE WAIFU: NEKOMIMI, by Neko Climax Studios - LOVE³ -Love Cube-, by Neko Work H - The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me, by SMILE - Being a DIK, by Dr PinkCake - VA-11 Hall-A, by Sukeban Games - Subverse, by Studio FOW - Thérèse Philosophe, by Jean-Baptiste de Boyer Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥ Support the Show.