The Sisterhood of Dada

Since the beginning of western fandom surrounding the works of Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture, there has been a plethora of misinformation frequently repeated as fact. There were various contributing factors to this, most heavily that Suda's games were translated out-of-order, with some still yet to be translated at all. Because of this, information about Japanese-exclusive games did not disseminate from various players, but from limited sources who did not necessarily know Japanese themselves, using combinations of Google Translate and assumptions to attempt to piece together the mystique of these forbidden games that were, somehow, connected to the games that had been translated up to this point. These days much of that misinformation has been dispelled as more and more people got to play most of (though still not all) the games for themselves. But misinformation seems to swirl around Suda regardless; articles reporting on him and their comment sections still aren't quite

"Isn't that pretty much what we did last time? I didn't hear any complaints back then..." There's a certain accepted cultural narrative about the difference between the two Hotline Miami games. It generally goes as follows: the first game, Hotline Miami , is a surreal story that leaves several questions wide-open, interested more in its presentation and mood than in lore. Conversely, the second and final game, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number , is understood as being a more grounded story that explains the mysteries of the first game in an understandable way. This seems outright wrong to me. It presents a mythic view of the surrealism of the first game when really, the first game's story is rather self-explanatory; there wasn't much there to explain (other than, perhaps, what happened in San Francisco, and the contents of Jacket's photo). Conversely, the second game's story is sprawling and many of its threads don't really go anywhere in par

Let’s talk about Forrest Kaysen - in Spy Fiction. Forrest Kaysen left a major impression on many players of Deadly Premonition , from his initial appearance where York made the “FK” connection, to the bizarre sequence where you walk his dog, to his eventual role in the game’s main story. Many such players, then, must have been surprised to find out that he also appeared as a character in the director’s previous game, Spy Fiction . But other than appearance and name, the characters were totally different, having different personalities, occupations and roles in the plot. Unrelated reusing of a character design… right? Right? Spoilers for both games, but mostly DP - if you haven’t played Spy Fiction , reading this will tell you what happens to Kaysen in it, but it won’t spoil any big SF reveals or anything.