The SuperDQP Weekly - October 7, 2024

Welcome to the inaugural post of The SuperDQP Weekly!

I suppose I should start with an introduction. I am Chris “SuperDQP” Hyde. I work in public media and I enjoy writing about video games as a hobby. My previous avenue for this was YouTube, but I found that the line between my professional life and this hobby became increasingly blurry as I found work that centered around media production. I realized that I felt more able to preserve my work/life boundary with a Word doc open at home rather than Premiere.

I am non-binary, genderfluid, and on the asexual spectrum, and a lot of my perspectives on media and culture reflect this. I usually look at video games through a queer lens, and while that lens is sometimes pretty clear and my analysis may not appear to come through that angle, other times it will color my view on things.

(Yes, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is one of my favorite games, and yes, this year’s Switch remake made my heart soar for more reasons than the one you’re thinking. But yes, also the one you’re thinking.)

To help streamline these newsletters, I’m going to split most of them into three segments:

• I’ll start each one off with a quick game recommendation. I will try to use this space to shine a light on cool games that I’ve played recently that I don’t think have gotten enough attention. I can’t guarantee that all of these will be IGN 9 or 10 out of 10 masterpieces, but they’ve captivated me enough to warrant spending 200-300 words or so gushing about.I’m a firm believer in the “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding” meme, and while I don’t think it accurately reflects a lot of the realities of the video game market today, I do want to encourage games that reflect this ethos while being poignant, interesting, and/or fun.
• After that, I’ll get to the meat and potatoes of the newsletter; a topic that I want to write about in-depth. This topic could be anything ranging from a single game’s themes, to a market trend, to anything else that might have warranted a video essay on my old YouTube channel.
• Finally, I’ll close things out with a wishlist recommendation: an upcoming game that, similarly to the game recommendation above, I think is flying under the radar and that more people should be paying attention to.

Simple three-course meal. Appetizer, main course, dessert.

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A Game Recommendation

So with that out of the way, my first game recommendation is going to be something pretty basic and, honestly, something you’ve probably already heard about: I’m going to recommend you check out Penny’s Big Breakaway.

It received a lot of pre-release hype as the next game from Christian Whitehead, who has a history in the Sonic the Hedgehog fangame community and later helmed the excellent Sonic Mania. However, after release, PBB got lukewarm reviews and was subject to some serious launch-day bugs and some X (formerly Twitter) drama thanks to composer Tee Lopes that I won’t regurgitate at length. The short of it is that he composed an excellent soundtrack, and that he could stand to be less arrogant about it. I’ll leave it at that.

That being said, a lot of the bugs have been ironed out since launch and the resulting game has proven to be a deliciously fun and challenging 3D platformer. Many other games in the recent explosion of indie 3D platformers have taken after collect-a-thons like Banjo-Kazooie or Super Mario Sunshine, but PBB borrows more from the recent Super Mario 3D World school of tight, short, self-contained levels with an emphasis on fluid movement, and I think that’s a good — if unexpected — design fit for Whitehead’s experience with Sonic fangames. It scratches that itch very well, and if you’ve had a similar 3D World itch, I can’t recommend PBB enough, as hard as it may be to tear yourself away from Astro Bot.

Penny’s Big Breakaway is currently available on PS5, Xbox, Switch, and Windows PC via Steam. I played it on Steam Deck without issue.

A Few Recent Games That Demonstrate My Tastes

Since I frontloaded the beginning of this newsletter with some housekeeping and introductions, I’ll keep the “meat and potatoes” part of this specific post brief.

Just so you have an idea of my tastes as a pretentious video game connoisseur, I’ll go ahead and post a paragraph on five of my favorite games from, say, 2020 onwards. I’m limiting this to games that have jumped out at me recently that I presently have no plans to cover in full in later newsletters. So…

• Citizen Sleeper is a text-focused RPG along the same lines as Disco Elysium written by a non-binary developer that has the player trying to scrape by and form a community in a system that does not care about them. It’s powerful stuff. Currently available on PlayStation, Xbox, Game Pass, Switch, macOS, and Windows PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG. (It played well on my Steam Deck.)

• Animal Well is undoubtedly a game you’ve heard of this year, but it bears mentioning again: it’s a metroidvania bursting with wonder and mystery, and I absolutely devoured it when it came out. Currently available on PS5, Switch, and Windows PC via Steam. (It also played well on my Steam Deck.)

• Dredge is a horror fishing game with a pretty gripping gameplay loop, immaculate vibes, eldritch Lovecraftian atrocities, and a tight balance between coziness and tension. Currently available on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and Windows PC via Steam and GOG. (It also also played well on my Steam Deck.)

• Unsighted is a Link-to-the-Past-em-up set in a cyberpunk post-apocalypse with explicitly queer themes, and a suspenseful and potentially tragic game mechanic revolving around a limited resource that is highly HRT-coded. Currently available on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and Windows PC via Steam and GOG. (It also also also played well on my Steam Deck.)

• Finally, something silly: Turbo Overkill is brash, stupid, full of itself, pretty buggy, and a total violent joyride to play. I have a soft spot for boomer shooters, and Turbo Overkill was a very good time. Currently available on Windows PC via Steam and GOG. (I did not play this game on Steam Deck. The bit has been broken.)

Expect Something Different Next Week

While posting lists like this is fun, I feel the need to warn not to expect content like this from future newsletters. It’s my hope to make this a home for more wordy, in-depth pieces about more singular topics. Next week, for example, I’m planning on a larger piece on how “gamer” culture has evolved over the years, for worse and for better. It will be a heavy examination of the many implications that word has carried over the past thirty years.

Not every newsletter is going to be that much of a downer, though, and I’ve got some fun topics lined up. Just… not so much next week.

A Wishlist Recommendation

Alright, let’s close this newsletter out with a wishlist recommendation of an upcoming title. I’ll start with a simple game that’s coming out this month: Telebbit.

Telebbit garnered some buzz a couple Steam Next Fests ago, and having played the demo, I feel that the buzz was well earned. The hook is that you’re able to instantly teleport to certain walls or enemies and potentially telefrag them.

It feels great, and it’s aiming for a cathartic “tortured experiment escapes and pursues revenge” vibe with its writing. It’s glitchy and just a smidgen angsty, and I dug what I played of it. Keep it on your radar.

Telebbit releases on PS5, Xbox, Switch, and Windows PC via Steam on October 24.

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