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Abnormal Mapping is a monthly game club of Em and Jackson, talking primarily about old games with an eye to critiquing without nostalgia.
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A weekly quest by Niamh to guide Em and the listeners through the Icelandic sagas fae loves so much, as we all sit in the dark and feel mortal and small.
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The Safe Room is a monthly survival horror game club podcast. Join hosts Grace (@grace_machine) and Ryan (@BluestRose430) as we delve into the history of the survival horror genre, from popular classics to obscure gems. We’re going in deep, so break out your dualshocks and load up your emulators. If you can brave haunted mansions and obtuse puzzles, we’ll see you in The Safe Room!
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Guns, Girls and Colonialism: that’s right, it’s a James Bond podcast! Jackson and Dia are going on a journey week by week through the movies of the UK’s most famous secret agent, starting with Dr. No and taking us all the way up through the release of Bond 25. We hope you can join us as we relive and reconsider the memories of our favourite imperial assassin across over a half-century of movies.
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The Great Gundam Project has been going for years now, but people still insist on starting Gundam in places other than 0079, so we decided to make the first season free in order to encourage people to watch the hottest show of 1979! Please start with episode zero, which provides some context for the GGP project and how these episodes are in the present day.
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We’re joined this month by Nora Blake of Export Audio to talk about her and Em’s favorite dead Konami franchise: Castlevania! We’re playing the first PS2 game, a certified mid classic, a game that asks can you really get ten hours out of five rooms? The answer is: kinda????? Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podc…
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Around the Long Fire 99: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 12 "The Serpent in the Soul of the Serpent"
It feels in many ways like the entire season was building to this episode, though I’m sure we’ll feel the same way in two weeks. A harrowing show today, and then we enjoy talking about some manga and some books, before Em gets heated about Online and we reflect on the Autumn months (months with Autumn as co-host, not the months of fall). Things Dis…
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Things go bad on this episode of Berlin Alexanderplatz and they probably won’t go right again until we’re done, so please hang on for the next few weeks. We still have a good episode, even if the mood on the saga is melancholy. Things Discussed: fursonas, Abnormal Mapping, Pondering Pootan, Honey and Clover, misremembering the plot of Forrest Gump,…
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Around the Long Fire 97: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 10 "Loneliness Tears Cracks of Madness Even in Walls"
We get to one of our favorite sections of the book we’d been eagerly seeing adapted, and then have Vtuber talk so long that it ends up taking up two whole segments. Also Em and Autumn get on a goddamn tear about the internet and how people spend their attention. It’s a bit of a gripe session, but hopefully people enjoy it. Things Discussed: Vtubers…
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Alisa is both thematically light and aesthetically ornate, a loving, smart throwback that is super annoying. In this episode, Grace and Rose work through how exactly it curates such a clockwork feast and how it manages to grate and delight in equal measure. Next time: Sorry, We’re ClosedBy The Safe Room
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Around the Long Fire 96: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 9 "About the Eternities Between the Many and the Few"
Berlin Alexanderplatz discovered a whole new gear of simmering homosexuality so we’re having a good time even before Franz decided to berate some anarchists and we hoot and holler about politics in this rowdy episode. Then the rest happens, as usual. It’s a great time. As usual. Things Discussed: Gamer Supps (we know about the gamer supps thing but…
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Around the Long Fire 95: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 8 "The Sun Warms the Skin, but Burns It Sometimes Too"
We have more announcements as the next season is finally revealed! It’s … very ambitious. Also, Autumn finished Persona 4, we talk about the silent protagonist, Niamh gets a very cool tattoo, and Em talks about some of the weirdness around meeting new people online. Question Bucket, Season 5 Revealed!, Persona 4, Silent Protagonists, Persona 5, She…
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Around the Long Fire 94: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 7 "Remember — An Oath Can Be Amputated"
We’re worn out and trying to get the podcast in under two and a half hours from start to finish. We manage it, but barely! We yap a lot about vtubers, Atlus games, and of course good ol’ Franz Biberkopf. Also, we announce an upcoming special episode at the beginning! The main thing is the Metaphor game club comes to a close we both finished the gam…
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Kind of split on this episode of Berlin Alexanderplatz, but we manage to have a good time anyway as Autumn and Niamh watch one of Em’s favorite movies and we have a big long chat about Agnes Varda! Also, Autumn is playing Persona 4 now, so we’re talking about the investigation team and how we approach RPGs. Things Discussed: Passenger (yahoo anime …
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We return to the Fatal Frame franchise with its Nintendo debut, this time with a new co-developer Grasshopper Manufacture. Join us as we discuss the game’s various Wii-era “innovations,” the many facets of its bloated story, and whether this moonlit adventure shines as bright as previous entries in the series.…
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We played an old SNES game today and talk about the elemental qualities of RPGs and action games. Also, Jackson keeps gaming, and Em makes ambitious plans to tackle a too-big game. Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your friends on whatever social media you call home that they should check us…
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Around the Long Fire 92: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) Part 5 "A Reaper with the Power of Our Lord"
We meet Reinhold and the homosexual quotient goes off the charts. For Berlin Alexanderplatz. Long Fire remains about as gay as usual (read: very). A great time with a fantastic episode this week. Things Discussed: NANA, vtuber corner including shipping thoughts, therapy talk, The Farthest Shore with broader Earthsea talk, Dune, Studio Ghibli, Catho…
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Around the Long Fire 91: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 4 "A Reaper with the Power of Our Lord"
Slaughterhouse! We have a great time talking about Franz’ terrible time, and talk about a bunch else besides. Em undergoes SMT madness. Things Discussed: Good news to open the show, listen to And Then An Aeroplane, vtuber corner, Hotaru and Kamiyama's Pondering Pootan, GGP talk including Gundam the Origin Spoilers, Niamh does tai chi, getting mad a…
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Around the Long Fire 90: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 3, "A Hammer Blow to the Head Can Injure the Soul"
Berlin Alexanderplatz gets sad, Franz shops for flowers, Niamh and Em attack Autumn for bad game takes, and we all talk some gender. Also, more Metaphor and the end of How Do We Relationship! ALSO NOTE: Autumn’s audio is just going to have radiator hiss until winter breaks. It’s fine. Happy birthday Niamh and Em, Export Audio returns, grilling Autu…
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Around the Long Fire 89: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), part 2, "How Is One to Live if One Doesn’t Want to Die?"
Berlin Alexanderplatz keeps cooking, we chat about a bunch of this and that as this episode it’s quite as full of Things We Finished as last week, and we get back to Metaphor: ReFantazio with a huge update as the plot really begins to pick up and Niamh makes a bunch of predictions that all instantly come true. We’ll talk about it next week. ALSO NO…
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We’re playing two not very classics of their respective genres today as we go back to the back half of the 90s to play an early action game and a relatively early 3D platformer. We’re kind of split on which game we prefer along lines I expect you’d predict, but we both had a pretty good time with both games anyway! Also, before that, Jackson gives …
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We begin the enormous Fassbinder television miniseries adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz and immediately find it much more representative of our feelings about the book and its structures. Also, Fassbinder is just incredibly good at shooting some handsome if unpleasant television. Biberkopf might be suffering, but we are not. ALSO NOTE: Autumn’s …
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The Safe Room takes a detour into the surreal and absurd with 2024’s Indika. We discuss the game’s commentary on religion, the unique and entertaining formal choices the game makes, and the second hand pain of playing a video game that features a bunch of straight people. Also, this was nominated for The Game Award’s Games for Change?…
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We begin season 4 with a third host joining for the next few months and some surprising new announcements as we begin to cover the adaptations of classic novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, starting with a movie made only two years after the book was released. After that we get into our usuals, including tons of manga talk this episode! Please enjoy! Thin…
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Egil’s Saga ends quiet and melancholy as we wrap up our season with a shorter episode due to illness. We did rank all the sagas, however, and talk about that, and also there’s a short manga segment to round things out. Sorry for the short one, hopefully things will be back at full energy next week! Things discussed: the ranking of sagas, Magic Knig…
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We continue to enjoy Egil’s Saga even though he does the grossest possible thing this week. Then, we have a big chat about rereading Paradise Kiss (we’re only through chapter 14 or so), a little talk about the state of the world, and then the Metaphor game club returns as we both tackle an enormous new dungeon! Things discussed: The Pondering Poota…
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We tackle a newer game this month as we talk about the critically acclaimed adventure game 1000xRESIST. We found plenty to love and plenty to pick at during our time with this one, but it’s exactly the kind of messy game we tend to like around here, so we’re glad we played it and I hope you enjoy listening to us talk through it! Thank you so much a…
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A shorter saga paradoxically means a longer saga chat as we cut our reading and increase our happiness. We spend the middle portion of this podcast mostly talking about each other’s podcasts, in the most self-indulgent fashion, but the last third of the podcast covers Em finishing the Evangelion manga and they had a lot of thoughts about it, their …
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Em’s back from vacation, but we’re both too tired for sagas this week so instead we mostly talk about some movies we watched. The main event, of course, is Adolescence of Utena, but on either side of that is a lot of other fun stuff I hope people enjoy! Things discussed: FWMC new outfits, Em in Chicago!, Bluebeard's Castle, Evangelion manga, Ponder…
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We’re tired and busy so this one is not us at our best and brightest, but we try to have a good pod anyway. Next week we’re actually taking off reading the saga, ignore what we say in this episode, we’ll mostly just talk about some movies we watched probably. Things discussed: legal name changes, How Do We Relationship (through to chapter 127), sch…
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We start our final saga of the season and whew it’s a long one! Egil doesn’t even show up in this reading! But we cover all the goings on leading up to his birth, the fickleness of kings, and then spend our time catching up on what we did over the holidays. Things discussed: holidays, what we've been up to, Tokyo Godfathers, Revolutionary Girl Uten…
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cw: suicide, death, the plague Grace and Rose enter the plagued town and explore its thematic shades of death and life, roles and personhood, ease and difficulty that permiate its walls and earth. Find some bread and meat and sit down with us!By The Safe Room
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I wanted to get a Handheld Talk episode out for the holiday but unfortunately, due to my own carelessness, my files for that have been lost. Instead, enjoy this little playlist I threw together featuring songs from games we played this year. Hope you enjoy! See you soon for our Pathologic 2 episode. —Rose Playlist: "Two of Everything" by Tori Beaum…
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We close out the year by playing one of the most infamous games we’ve ever covered, a game that has been a running joke and shorthand for bad game for nearly twenty years. And yet, do we find the judgment of history fair? Do we believe in redemption for a certain blue hedgehog and the anime princess who loves him? We’re going to try our best, as we…
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We’re back for the end of this wild ass saga about elk men, bear men, bad men, and dead men! We had a great time with this one, to the point we finally suggest doing what I never thought we would: ranking the sagas, at the end of the season! Then, Em talks about their favorite episode of Utena so far watching it, and some of the things it brought u…
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We read the first half of the first new-to-Niamh saga this week, and have a great time with awful men, questionable gender politics, and high drama. Also, some violence is done to a bearman, don’t really like that but so it goes sometimes. Our chat about everything else continues as usual, as Niamh overtakes Em in Metaphor, we watch and read some s…
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We’re both a little run down and we just read the intro to a book, so very short saga this week as we just kind of have a small chat and take it easy. Some days are just harder than others. Hope you enjoy nonetheless. Things discussed this episode: Thanksgiving, Trivia Games, being a student, Look Back (the film), Multiple Maniacs, Even Though We'r…
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We talk about Ref, a man who is pretty chill until you call him gay so much his family begins asking questions. Then he’s going to end your whole bloodline. We have a good time with this relatively light saga, and then talk about our usual manga and vtuber spread, including some extra time with Nerissa for her birthday stream. Things in this episod…
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We finish Arrow-Odd’s Saga, and then Em has a few more Icelandic things to talk about that end up taking up a good portion of the episode. Things in this episode include: Arrow-Odd's Saga, Independent People, Godland, Even Though We're Adults, Holocure, Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders, Shirahimeshou: Snow Goddess Tales Check out the Ghost Divers on…
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We’re joined by Dia Lacina once again as Ryo continues the next leg of his quest to track down Lan Di, his father’s killer. What strange challenges will he find in China? How does Yu Suzuki follow up one of the most ambitious, incredible games of all time? We find ourselves surprised at almost every turn as Shenmue II goes big and goes small and go…
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cw: suicide, bullying, animal/pet cruelty, animal/pet death In this episode of The Safe Room, Grace and Rose discuss the cult classic 2006 survival horror game Rule of Rose. We talk about the game’s non-linear narrative, how it handles themes of bullying and abuse, and the legacy it leaves behind as a Silent Hill-inspired work. We also take listene…
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We begin Arrow-Odd’s saga, and talk about being back in the land of prose and strange Giantess fanfic on this week’s episode. Bonus talk includes: Independent People, I Am A Cat, Tokyo Babylon, But We’re Both Adults, and the usual Metaphor talk. I probably missed a few things, but I’m editing against a deadline today so that’ll have to do. Please e…
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[taking a very deep breath] On this enormous episode of Around the Long Fire, we finally finish the Poetic Edda! It ends really well, but with a surprising difference between our two versions. The cartoon Em mentions is Zack Snyder's "Twilight of the Gods", for the record. After an extra long Saga segment, we briefly talk about the election (please…
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We continue with Gudrun’s vengeance against her family, for better or worse, as we begin to wind down the Poetic Edda. On top of that, we have the usual vtuber corner, a big talk about How Do We Relationship?, a health update … and then decide to spill our next season an entire week early because we both finished some prep work we’d done for it! Th…
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We have an absolutely jam packed episode this week as not only do we talk about the return of Gudrun and her sorrows, but we also talk a bit about vtubers, we both watch some movies (some classic, some not), Niamh continues to read How Do We Relationship?, and we continue to talk about Metaphor: ReFantazio through the next two hours or so of game (…
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One of the hot new releases of … wait, 1999? That can’t be right. Oh, it’s a fan translation. One of the hot new fan translations hitting the inter-oh I’m being informed the fan translation is from three years ago! How embarrassing. Well, we’ve been meaning to play this one for a hot minute, and when Em finally tried it they were so instantly in lo…
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cw: suicide, sexual assault, domestic abuse, alcoholism It’s time. We delve into the Silent Hill 2 Remake and discuss its handling of the originial game’s themes, the new (and pretty good) combat system, and how it handles (and mishandles) key scenes from the original game. We top it all off with a flurry of listener questions, where we talk game p…
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We revisit some of the first stories we read on this podcast, this time in verse form! They’re pretty pleasant, even if they’re a bit disjointed. We take care of some odds and ends before getting into our main event: our Metaphor game club begins in earnest, which contains a few surprises including a new challenger, some mechanical decisions that s…
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The sagas finally begin to cook as we talk about tragic love and reincarnation and what exactly is a Valkyrie. Also, speaking of tragic love, Niamh watched Twilight movies and Labyrinth, so we have plenty of misplaced sexual angst to pick over. Finally, Em celebrates Kiara’s big day as she had her fourth anniversary live this past week. See the sho…
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The sagas aren’t exactly setting our world aflame this week, so we instead talk a bunch about Licorice Pizza (building off of Ornate Stairwells), vtubers, and video games. In fact, some night say this is the beginning of our lengthy Metaphor game club, to be performed over the next 6-12 months! See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you whis vers…
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Odin gets up to trouble, including being weirdly homophobic to his stupid son Thor, in this wild episode of poetry and would-be plays. After that, Em gets a little too real venting about their current medical situation, but then we recover as Niamh talks about vtubers and movies until everyone has a good time again. Thanks for listening, sorry for …
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We talk the toy-like and immaculate Crow Country. We discuss the game's elegant take on survival horror, its consideration of childhood, nostalgia, and its characterful writing. After some listener questions, we get into a sprawling convo about Souls games, the Internet Archive, and our individual plans for October aka the season of Rose!…
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Sometimes you decide to finally pick up one of those games you’ve always heard of but never got around to, the curiosities that you are pretty sure aren’t must plays, but stick in your brain anyway. Some might argue this has been the history of Abnormal Mapping at large! But this month we do one of the epitomes of this style of game as Em chose one…
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Season 3 begins as we crack open the Poetic Edda and talk about dwarves, gods, and Odin’s magic. More vtuber chat this week, of course, but it’s also a sleepy week so a bit on the shorter side. Either way, please enjoy! Niamh can be found haunting Export Audio with Ghost Divers and Ornate Stairwells (and Pondering Pootan, which has never haunted an…
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Jackson is joined today by official Final Fantasy Correspondant Austin Walker to talk about Final Fantasy XI - specifically the base game and Rise of the Zilart. It’s been a busy MMO summer and we simply needed to get it out of our systems and into microphones somewhere. Please enjoy this three hour tribute to a game that’s still around and still g…
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