Game & Word Volume 4, Issue 10: Friday, December 12, 2025
Publisher: Jay Rooney
Author, Graphics, Research: Jay Rooney
Logo: Jarnest Media
Table of Contents
Summary & Housekeeping
Feature: “22 Minutes to Midnight” (~45-minute read)1
Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts
Further Reading
Game & Word-of-Mouth
Footnotes
Letter from the Publisher:
Well. This is awkward.
Two years ago, I wrapped up Game & Word Volume 4—our deep dive into time in video games—and moved on to other things. The volume felt complete. We’d dissected Chrono Trigger’s time-traveling shenanigans, explored game preservation, dug into archaeology and temporal narrative… after nine issues, it felt like a nice, tidy package. Case closed. Tempus Ludos, indeed.
And then I played Outer Wilds.
I spent ~40 hours dying repeatedly, getting hopelessly lost and then devoured in the cursed fog of Dark Bramble (damn that place and its anglerfish), and forgetting which planets I’d already explored, to the point I’d sometimes just sitting on Timber Hearth to watch the stars blink out one by one as the supernova approached. Somewhere around my ~100th loop, staring at the husk of a dying universe while that haunting synth loop echoed softly in the background, I realized I simply had to write about this.
The problem was that I’d already closed the book on Volume 4. You know, the volume about time, that would have been the perfect home for a piece about a game about temporal loops, cosmic cycles, and the slow heat death of the universe (I’d even scrapped an entire “Side Quest” sidebar on that latter subject, though I still made it available to paid subscribers).
But I started writing anyway. Piece by piece, one loop at a time, over the course of about a year and change. Now, as the year 2025 draws to a close, it’s finally ready. And where else could it possibly go?
So consider this the proper conclusion to Volume 4; the ending that Tempus Ludos deserves, which I finally found while floating in the wreckage of a dying solar system, strangely at peace with watching everything I’d explored get swallowed by fire.
Indeed, Volume 4 was about time, and sometimes time has a way of circling back on itself, revealing what you thought was an ending you was really just a new beginning (or at least a midpoint) and the loop continues on. The story is never over until you find what you didn’t know you were looking for.
Hence, this article.
So in today’s thrilling and long overdue finale to Volume 4, we’ll explore how Outer Wilds uses time (as mechanically as narratively and philosophically) to craft one of gaming’s most profound meditations on mortality, meaning, and cosmic renewal. Along the way, we’ll dig into archaeology as gameplay (or is it the other way around?), learn how the devs designed a puzzle around quantum mechanics, grapple with the existential despair of watching stars die, and examine how two very different alien civilizations responded very differently to learning the universe is about to switch the lights off forever. There’s a lot to dive into, so I’ll stop yapping here.
Thank you all for your patience, and for sticking with Game & Word through all its detours and evolutions. And if you haven’t played Outer Wilds yet, I’m imploring you… close this tab, go play it, and come back when you’re ready. Some experiences are best discovered firsthand, and this game is very much one of them.
For the rest of you: grab a marshmallow, find a comfortable spot by the campfire, and let’s talk about the end of everything.
It’s about time.
Cheers,
~Jay
Housekeeping:
Let’s go!
Previous Issues
Game & Word’s most recent issues (currently, all of Volume 5) are available to all, free of charge.
Older issues are currently archived and only accessible to paid subscribers. To access the full archive, upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscriptions are currently 95% off, through the end of the year!
Volume 1 (The Name of the Game): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4
Volume 2 (Yo Ho Ho, It’s a Gamer’s Life for Me): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3● Bonus 1 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Bonus 2 ● Issue 8 ● Bonus 3
Volume 3 (Game Over Matter): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 4 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Bonus 1 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 2 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9 ● Podcast 3 ● Bonus 2
Volume 4 (Tempus Ludos): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Video Podcast 2 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9
Volume 5 (AbraCODEabra!): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9
