Bookwarm Games

Professor Kozlowski and I will be meeting Thursdays in the discord and we'd love for a few more students to join in the discussion of Persona 4: Golden and its place in the culture. For more resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/persona-4-golden/ This time we look at the opening act, main characters, and power dynamics in the game's arcana and worldbuilding. Thanks for listening.

Shakespeare and Scheherazade, FFVI opera and FFVII rooftops remixed and Mage-mashed on the airship stage. For more, see the course page: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-ix/Thanks for listening!

If you listen to this episode on a rainy night while looking into an old TV, you might catch a glimpse of your soul mate. And/or be pulled into another world, help solve a murder, unlock arcane abilities, etc. Professor Kozlowski and I will be meeting Thursdays in the discord and we'd love for a few more students to join in the discussion of Persona 4: Golden and its place in the culture. Find out more at https://videogameacademia.org/ Thanks for listening.

From the Princess in Alexandria's fairy-tale castle to monkey-tailed Zidane and his crew aboard the airship, and then down among the rabble and rat kids with an unnamed Black Mage, we start a new game in our Side Quests series, Final Fantasy IX. We hope to discuss the game as well as respond to some of the commentary out there, such as Resonant Art, FF Union, and "Necron as Elenchus" by Aaron Suduiko of With a Terrible Fate. For more, see the course page: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-ix/ Thanks for listening!

And Nabokov, again. Alex and I join a conversation that has been going on for some time--Reviewed by Edmund Wilson: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/07/15/the-strange-case-of-pushkin-and-nabokov/ Nabokov replies: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/08/26/letters-the-strange-case-of-nabokov-and-wilson/ The text of Nabokov's translation of this timeless, elegant, bizarre "Novel in Verse" can be found online, but it takes some searching. Thanks for listening.

Exploring Ultimecia's Castle and all but one of its boss battles, we spend some time thinking about the implications of the end cutscenes and final thoughts the game wants to leave us with. This brings us to the end of our FFVIII discussions for now, but join the weekly discord to connect, Ellone-like, anytime. For more FFVIII study resources, see https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

Justin joins us to discuss the Dostoevsky book most people who ever read him read first--or if not Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground. Over the past year, we've read most of his major works, and we'll be back at some point with a discussion of The Brothers Karamazov. Also mentioned: Mr Grenke's essay on Chekhov: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6171391c274812c5059f802de70a0351.pdf Thanks for listening.

Back from summer break here at the Video Game Academy, and this time we delve into Lunatic Pandora, battling Fujin and Raijin, Mobile Type 8, Seifer, and Adel, crossing into Disc 4. We have one more week to go in FFVIII. So what's next? Alex speculates about starting right over to play more cards. I'm thinking Tactics or FFIX would be the move. Let us know your thoughts! For more FFVIII study resources, see https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

Welcome to the return of Night School, a segment Alex and I had going for awhile back in the day reading and discussing classic literature. We're calling this installment Night School Pt Deux: The Ennightening. With Babcock, our friend from St John's, we read/play and reread/replay Nabokov's Pale Fire. Text: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.458629/page/n214/mode/1up?view=theater Context: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/textcult.8.1.101?seq=1 https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=timonathens&Act=4&Scene=3&Scope=scene https://newschoolnotes.blogspot.com/2018/12/organizing-night-school.html For an unironic AI-written breakdown, see the YT version, whence this audio has been wrenched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63U_uc8P0Q That's where you can also find old discussions of Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, and many more on Alex's YT channel and Spotify (formerly Anchor). Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon with a conversation on Pushkin's Eugene Onegi

Approaching the end of disc 3, President/Dad Laguna has a plan! A corny, foolproof plan to overcome time compression with love, friendship, and courage!For more, Ragnarok on over to https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

Space and Ragnarok

On the space station built for keeping an eye on the moon and the sorceress in stasis, we get it. Thanks for listening! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Laguna's making movie magic with a Ruby Dragon and rescuing Ellone in Esthar, while Squall carries Rinoa piggyback from the White SeeD Ship to that same futuristic city hidden by dragon bones in the salt lake. Thanks for listening! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Boss rushes and aerial choreography above the melee, with pauses to discuss Squall's ring. Most challenging of all: playing cards with the random rules, stacked onto sames and plusses...Ultimecia/ Artemisia makes her appearance, plotwise, along with Cerberus and Alexander in quick succession, and Rinoa goes into a coma after Seifer departs. Welcome to Disc 3. Thanks for listening! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Back from our momentous side quest to Manchester, we debrief the Multiplatform 2025 Rituals of Play conference and share some takeaways. See https://videogameacademia.org/2025/06/06/rituals-of-play-a-side-quest-to-manchester/ for more. Next time, we'll dive back into FFVIII proper with the Garden Battle and mosey on to the end of Disc 2. Thanks for listening! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Lengthy description of a trio of side quests (Shumi Village, Chocobo Forest, and Tonberry King) leads into reflections on Fujin and Raijin as foils to Squall and the team, busy with their own long conversations at last revealing lost memories on the broken basketball court of Trabia Garden. Leapfrogged in release order by our episode 16 on Game Studies and Side Quests to make sure that one was out before the conference.For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

Time to prep for Manchester Game Centre's Multiplatform 2025 Conference: Rituals of Play, where we'll be presenting on FFVII and FFVIII, respectively. Shout-outs to Signum University and the Game Studies Study Buddies, among other scholars and sources. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

Rinoa rage quits on most runs, but with just the right (wrong) choice of instruments, the romance on the solar panels plays out at more leisure. Perhaps it's fitting that our audio is even rougher than usual? Sorry about that! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

We clamber over Fisherman's Horizon and consider Parallel Lives and horospheres among its disciples of the way of nonviolence (aside from inadvertent miscasts by the shop). For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

Balamb Garden as Midgar; as Ithaka overrun with suitors; as Inferno. Encounters with the luciferean capitalist empodded in one of the basements and magic machinery larded with fossil fuels in the layers of several others. Both power a Garden that moves, dodges missiles, comes unmoored and comes dangerously close to wrecking the town before it squalls out to sea. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!