The Safe Room

We talk about the classic detective visual novel The Silver Case! We discuss police procedurals, visual novel aesthetics, mysticism vs. science fiction, and why games should be like television.

29 Apr 20240s

We talk about the “compilation” game Fatal Frame III: The Tormented which attempts to wrap its two prior games into an overarching narrative, with poignant and evocative results. We discuss its many a...

31 Mar 20240s

Content Warnings: sexual assault, death by fire, suicide, self-harmWe discuss modern FMV games Her Story and Immortality. We discuss these cinematic narrative games, their sometimes dazzling, sometime...

5 Mar 20240s

We talk about the unsurprisingly competent and surprisingly comprehensible The Evil Within 2. We discuss the game’s new “open level” structure, even while it imports most of what made The Evil Within ...

28 Jan 20240s

Grace and Rose close out the year with the classic Resident Evil 2002 remake. We discuss the beauty of its fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds, the weirdly arbitary difference in difficul...

31 Des 20230s

Content Warnings: Suicide, domestic violence, general horror goreIn this ocean-sized episode we tackle the FMV-soaked marvel that is Alan Wake II. We talk about how this feels both like a culmination ...

1 Des 20230s

Content Warnings: Self-Harm, Suicide, Freud (Oedipal Complex)Through the electric wires, a strange image appears on your TV… it’s Serial Experiments Lain the video game! We talk about the visual novel...

13 Nov 20230s

In this episode of The Safe Room, we discuss the awe-inspiring craft of The Evil Within, its disappointing final third, and its campy, haunted-house-style level design. This is prossibly the most fun ...

30 Sep 20230s