The Safe Room

Oct 26 2024 29 ep. 86

The Safe Room Podcast artwork

The Safe Room is a monthly survival horror game club podcast. Join hosts Grace (@grace_machine) and Ryan (@BluestRose430) as we delve into the history of the survival horror genre, from popular classics to obscure gems.

We’re going in deep, so break out your dualshocks and load up your emulators. If you can brave haunted mansions and obtuse puzzles, we’ll see you in The Safe Room!

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Episode 28: Silent Hill 2 (2024)

cw: suicide, sexual assault, domestic abuse, alcoholismIt’s time. We delve into the Silent Hill 2 Remake and discuss its handling of the originial game’s themes, the new (and pretty good) combat system, and how it handles (and mishandles) key scenes from the original game. We top it all off with a flurry of listener questions, where we talk game preservation, that damn pizza, a

Episode 27: Crow Country

We talk the toy-like and immaculate Crow Country. We discuss the game's elegant take on survival horror, its consideration of childhood, nostalgia, and its characterful writing. After some listener questions, we get into a sprawling convo about Souls games, the Internet Archive, and our individual plans for October aka the season of Rose!

Episode 26: Dead Space

Content warning: general gore and violence, body horror and limb dismemberment, ableism, misogyny.In this episode, we strategically dismember both versions of 2008 classic Dead Space. We talk about differences, downgrades, and improvements across versions, decide just how good the guns feel to fire, and work through the politics, and psychology, of having a dead wife™.Edwin Evans

Episode 25: Killer7

Content Warnings: general violence, suicide, discussion of abuse and child sexual assault from 59:00 to 1:06:00Grace and Rose explore the at-once simplified and maximalist survival horror action of Killer7! We talk about the thematic power of its ~vibes~, its surprisingly sharp sense of humor, and how wonderful it feels to shoot an enemy in their weak spot. It’s good to be back.

Episode 24: The Silver Case

We talk about the classic detective visual novel The Silver Case! We discuss police procedurals, visual novel aesthetics, mysticism vs. science fiction, and why games should be like television.

Episode 23: Fatal Frame III The Tormented

We talk about the “compilation” game Fatal Frame III: The Tormented which attempts to wrap its two prior games into an overarching narrative, with poignant and evocative results. We discuss its many annoyances, its ambitious structure, terrifying ghosts, and all-timer final cutscene.Post mentioned: “Fatal Frame III: The Tormented Reemerges Today on PSN”Grace’s “Killing

Episode 22: Her Story and Immortality

Content Warnings: sexual assault, death by fire, suicide, self-harmWe discuss modern FMV games Her Story and Immortality. We discuss these cinematic narrative games, their sometimes dazzling, sometimes uneven structures, and have big thoughts about writing narratives games so concentrated on women on camera.

Episode 21: The Evil Within 2

We talk about the unsurprisingly competent and surprisingly comprehensible The Evil Within 2. We discuss the game’s new “open level” structure, even while it imports most of what made The Evil Within so good, how (and whether) the conventional story landed for us, and our favorite bosses and characters.

Episode 20: Resident Evil (2002)

Grace and Rose close out the year with the classic Resident Evil 2002 remake. We discuss the beauty of its fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds, the weirdly arbitary difference in difficulty between the two protagonists, and about how tank controls are good, actually. Towards the end of the episode, we rank all of the games we covered this year.Next time: The Evil Withi

Episode 19: Alan Wake 2

Content Warnings: Suicide, domestic violence, general horror goreIn this ocean-sized episode we tackle the FMV-soaked marvel that is Alan Wake II. We talk about how this feels both like a culmination and maturation of Remedy’s work over the past 20 years and how this is still kinda the same as Max Payne 2. We discuss the game’s delicious ambiguities and contradictions, which so