Gaming In The Wild - Video Game Reviews
May 8, 2026 · 43 min · 21 segments
This week I'm joined by AP Thomson, the developer of Titanium Court, to discuss the release of one of the most creative indie games of the year so far. We talked about magic and mania, fairy stories…
But just before we get into the interview, I will, as always, share a little bit about what I've been playing lately.
It's like a nice, wholesome, comfortable science fiction game, where you're basically exploring a moon base which has several different zones.
There has been, like, a hostile AI takeover up there, um, and you're the sole survivor, and aided by an AI who is for some reason in the robotic body of a small girl for story reasons that will become apparent, and together you have to go and fix this rampant AI problem.
Um, what that means though is exploring a lot of very intricately put together and quite elegantly designed levels.
Um, I'm starting to pick up this sense of what Capcom's level design sensibility is at the moment, having played Resident Evil this year and experienced the absolute wonder and horror of the hospital environment they created for that game, which has these tense sections of exploration that pass, that loop around on each other, secrets, sort of Metroidvania-ish abilities that allow you to pop back to places you've been and open doors and, uh, get resources that can go into power-ups.
And so everything kinda leans together beautifully, like the systems of the game, the power-up systems, the, uh, resource systems, the exploration, the secrets, the skills, the, the skill tree.
It's almost like a light twin for Resident Evil: Requiem, which is obviously a horror game, uh, a gloomy, dark, bloody game.
And something that has been occurring to me as I played it was that it's just a feel-good game.
You know, I've played so many games that have, uh, been on the, the Elden Ring or FromSoft train that have got intentional difficulty, that have, uh, a lot of pushback, that are hostile towards the player, that are inscrutable in terms of mechanics or story or collectibles or lore, um, and there's just been so much of that sloshing around for the last few years that playing Pragmata was almost like a relief.
I was like, "Okay, people are still making these games out there that are just friendly towards the player, want you to have a good time, want you to finish the story, have difficulty options, have, you know, um, plentiful save points, have ways for you to travel back to your hub and cash in your currency.
You can get stronger and then go and try again." And so it's been a real warm bath playing Pragmata.
But just before we get into the interview, I will, as always, share a little bit about what I've been playing lately.
It's like a nice, wholesome, comfortable science fiction game, where you're basically exploring a moon base which has several different zones.
There has been, like, a hostile AI takeover up there, um, and you're the sole survivor, and aided by an AI who is for some reason in the robotic body of a small girl for story reasons that will become apparent, and together you have to go and fix this rampant AI problem.
Um, what that means though is exploring a lot of very intricately put together and quite elegantly designed levels.
Um, I'm starting to pick up this sense of what Capcom's level design sensibility is at the moment, having played Resident Evil this year and experienced the absolute wonder and horror of the hospital environment they created for that game, which has these tense sections of exploration that pass, that loop around on each other, secrets, sort of Metroidvania-ish abilities that allow you to pop back to places you've been and open doors and, uh, get resources that can go into power-ups.
And so everything kinda leans together beautifully, like the systems of the game, the power-up systems, the, uh, resource systems, the exploration, the secrets, the skills, the, the skill tree.
It's almost like a light twin for Resident Evil: Requiem, which is obviously a horror game, uh, a gloomy, dark, bloody game.
And something that has been occurring to me as I played it was that it's just a feel-good game.
You know, I've played so many games that have, uh, been on the, the Elden Ring or FromSoft train that have got intentional difficulty, that have, uh, a lot of pushback, that are hostile towards the player, that are inscrutable in terms of mechanics or story or collectibles or lore, um, and there's just been so much of that sloshing around for the last few years that playing Pragmata was almost like a relief.
I was like, "Okay, people are still making these games out there that are just friendly towards the player, want you to have a good time, want you to finish the story, have difficulty options, have, you know, um, plentiful save points, have ways for you to travel back to your hub and cash in your currency.
You can get stronger and then go and try again." And so it's been a real warm bath playing Pragmata.
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