What's Dangerous to Go Alone?
Dangerous to Go Alone is a new reader-funded independent games blog that avoids discourse, SEO trends, clickbait, and hot takes. We're an independent team analyzing video games as the reflective, humane pieces of art that they are.
They may be collections of ones and zeros, but games can tell us a lot about being alive. They're fun, absolutely, but they can also be probing, confrontational, emotional experiences. We want to help remind people that criticism is a kindness, an act of love, a journey writers invite readers on to uncover some under-explored aspect of life.
Our name comes from The Legend of Zelda, but it isn't just a sly reference. The outside world is scary lately, and a lot of things are uncertain. Although Link got a sword, we hope that our writing can provide comfort and connection in these dark times. Take our writing, our phrases, our thoughts and ideas and know that you are not alone. Take it all, if you'd like.
There are a lot of places where people can earnestly dig into games like this, but there's also so much discord: at any given moment, people will be arguing about difficulty, clothing, mechanics, writing, or water quality (how reflective it is, not potable). So we are trying to create a small haven for the people who love games to talk without fear about indie gems, deconstruct stalwart favorites, interrogate game mechanics, and mess around with the formal conventions of writing and blogging itself.
Every month, we publish a themed zine comprised of a small-handful of thoughtfully analyzed, purposefully engaged writing about games and the ways our humanity is reflected within them. There might even be a few additional articles, commissioned artwork, and more arriving over the next few months as we figure out what we want to be and what our budget is. Which is where you, the reader, come in.
We cannot exist without your help and support. We are a very small team scrounging together change from couch cushions along with some of our own savings. Because we want to pay writers for their work, commission artists for custom images, continue to update the site with fun, silly interactive things. And we don't believe in ads or hedge funds: just high quality writing and healthy editorial practices.
Games media is dying. Games themselves are too. With over 10-thousand layoffs in 2023 and 2024 (not combined), it can be easy to fall into fatalism. But we don't have corporate overlords, or ads, or quotas to hit. All we have is passion, determination, and an unreal amount of stubbornness. Oh, and, I hope, quality writing.
If anything you've read here speaks to you, comforts you, reminds you that you aren't alone, then please consider supporting us by subscribing to the site. Or at least by spreading the word. It's dangerous out there. And I hope that here, you'll find something you want to take with you to make it a little safer.