About

What IS Nightmare Mode?

I’m glad you asked.

Nightmare Mode refers to a group of outsiders, insiders, aliens, starfighters, and the occasional human being who refuse to work within the marketing machine. Fuck that. We write thoughtfully, meticulously, critically, sometimes absurdly about games, their industry, and their surrounding culture.

The following is the list of authors you can expect to read every month on their  “special day,” with a couple operating more in the wings. Outside submissions happen, and pitches for those can be sent to patricia at nightmaremode dot net

The Cast

Patricia Hernandez: Editor and co-founder of Nightmare Mode. Lives on the internet, loves Persona, SNSD, Gears of War, GIFs, and maudlin introspection.  This song, and this person, will always make her ache. May also be spotted on Kotaku and Bit Creature.

Tom Auxier: Co-Founder. He’s played games since he was a wee lad, starting with Sonic 2, where he couldn’t beat the first level. He’s come a long way since then. He is a lover of narrative who writes fiction, comics, and about games by day, fighting crime by night. His favorite games are: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Planescape: Torment, Super Mario World, Demon’s Souls, Half Life 2, Persona 3, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Other things he feels passionately about are the film The American Astronaut, indie rock, film noir, and the X-Men, whom he knows more about than you.

Fernando Cordeiro: Co-founder. Former ergonomic scientist, telecom analyst, brewery worker, management consultant and currently dealing with CRM and Gamification, Fernando isn’t actually in the gaming business – he just likes it too damn much. Also likes Sergio Leone movies, beer brewing, Psychonauts, No More Heroes and long walks on the beach. Dislikes happy friendly people and olives.

Alois Wittwer: A straight, white, male who likes video games; Alois Witter has spent most of his life trying to escape from a walking cliché. He wishes nothing more than to set up shop in an old, dusty home in the forest and while away his years writing and reading. Always striving to be friendly and optimistic, he will muffle the wails of your frightened soul.

Porpentine: i hate videogames

Rachel Helps: Contributing editor. believes that videogames deserve academic attention but not academic obscurity. She’s a married Mormon living in Utah, a grad school dropout, and an organist. She loves lemon curd.

Dylan Holmes is a 20-something from Seattle. A technical writer by day, he spends his evenings trying to balance voracious media consumption with some modicum of a social life (like Spider-Man, but with biannual Steam sales in place of Dr. Doom). He blogs about games and other screen-things at Augmented Vision.

Dan Cox: Dan Cox: Student. Teacher. Developer. Audio Producer. Writer. In that order.

Alan Williamson: Contributing Editor. Alan used to be a Sega fan, but he’s a bit more well-rounded now. His favourite game is Panzer Dragoon Saga. Alan edits Split Screen, has contributed to the New Statesman, produces ‘Blogs of the Round Table’ for Critical Distance, and he’s working on a top-secret project known only as ‘Quantum’ that will be finished soon. Honest.

Ethan Gach

Mattie Brice: currently studying Creative Writing at San Francisco State University with an eye on game design. Between studies, she travels to game conferences and conventions, often to speak about her experiences in the game industry as well as ideas from her areas of expertise. She is involved with video game media as a critic and writing new games journalism, speaking about how she fits into gaming culture as a transgender, mixed-race woman. Mattie’s time in the industry has encouraged her to pursue game design and join in with the new life games are creating for the world. She now does freelance and collaborative writing and game design work.

Johnny Kilhefner

Andrew Vanden Bossche

Robert Ramnauth

alex: sweat and oil, flesh and fogged steel, servos whirring rhythmic in the night – it’s true, it’s true, it’s brilliant. the metal iris opens, slick

Jill Schar: a NYC-based writer with a double-major in Media Studies and Medieval Studies from Vassar College and an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Zelda. She is currently writing tech articles for The Daily, doing #NaNoWriMo, and probably on Twitter at this very moment. Tweet her!

Cameron Kunzelman

Line Hollis: a researcher and writer living in the Boston area. She spends most of her time thinking about people, interfaces, and the weird things that happen in between them. Topics of concern include experimental games, narrative mechanics, and roleplaying. Blogs at linehollis.com and tweets @LineHollis.

J Chastain

Jordan Rivas: wrote his first third-person bio at the age of 15, and he’s been mostly terrible at them ever since. He started off as a sportswriter, then started reviewing sports video games, and has taken to writing about games since then. He’s mostly writing about games that affect him personally or show him something about himself he’d missed. He appreciates Quentin Tarantino movies, foreign films, American indie movies, liberty, tea, and Batman.

Bill Coberly: is a writer, transcriber, and troublemaker living in Savannah, GA with his wife and a particularly difficult puppy.  He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Ontological Geek, and has written for Ctrl+Alt+Defeat and Gamechurch in addition.  He can be reached on Twitter at @BillCoberly and by e-mail at william.coberly [at] gmail [dot] com.

Merritt Kopas: trans cyborg writes, teaches, and makes art/games about and around the intersections of gender, space, bodies, and play.

Greg Petrovic: a diamond encrusted skull sitting on a podium, showered by an unending cascade of gold coins. He has also co-written a parody of Twilight (www.fredwardbound.com) and has a blog that he may or may not update in the future (www.octofoil.info).

Richard Clark

Denis Farr

Daphny Drucilla Delight David

Cara Ellison: Also a contributor to PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun and Unwinnable, Cara cheats on writing with full time games production. In between falling in love with everything sometimes she sleeps and finds time for a pint. Please stop her tweeting at @Carachan1. She shouldn’t be up this late.

Phil Tibitoski  is president and co-founder at Young Horses, creators of Octodad. Based in Chicago, IL he is also on the board for the collective Indie City Games striving to connect local independent developers in their pursuits of creation. You can contact Phil on twitter @PTibz.

Jonas Kyratzes: is a transcultural mushroom colony from the planet SR388 which sometimes takes humanoid form in order to infiltrate society as a writer, director and game developer. It can be found on websites such as www.jonas-kyratzes.net, www.landsofdream.net and www.starvingartistskitchen.com, as well as on the site you are currently reading. It is fond of cats.

Zolani Stewart

Craig Bamford

Tami Baribeau

Todd Harper

Jen Shaffer

And of course, our lovely contributors. <3