Mark Essen Discusses Torture, Nostalgia, and Why His Video Games are So Fun to Play

We spoke to Mark Essen at our NY Event while he was setting up his three games that we then had the opportunity to play with him: Jetpack Basketball, NIDHOGG, and The Thrill of Combat. To our surprise, he claimed the appealing modern aesthetics of the games are simply an aftereffect of his player-centric design, not what you would expect from the youngest artist in The New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” show.

Follow this link to download all Essen’s games to play yourself (Flywrench is a personal favorite), and this one to get tips from Essen himself.

Want to play these art video games projected on the big screen? They’ll be at our London event on July 17th, old-school Nintendo controllers and all.