Beautiful Games Club

A book club for games, but one more chapter becomes one more quest 🎧The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.For episode 7 we're talking about Phonopolis by Amanita Design, the studio behind Machinarium and Samorost. You play Felix, a bin man in a city where loudspeakers tell everyone exactly what to do, until he finds a pair of headphones and becomes the only person in town capable of having his own thoughts. Every set, character and prop was handcrafted out of cardboard before being digitised, animated at 12fps to feel like stop motion, and it took roughly six years.This game is a real labour of love, and we think that comes through in abundance!But. Is Phonopolis a beautiful game?⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for Phonopolis throughout, including the ending. Listen with caution if you haven't played! Phonopolis is available on Windows and Mac via Steam and Epic Games for around £20.Host: Angel Guests: Alannah, Lale and Mike Game: Phonopolis (2026), by Amanita DesignThe Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Introduction 00:41 - Do You Like Uniform? 08:42 - What is Phonopolis? 10:44 - What Did You Expect Going In? 16:18 - Discussion: Favourite Puzzles 25:38 - The Light Bulb Puzzle 28:25 - Discussion: The Ending 38:58 - How the Mechanics Tell the Story 42:04 - Discussion: Felix's Voice 43:33 - What Impressed Us as Developers 47:23 - Discussion: The Graphic Design 52:42 - Will Phonopolis Influence How We Make Games? 54:45 - Is It a Beautiful Game?

What does 'retro' even mean? 🕹️ The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time. Last time we did a minisode we looked forwards at games that weren't out yet. This time we're doing the opposite. Conor, Mike, Angel and Jane each bring a game from back in the day, and we all try to make the case that it still holds up as genuinely beautiful. We start by failing to agree on what retro actually is, get sidetracked into playground games, and end up somewhere near Freud. There's an Atari 2600 athletics game Mike was playing at two years old, a 1997 PC adventure with a hero who has to switch into "sport mode" before he can jump, the JRPG that taught Conor to read and soundtracked his wedding, and a PS2 launch title that kickstarted Kingdom Hearts.Along the way: floppy disc stacks, anti-piracy grids on sheets of paper, why old games looked better on a CRT, and the discovery that Wii Sports turns 20 in three months. So. Which retro game has aged the most beautifully? The picks: Activision's Decathlon (1983) - Mike Little Big Adventure 2 (1997) - Jane Final Fantasy 7 (1997) - Conor The Bouncer (2000) - Angel Host: Conor Guests: Mike, Angel and Jane The Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care. YouTubeInstagramTikTokBlueSkyJoin the conversation on DiscordGet monthly updates with our Newsletter.

A book club for games, but the paperback is a PlayStation 🎮The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.For episode 6, we're talking about Big Walk (2026) by House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game. This one was a first for us - it's multiplayer, so instead of playing separately and comparing notes, all four (or six!) of us got on a call and walked across an island together. We solved puzzles, got separated in the dark, shouted into walkie-talkies, put a helmet on Angel so she couldn't see anything, sit in a room doing absolutely nothing for five minutes because the game asked us to, and SO MUCH MORE.Somebody wrote "kick me" on Mike's back.So. Is Big Walk a beautiful game?🎥 BONUS: we recorded it too! Our playthrough is going up on our YouTube channel over the next few weeks, so you can watch it all go wrong in real time.⚠️ Spoilers throughout for puzzles and areas, though none of us have finished it. No content warnings for this one, unless you have a friend in the group who brings out the worst in you. (Big Walk is available on PC, Mac, PS5 and Switch 2 for around £16. About 12 hours if you're focused, well over 20 if you're not. 2 to 12 players.)Host: AngelGuests: Alannah, Lale and MikeFeaturing in gameplay: Conor and JaneGame: Big Walk (2026), by House HouseThe Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.YouTubeInstagramTikTokBlueSkyJoin the conversation on DiscordGet monthly updates with our Newsletter.

4 Upcoming Games that We're Desperate to Play!The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively and brought to you by the team at ustwo games - makers of Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure and Assemble With Care.Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time. But this time we're doing something different. Instead of looking back at a game we've all finished, we're looking forwards. Conor takes over hosting duties for a minisode where each of us brings one unreleased game we think is going to be beautiful, and then has to defend it.We make the case for a co-op-only platformer that looks like lost 90s anime, a fairy tale open world with a thousand handcrafted NPCs, a sequel that's now in a third dimension, and an old witch with chicken feet and a monster friend. Along the way we argue about whether a game can be beautiful when the experience belongs to two people instead of one, whether comedy counts as beauty, and why there are so few old people in games. Then we rank all four on our wishlists and immediately disagree.So. Which one are you wishlisting first?Games discussed in this episode:Orbitals - Shape Farm - Releases 3 September 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2.Fable - Playground Games - Releases 23 February 2027 on Xbox and PC.Pikuniku 2 - Sectordub - Releases in 2027 on Switch 2 and Steam.Coven of the Chicken Foot - Wildflower Interactive - no release date yet!Host: ConorGuests: Alannah, Lale and MikeCHAPTERS: 00:00 - Introduction 01:19 - How Do We Find New Games? 09:28 - Orbitals 22:09 - Fable 31:13 - Pikuniku 2 42:24 - Coven of the Chicken Foot 50:30 - Honourable Mentions 52:43 - Ranking Them on Our Wishlists

A book club, but the bookmark is a save point 🎮The Beautiful Games Club is a community for people who love games that move you - emotionally, visually, creatively. Each episode, we pick a game that deserves some extra special attention and explore it together, one beautiful game at a time.For episode 5, we're talking about Mixtape (2026) - a coming-of-age adventure from Beethoven and Dinosaur, published by Annapurna Interactive. We follow Stacy Rockford, an aspiring music supervisor spending one last night in Blue Moon Lagoon with her two best friends before they all go their separate ways, soundtracked by the mixtape she's made for the occasion. We skip rocks, TP a teacher's house, head-bang in the back of a car, and endure a first-person kissing scene that absolutely none of us were prepared for.With its Spider-Verse-style stepped animation, camera work lifted straight from a film set, and a soundtrack that hides original songs among the real 80s and 90s tracks so convincingly we couldn't tell which was which, Mixtape is the kind of game that shares somebody else's nostalgia but you will feel it anyway.So. Is Mixtape a beautiful game?⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for Mixtape throughout, including discussion of underage drinking and drug use. Listen with caution if you haven't played! (Mixtape is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2 for around £16 depending on platform. About 4 hours of gameplay, more if you keep running your skateboard into cars)Listen along to the songs we discussed in this podcast here.Host: AngelGuests: Alannah, Mike and LaleGame: Mixtape (2026) by Beethoven and Dinosaur & Annapurna InteractiveThe Beautiful Games Club is brought to you by ustwo games - the studio behind Monument Valley, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and Assemble With Care.Follow the Beautiful Games Club:YouTubeInstagramTikTokBlueSkyJoin the conversation on DiscordGet monthly updates with our Newsletter.