This week in the life of jobbing game developers, we reach ALPHA. Cue period appropriate beatnik slang, a disagreement about potato croquettes and why 2D and 3D are such frenemies in isometric CRPGs.

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Skeleton Songs is BACK with a game-dev-centric season all about the inside story of making an indie RPG. In this episode, find out why CRPGs are such hard work, why UI eats time, why we're scared of Disco Elysium, and what's up with Travelling At Night. Also we have a fight about jazz.

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"The final victory of sci-fi is its final defeat," says AK, gnomically, before we sing the Beverly Hills Cop theme tune and talk about trombones. Join us for a discussion of 'the best fiction novel of the 20th century', A Wizard of Earthsea, and its masterful magic system: from Native American folklore to shamanism, demonic to natural theurgy, and eastern wyrms to western protodragons.

Is it written for children or not? What is 'Equilibrium'? Why is 'clot of shadow' so upsetting, and what does it have to do with Cultist Simulator?

In memory of Ursula Le Guin, and little Hoag.

Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:

- A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin
- City of Illusions, by Ursula Le Guin
- Cultist Simulator, by us