[PRESS RELEASE] Level Up: Difference Engine Launches Multi-Medium Video Games Anthology featuring Nebula and World Fantasy award-winning creators

19 April 2026, Singapore — Singapore-based independent comics publisher Difference Engine is thrilled to launch Free to Play: A Video Games Anthology, its first collection of works featuring creators from Southeast Asia alongside others from around the world. In critical and cultural responses to video games and gaming culture, this compilation is unprecedented in the way it includes contributions across the mediums of comics, fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and multimedia projects.

Through an open call that received over 180 submissions from from an international array of creators, Free to Play collects a total of 21 works that speak to the thrill of video games, their function as a third space, how they bring people together, and also how they reflect real-life anxieties and horrors that persist beyond the screen. The final selection features creators across seven countries including Canada and Lebanon in a curation put together by four Singapore-based editors and writers: Adan Jimenez, Daryl Lim Wei Jie, Joses Ho, and Natalie Wang. 

Readers can look forward to four guest contributions from acclaimed voices whose works are shaped by speculativeness, experimentation, and visual culture. Free to Play most notably features Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy award-winning speculative fiction writer Ken Liu. On his participation in the anthology, Liu, the author of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories previously shared, “Games as a medium have been incredibly influential for several generations now, yet the critical discourse around them still feels underdeveloped. I hope Free to Play can help to spark these conversations.” Aside from Liu, the other guest contributors are acclaimed poet and 2022 International Dublin Literary Award judge Alvin Pang; Eisner award-winning creator of Fried Rice Erica Eng; and Nebula award-nominee Wen-yi Lee.

Gamers can anticipate works that reference popular games and game franchises like Animal Crossing, Super Mario, Pokémon, Fortnite, and Skyrim. More than just a nod to players and fans, these stories are also a critical look into how these games have become pop culture phenomena as well as a way to parse our lived experiences. Liu’s essay on the visual limitations that Super Mario plays around with as a 2D game, for example, brings a new perspective to how we see or don’t see the world around us (“Side-Scroller”). Those who remember the iconic retro Nokia mobile game Snake will instantly recognise it in “snake on a train”, a visual poem capturing the tragedy of the pixelated creature’s insatiable hunger, pursuit of growth, and the endless cycle that it’s stuck in — a fate also shared by the commuter that’s it’s controlled by.

For readers wanting to jump right into lore and world-building, expect immersive fiction pieces that delve into the minds of characters within video game worlds, whether it’s a soldier on an alien planet who starts reliving his past life in a previous iteration of the game he’s in (“The Short, Sweet Life of Commander Brian”), or non-playable characters (NPCs) threatened by the potential deletion of their game world (“Dawn of Clarandera”). Those who are sceptical of video games as discourse will also be challenged by creative non-fiction essays such as Noor Tannir’s piece on digital death in Fortnite and how it reflects real-world violence and grief (“Press ‘Y” to Reboot”). As accessibility and video games become a bigger part of global conversations, Free to Play also touches on finding community in online multiplayer games as a queer kid (“Boys and Girls Across Dead Worlds”) or a player with disabilities whose world is much less accessible than that of the character they are playing (“Less Than Three Stars”).

Two interactive multimedia pieces are also featured as print works that lead to digital experiences beyond the physical book, entangling both the reader and characters’ journeys as the first-person becomes playable. “memory leak” is a comic-memoir that presents memories as QR codes as it considers how girls are treated in gaming spaces, while “All the Skin(s) You Left Behind” features a “playable” mobile multiplayer online game as a woman reckons with her queer identity.

And for a dash of hope and humour, we have stories capturing heartwarming moments on finding community online through Animal Crossing during the pandemic lockdown (“No Man Is An Island”), or the trials of dating in “Your Inventory is Filling Up Again” which borrows the familiar taxonomy of gaming inventory systems to chart the detritus of objects and memory collected over relationships past and present.

On the process of creating Free to Play, the anthology’s editors share that “Working on this anthology has been a fantastic experience and we are super excited for everyone to read these amazing pieces by new and established writers and artists. We are especially happy to see so many great pieces from our home region of Southeast Asia. The creators’ takes on gaming are at turns fun, sobering, and philosophical, just like video games themselves.”

Felicia Low-Jimenez, Co-Founder and Publisher of Difference Engine says, “Video games have always been a way for people to find each other and themselves. Every Difference Engine project hopes to capture how creators see the world uniquely but also how they resonate globally, and Free to Play especially encapsulates that spirit of conversation and community.”

Free to Play: A Video Games Anthology retails at SG$29.90 and is available for pre-order from 19 Apr 2026 in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei through the Difference Engine webstore (www.differenceengine.sg) and at selected bookstores. 

Free to Play will also be available internationally in early October 2026, distributed by Consortium Book Services & Distribution. Head to differenceengine.sg/intl/ for more information on international releases.

Download the Free to Play: A Video Games Anthology press kit here.

Follow Difference Engine on:
Website: https://differenceengine.sg/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/differenceenginesg
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/differenceenginesg
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/differenceenginesg.bsky.social 

For enquiries, contact:
Olivia Djawoto
Marketing and Communications Manager, Difference Engine
olivia@differenceengine.sg

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Adan Jimenez is a writer, editor, and translator. He is the proud son of Mexican immigrant parents and became an immigrant himself when he moved to Singapore. He has been a gamer since his parents bought him an NES when he was 6 and he played the original Super Mario Bros. with his dad. He has played hundreds of games since then, of every genre and on (almost) every console, including PC and mobile. You can find him playing all kinds of games on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thecomicman/.

Daryl Lim Wei Jie 林伟杰 is a poet, editor and translator from Singapore. His poetry collection, Anything but Human, was a finalist for the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize. He conceptualised two anthologies: Food Republic: A Singapore Literary Banquet, which won a Special Award at the 2023 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, and The Second Link: An Anthology of Malaysian and Singaporean Writing, shortlisted for Best Literary Work at the Singapore Book Awards. He translated Short Tongue, a collection by the Singaporean Chinese poet Wang Mun Kiat. In 2023, He was awarded the Young Artist Award, Singapore’s highest award for young art practitioners. www.darylwjlim.com

Joses Ho is a poet, pro-wrestler, and scientist. As tech sorcerer for SingPoWriMo, he archives and visualises the poetry posted. Joses also has interests in creative computing and generative text. His pamphlet Dogma was shortlisted for the inaugural Paper Jam series in 2021, and his manuscript Moving Downwards in a Straight Line was selected for Manuscript Bootcamp (organised by Sing Lit Station) in 2019. He is also a pro-wrestler and ring announcer with GrappleMax.

Natalie Wang is more likely to play video games or write novel-length fanfictions than write poetry, but still calls herself a poet. She is based in Singapore and has been published in The Fairy Tale Review, Cartridge Lit, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, amongst others. Her book The Woman Who Turned Into A Vending Machine is a collection of poems on metamorphosis, myth, and womanhood. You can find her at www.nataliewang.me.

ABOUT DIFFERENCE ENGINE

Difference Engine is an award-winning independent comics publisher based in Singapore. Powered by stories from Southeast Asia and beyond, we are inspired by diverse, thought-provoking tales told through captivating illustrations by creators both new and experienced.

Like how the invention of the difference engine impacted the world, our goal is to create comics that nudge readers to look at the world differently. As a team of creators ourselves, we see each comic as a collaboration, a conversation, and an opportunity to experiment beyond the printed form to push the boundaries of what comics can be.

In addition to our main publishing line, Difference Engine also publishes DE Shorts, an imprint of short comics that explores a wide range of social issues through lived experience.

Difference Engine is a Potato Productions company co-founded by Felicia Low-Jimenez and Lee Han Shih.

STORIES

A Seat at Venba’s Table (Varsha Sivaram)
All the Skin(s) You Left Behind (Sarah Mak & Nic Chan)
All the Times I was Dragonborn (Nuraliah Norasid)
Boys and Girls Across Dead Worlds (Alex K. Masse)
Dawn of Clarandera (Meihan Boey)
Don’t Start Without Me (Kenneth Lam)
Fast Travel (Adriana X. Jacobs)
God of War (Maya Escobar)
He is You, She’s For You (Hana Yaacob)
It’s Dangerous to Go Alone (Anthony Falleroni)
Less Than Three Stars (Jack Xi)
memory leak (Zhen)
No Man Is An Island (Ellie Black)
Press ‘Y’ to Reboot (Noor Tannir)
Shadow Stone (Erica Eng)
Side-Scroller (Ken Liu)
snake on a train (Judith Huang)
The Last Bonfire (Myle Yan Tay & Natalie M. E. Tan)
The Short, Sweet Life of Commander Brian (Gabriela Lee)
The Writer as Gamer (Alvin Pang)
Your Inventory is Filling Up Again (Wen-yi Lee)