Beautiful Games Club

A book club for games, by people that make them 🎧The Beautiful Games Club is a monthly club for beautifully made games, run by the team behind Monument Valley, Alba and Assemble with Care. Each month, we pick one beautiful game and give it the attention it deserves: what it does to you, how it does it, and the decisions behind it. Curation you can trust, from the people who make this stuff.For episode 8 we're going on a journey - The Midnight Walk. Along with Potboy, your cute companion, you must try to reach Moon Mountain and restore light to the world. The game features a post-apocalyptic, stop-motion world of clay. MoonHood studios took nearly three years to bring The Midnight Walk to life, starting out as a VR title, before being available for those without a headset.⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for The Midnight Walk throughout, including the ending. Listen with caution if you haven't played!The Midnight Walk is available on Steam, Playstation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, for approximately £24.99.Host: AngelGuests: Alannah, Lale and MikeGame: The Midnight Walk (2025), by MoonHood Studios.The 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 - Introduction08:38 - The Art of The Midnight Walk15:35 - Our Favourite Characters21:05 - Our Favourite Tale/Chapter38:00 - The Final Tale (ENDING)45:43 - A Chat About Potboy47:48 - What Do We Think As Developers?58:53 - Will The Midnight Walk Influence Us?01:02:05 - Is It a Beautiful Game?

Is beauty only skin-deep? 🪞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 Minisode, we discussed retro games that we thought were beautiful. This time, we are looking at games that might not be initially beautiful at first glance, but upon further inspection, there may be more than meets the eye.Conor, Lale, Mike and Jane each bring a game that they think is still beautiful despite their initial appearances, and try to convince the others to think the same.From a web game about paperclips, to a poker inspired roguelike, you may find a new game to play that is truly beautiful on the inside!The picks:Balatro (2024) - LaleUniversal Paperclips (2017) - MikeNidhogg (2014) - JaneSlay the Spire (2019) - ConorHost: Conor Guests: Mike, Lale and JaneThe 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 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.