Dave 🔜 PAX East | Tales from the Backlog

I had the Game Gear version and must have played through it hundreds of times.

Top row, left to right: The Amazon Trail, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie, Pokemon Red Middle row, left to right: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Smash Bros Melee, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind Bottom row, left to right: Dark Souls, Bloodborne, 1000xRESIST

Instead of a top 9, here are 9 games that rewired my brain in chronological order.

Watching a demo of how you can turn every NPC in your RPG town into somebody who says "That's right — you *are* the four LIGHT WARRIORS. You make a great point! The bridge to the main continent *does* need to be repaired, and you're just the person to do it."

Kingdom Hearts screenshot. Sora, Goofy and Donald stand in front of a hotel room door labeled "Red Room"

Twin Peaks (1990)

Kingdom Hearts screenshot. Sora, Goofy and Donald stand in front of a hotel room door labeled "Red Room"

Twin Peaks (1990)

Hear me out...

Univerally praised games are neat enough, but nothing hits quite like something unpopular that speaks to *you*.

So show-and-tell: Link and Explain a game that's UNDERRATED (sub-500 user reviews), UNDERRATED (sub 80% score) or BOTH (ideally!) that is near and dear to your heart.

Screenshot from Kingdom Hearts. Sora stands in front of a strange computer terminal, which reads: "Realize the destiny: the realm of Kingdom Hearts. The great darkness sealed within the great heart." Goofy and Donald Duck are also there.

....word?

don’t forget to destroy your clocks tonight, walk away from your mortgage, just start driving, you’re free

Neo Geo Go! | Baseball Stars Professional | Real! Dynamic! Welcome to Neo Geo Go! Andre and Aaron kick off the series by covering Baseball Stars Professional, a classic bite of arcade baseball.Catch us online at https://neogeogo.showFollow us on Bluesky!Po...

⚾️ REAL!

⚾️ DYNAMIC!

Our first episode is here! Andre and Aaron talk about one of the four Neo Geo launch games in Baseball Stars Professional. Enjoy!

Pokemon Pokopia screenshot, the main character stands in a house made of logs and leaves, with a single gravestone in the middle of an otherwise empty dirt floor

All moved in, who wants to come hang

Pokemon Pokopia screenshot, the main character stands in a house made of logs and leaves, with a single gravestone in the middle of an otherwise empty dirt floor

All moved in, who wants to come hang

Sorry it's been such a rough year so far dude, hoping for a big rebound for you all.

COMPUTER WORLDS: A Showcase of Strange & Distinctive Games - Coming to noclip_2 YouTube video by noclip_2

INTRODUCING COMPUTER WORLDS

A showcase of strange & distinctive games created by independent developers - premiering next week on noclip_2

SAVE THE DATE
MARCH 12th - 1PM ET / 10AM PT

WATCH & PLEASE SHARE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYRp...

HEY 👇

so secretly we've been working with a cabal of indie devs making the type of strange & distinctive games that we love to play on noclip_2.

tomorrow we're announcing a SHOWCASE on noclip_2 as part of an upcoming Steam Festival about these games.

it's gonna be fun.
we hope you tune in.

Graphic made to look like the page of a yearbook, featuring photos of all of the guests included in No Small Games' 3rd year as a podcast. The photos feature many of the guests smiling, posing in goofy ways, and generally being their lovely selves!

Graphic meant to look like a page of a yearbook, featuring black and white screenshots from a few of the games featured in the past year of the No Small Games podcast, including Wanderstop, In Stars & Time, Afterlove EP and more.

We present to you No Small Games cohort of 2025-2026, looking cute as ever! Thank you to all our amazing guests who did us the honor of coming on to share their love of indie games!

You can hear all our highlights from Year 3 of NSG in our Yearbook Episode Vol. 3, coming TOMORROW!

Really fun episode about a massively underappreciated game. Check it out, Dave's the best (and I am there also!)

Appreciate you dude!

Tales from the Backlog 205- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Image shows the game logo with the main character, a man with a red suit, black shirt, white necktie and tall pointy blonde hair.

That's not a ghost possessing your earbuds, it's the new episode of Tales from the Backlog! @blinkoom.bsky.social joined me to deep dive Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective! As always, no spoilers for a while- enjoy!

LISTEN: talesfromthebacklog.fireside.fm/205
WATCH: youtu.be/A4R4kMUtX0o

Kingdom Hearts party select screen in Atlantica. Options are Sora, Donald Duck, Goofy and Ariel. Sora has a merman bottom half, Donald has an octopus bottom half, and Goofy is a sea turtle.

I love doing my podcast the way that I do it, but sometimes I look at the new releases and want to dive in headfirst...and then I make the responsible choice to log in to Steam and hang out with Donald Duck until I need to go to bed.

Kingdom Hearts party select screen in Atlantica. Options are Sora, Donald Duck, Goofy and Ariel. Sora has a merman bottom half, Donald has an octopus bottom half, and Goofy is a sea turtle.

I love doing my podcast the way that I do it, but sometimes I look at the new releases and want to dive in headfirst...and then I make the responsible choice to log in to Steam and hang out with Donald Duck until I need to go to bed.

just got to the part in the game where he says this

Screenshot from Dragon Quest 11. Sylvando stands on top of a parade float, wearing a peacock-esque outfit and waving a feathery fan. He says "Oh no you don't, honey! Not unless you want to carry those claws home in a bag!"

Dragon Quest 11 is a perfect game for when I'm feeling sick, tired or otherwise down, which is to say I've been playing a lot of Dragon Quest 11 lately. Great game.

Solid list of weirdo (complimentary) games. Pushing a few of these up my wishlist!

hey hey it's my 2025 GOTY list

if you wanna get to know the skybox crew better i think reading these is a good and fun way to do that

a screenshot from Bobo Bay (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889810/Bobo_Bay/) that says "Dave Matthews Wins!" over a top down view of a green fiels

Next Fest is finally over and we can now look over the horizon into a new year full of two more Next Fests.

The whole gang is back talking about *63* of the demos that they played over the last week! Help!!!

Listen here! - share.transistor.fm/s/f8219142

Here's what coming to Chillscape after this week's episode!

Shout-out future guests:
@barsilencevgm.bsky.social
@tftblpod.bsky.social

More info ⤵️
chillscape.xyz

You should play God Hand and dragon kick some fools into the sun

Congrats on a year of Little Victories!