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Video Games
Posted inVideo Games

Panic Invites Players for a Big Walk in Its Downtown Portland Offices

House House’s new friend hang video game made me motion sick, but I’d play it again.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

Big Walk made me motion sick, but I want to play it again. The new video game invites players into an open world setting where they can talk to their friends, solve puzzles, explore, or—dare we say—kiki? We got a chance to demo the game at the Panic office in downtown Portland, and soon so […]

Posted inPhoto Essay

Game Jammers: Creativity as Code

Bringing past and present together to design the video games of the future.
Corbin Smith

A busted Mario costume. An extremely old pinball machine—so simple you wonder how pinball ever took off. Fighting games… so many fighting games. Hundreds of old consoles, some of which were complete flops, hooked up to hundreds of cathode ray tube televisions for maximum retro fidelity. High level Tetris players playing the NES version of […]

Posted inVideo Games

Highlights at Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2023

PGRE is one of the most approachable cons in town, thanks in part to how much there is to actually do there.
Ben Coleman

Nostalgia isn’t the only reason to play old games. There’s also the satisfaction that comes from shooting meticulously animated low-poly cyber dragons. Here’s what we think you should look for at the 2023 Portland Retro Gaming Expo.

Portland Retro Gaming Expo is one of the most approachable cons in town, thanks in part to how much there is to actually do there.

Posted inVideo Games

The Ultimate Stardew Valley Creator Interview About Pacific Northwest Interests

Video game designer Eric Barone on salmonberries, mushroom foraging, and layered portrayals of homelessness.
Vivian McCall

[The following Q&A was originally published by our sister publication, The Stranger, but as it seems to give definitive proof that Stardew Valley is set in the Pacific Northwest we felt it was relevant to Portland interests.—eds.] Stardew Valley is the ultimate farming sim fantasy video game. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s like the original Harvest Moon […]

Posted inFood and Drink

The Best Things to Do While Staying Home and Staying Safe: Memorial Day!

Mercury Staff

Uncut GemsIt’s beyond bizarre to know for a fact this exhausting, nerve-jangling drama is going to be the most watched thing on Netflix for the next couple of weeks, considering it’s a low-budget arthouse flick directed by the Safdie Brothers, who specialize in choppy, frenetic, aggressively off-putting narratives about amoralistic assholes spiraling down into a […]

Posted inVideo Games

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Tues May 12

Mercury Staff

The Salon of ShameThe “Salon of Shame” is a Seattle institution, and one not about to be cut short by coronavirus. Indeed, the cheerful exploitation of our younger selves’ awkward adventures in adolescence translate just fine online, and so: “Shame Across America,” (streaming at 6pm, $17) an online compilation of the finest cringe comedy a […]

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