{"podcast":{"title":"Mythic Mind Games","slug":"mythic-mind-games-7349259","podcast_index_feed_id":7349259,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/6633890/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind-games--6633890","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/3588227e4cbf4812925340010110d1e7.jpg","author":"Andrew Snyder","episode_count":55,"summary":"Pursuing wisdom through primary and secondary worlds. Mythic Mind Games is a conversation about video games as secondary worlds. We look at story, design, and the moral imagination of play: what games train us to love, fear, hope for, and become. This is not a review show and not a strategy guide. Episodes sit with particular games and ask what they are doing to the soul. Grief, home, identity, freedom, and wonder show up here as often as bosses and endings. Hosted by Andrew Snyder, Ph.D., alongside friends from the Fellowship. Listen on your own, then continue the discussion at mythicmindfellowship.com.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-28T20:20:56.896254+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mythic-mind-games-7349259"},"episode":{"title":"52 - Video Games and the Psyche: Agency, Anxiety, and Upbuilding","slug":"52-video-games-and-the-psyche-agency-anxiety-and-upbuilding","published_at":"2026-09-11T10:00:03+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mythic-mind-games-7349259/52-video-games-and-the-psyche-agency-anxiety-and-upbuilding","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mythic-mind-games-7349259","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/52-video-games-and-the-psyche-agency-anxiety-and-upbuilding--75042142","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75042142/52.mp3","summary":"Video games are not only amusement. They are structured existential experiences: forks that press agency, anxiety, identity, desire, and failure on a real self, whether the world on screen is \"primary\" or secondary. In this Mythic Mind Games season opener for Exploring the Psyche, Dr. Andrew Snyder (professor of philosophy and theology) makes the case for approaching games with seriousness and discernment. Drawing on Tolkien's fairy-stories (escape, consolation, recovery), C.S. Lewis and Kierkegaard on living other lives through story, and Kierkegaard's vertigo of freedom, he asks what play does to attention and desire: if games can deform the self, they can also upbuild it when wisdom is what we seek in the marketplace. Topics include choice practiced vs choice observed, embodied attention, character archetypes as self-revelation, noble goals vs grind, failure and grit (including Clair Obscur), and why \"sticky\" decisions make play feel moral. A first season conversation on grief in video games is teased. Join us for our season of \"Exploring the Psyche\" at https://mythicmindfellowship.com YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/-BS688rdNW8","meta_description":"Video games are not only amusement. They are structured existential experiences: forks that press agency, anxiety, identity, desire, and failure on a real…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1867,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/mythic-mind-games-7349259/episodes/52-video-games-and-the-psyche-agency-anxiety-and-upbuilding/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mythic-mind-games-7349259/52-video-games-and-the-psyche-agency-anxiety-and-upbuilding.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}