Game criticism with book-club looseness.
Describing The Skybox treats games like a book club treats novels, with each episode centered on a single title’s themes, mechanics, and odd texture. The tone is loose and joking, but the conversations keep returning to how a game actually feels to play.
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Describing The Skybox is a game-by-game conversation show built around extended, spoiler-friendly retrospectives. Each main episode takes one title as its center. The recent run includes Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls, Roadwarden, Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, Far Cry 5, Splatoon 3: Side Order, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. The structure usually starts with release context, developer and publisher details, and a plainspoken attempt to describe what kind of game is on the table. Then the discussion loosens. Genre labels get tested rather than accepted. Roadwarden becomes not quite a CRPG and not quite a standard adventure game, but something closer to a single-player tabletop loop with choice at its core. Splatoon 3: Side Order becomes a way to talk about how a roguelite format can refresh familiar campaign design. Far Cry 5 opens onto the habits of big Ubisoft-style open worlds. Final Fantasy brings in early JRPG history and personal attachment to a Game Boy Advance version. The show is funny in a conversational, sideways way. It often lets a stray joke sit next to a sincere design point. Community suggestions matter, especially during Fanbrewery, when listener picks shape the month’s lineup. The annual awards episodes widen the format into subjective categories, soundtrack arguments, and deliberately odd award-show energy. This is not a review show in the narrow sense. It is more interested in what makes a game distinct than in whether someone should buy it. The pacing is casual but informed. Listeners should expect tangents, recurring bits, and detailed discussion of surprises, mechanics, and story moments. For players who like criticism with memory, jokes, and actual design vocabulary, it has a lived-in appeal.
Made for: For players who enjoy video game retrospectives, genre arguments, community picks, and detailed discussion of mechanics, story, and platform history. It especially suits listeners who do not need criticism packaged as buying advice.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its mix of loose banter and close attention: a game can be treated seriously while the conversation still wanders through jokes, memories, and subjective categories. Fanbrewery and awards episodes give the catalog a community-shaped rhythm.
WELCOME TO DESCRIBING THE SKYBOX! We are a fortnightly, book club-styled podcast in which we attempt to go in-depth on an individual video game and figure out what makes it unique. Episodes are around an hour to an hour and a half long and primarily feature free form discussion on themes and mechanics present in each episode’s titular game. Bear in mind that we are not reviewers, so as far as we critique the games at hand, our intent is not to convince you to play any particular work. SPOILER WARNING: Given the depth at which we intend to cover the games in question, those which feature a story, plot, mechanical surprises, fun moments you may not have heard about or otherwise will be fully d…
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Two hosts compare their Jazzpunk discoveries and revisit its strange comedy.
Chad Rutherford and Andy Kinnick compare the odd corners of Jazzpunk that each stumbled into. Its spy adventure starts missions with medication, then sends them toward a simulated cyber bank heist and a rooftop encounter that ends in a wrestling ring.
The hosts introduce a podcast episode about the 1999 game Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, explaining it's part of a community-suggested series called Fanbrewery.
Chad and Andy discuss the Nintendo DS game Mario Hoops 3 on 3, developed by Square Enix and published by Nintendo in 2006.
The hosts of the Noclip podcast introduce their discussion of Castlevania 64, a 1999 Nintendo 64 game, as part of their Fanbruary series featuring community-suggested games.
Jazzpunk hides a functioning QR code on a mechanical pig, and it leads to a Reddit post about the game.
Chad and Andy introduce their podcast and begin discussing the game Resident Evil Requiem, also known as Resident Evil 9.
Describing the Skybox revisits Final Fantasy I: Dawn of Souls, the 2004 Game Boy Advance edition developed by Square Enix and published by Nintendo.
Chad Rutherford and Andy Kinnick review Roadwarden, a 2022 text-based RPG from Moral Anxiety Studio and Assemble Entertainment that combines tabletop-style choices with adventure-game design.
Chad Revenants and Andy Kinnick review Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, a 2001 PlayStation 2 platformer remastered in 2022.
Chad and Andy discuss Far Cry 5, an open-world action game by Ubisoft, sharing their initial thoughts and gameplay experiences.
Describing The Skybox’s “The Scribies 2025 - Gremlinsesque” has Chad Rutterman, Andy Kinnick, and JJ Artemis judge games from the podcast in categories including “smashiest balls” and “coolest ancient artifact.” Andy Kinnick defends Bloodborne’s Brain of Mensis and Shenmue’s Goro Mihashi, while Chad Rutterman argues for Slitterhead, the PSP Go, and other nominees.
Chad Rutherfens and Andy Kinnick assess Everhood, Chris Nordgren and Jordi Rocha's 2021 indie game, as an inverse rhythm game built around dodging attacks.
Omega moves turn Hades II's magic bar into a build-defining resource rather than a simple extra meter.
Chad and Andy discuss the Game Boy classic Super Mario Land in this episode of No Clip Pocket.
Chad and Andy discuss Splatoon 3's Side Order DLC, a roguelite single-player expansion that refreshes the franchise's campaign format.