Unwinnable Editor in Chief David Shimomura chats with co-owner and vice publisher, Sara Clemens.

Team Unwinnable Fireside Chats: Sara Clemens

A Fool’s Cap and a Plate of Ice Cream

What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.

Creep

It’s not the way, only a random Gigerian room
A button to press (ill-advised) at one end
I move forward to start this damned fight and
LoneWolf7862 puts a bullet in my back.
“Aw, come on,” I groan
“Sowwy! Just testing this gun.”

With Friends Like These: A Wasteland Verse of TrickyPixie83

A chat with Heart Machine’s "Creative Director/Studio Head/Too-Many-Hats person," Alx Preston, about the follow-up to Hyper Light Drifter.

Enter the Void: Solar Ash

There I was two months into lockdown, symptom free, convinced the day’s convergence of 5’s and 4’s was auspicious and channeling that cosmic coincidental energy into making tacos, Funfetti cupcakes, and hand-drawn Pee-wee Herman birthday decorations.

Quarantine Be Like…

It's a loving pastiche of Christmas specials that came before, paying homage while simultaneously bringing the form into a hip and artsy now – much like Pee-wee’s Playhouse did with children’s television in general.

Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special

what art do humans make in a desert turned dumpster
planting garbage like seeds in the sand, growing nothing

Detritus

Monsters and ghost stories, supernatural or otherwise, have always been about the deep-seated fears of human beings.

Skeletons in the Closet

Thor: Ragnarok is as big and bright and colorful as the memories of my childhood roller-skating days. It’s a perfect fit for a film featuring a place like Asgard, where the main road to and from is an intergalactic rainbow highway.

More Like RAD-narok

The story is always there, just told out of order. Details change, the event remains. I may be haunting the island, or the island may be haunting me.

The Persistence of Memory: Repeated Treks in Dear Esther

There was room for any story I could possibly tell in this game. Whether I was filling in blanks
or making up everything as I went along, I was in charge of the narrative.

Elegy for a Dead World: Before My Pen Has Gleaned My Teeming Brain

With Sheik, I recognize Zelda right away. We're both girls in boys clothing, moving a little more freely in the world, a little longer.

Masks

Twenty years later, what secrets remain hidden in Cyan’s groundbreaking CD-ROM adventure?

Into the Myst

I’ve played through Journey a dozen or so times, but the scene in the snow never gets any easier. It never gets any less scary, or sad. That’s death, I suppose.

I Was Born For This

A video game tells a story for an audience of one. A great video game lets that audience help tell it. I may never get a chance to play Ripley in the Alien reboot, but my Shepard ain’t a half bad substitute. Especially because she’s mine.

A Shepard Prepares

Here are the 5 major things Pee-wee Herman taught me about life. And Pee-wee Herman taught me everything I know.

Five Lessons Learned from Pee-wee Herman, by a Life-Long Fan

>x me
You are twelve years old. You have just completed the setup of your very first computer, a Macintosh Performa 6300. You may be late the party, but you come in style.

Sara Clemens

Selected work

Projects