m dot strange

S6 E223 Hater | Nightmare Puppeteer by -M- (Apr 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes April 22, 2026 Leave a reply

In this episode of Completely Machinima Reviews, Damien Valentine, Ricky Grove, Phil Rice, and Tracy Harwood discuss Eater, a character vignette of a larger work (Hate Speech). The film is a provocative experimental short by M (formerly M dot Strange), created using Nightmare Puppeteer. The conversation explores machinima, AI-generated voices, Unreal/indie animation tools, absurd humor, avant-garde filmmaking, and the film’s sharp social commentary on junk food, global warming, and corporate culture.

This is a deep dive into one of the most unusual works in experimental digital cinema—touching on ragdoll physics, AI animation workflows, satire in machinima, and the artistic philosophy behind Nightmare Puppeteer, the low-cost indie animation tool that embraces chaos, randomness, and creativity.

Whether you’re into machinima reviews, experimental film analysis, M dot Strange, indie animation software, or digital art and AI storytelling, this episode offers a fascinating discussion on style, meaning, and outsider creativity.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • Eater film review
  • M / M dot Strange’s artistic style
  • Nightmare Puppeteer on Steam
  • AI voice performance in animation
  • Satire, absurdism, and social critique
  • Global warming and food culture in experimental film
  • Ragdoll physics and improvisational animation
  • Avant-garde machinima and internet-native storytelling

Audio only version of this episode



Youtube version of this episode

Show notes & links

“Eater” from “HATE SPEECH: THE MOVIE (Coming soon to our Telegram) by (-M-), released 11 October 2023

Download Nightmare Puppeteer on Steam here

If you want to know more about M Dot Strange’s most iconic work, his most well known film is called We Are the Strange, which was shown at Sundance Film Festival in 2007 –

Completely Machinima Interview: M dot Strange on Nightmare Puppeteer

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes October 26, 2021 Leave a reply



Ricky has been writing a series of articles on working with Nightmare Puppeteer, a game whose function is to allow you to create machinima movies. This is for renderositymagazine.com. As part of the series, he interviewed the developer and filmmaker, M dot Strange (a name he doesn’t like, so we came up with Animan Puncture). We spoke with him about the game and his new film, M doll, which was originally supposed to premiere in an interactive version on Steam on October 29, 2021. But just after this interview took place, Steam removed the game, and M dot is, well, steamed about it! I’m sure he’ll come up with a new distributor, but the date will probably be moved back. 

M Doll by M Dot Strange (Nightmare Puppeteer)

LINKS

Nightmare Puppeteer

M doll movie

Imagination Rabbit

12 Weeks with Nightmare Puppeteer

There’s also a video version of this interview on Ricky’s Youtube channel.

Completely Machinima S1 Ep 21 News (October 2021)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes October 14, 2021 Leave a reply

Ricky, Phil, Tracy and Damien discuss updates, new releases and toolsets that will be of interest to machinima creators everywhere!



Show Notes and Links

Mad God by Phil Tippett, trailer

Nightmare Puppeteer Documentary

Nightmare Puppeteer

Nightmare Puppeteer Documentary

Imagination Rabbit Channel tutorial

Telegram

The World Beyond, Ricky’s series

Free Game Planet

Core Games

Diablo 2 Resurrected

Blender 3.0 release 1 December 2021 and release notes

Nvidia Omniverse Machinima update – 5 tips

Nvidia Omniverse Create design contest

Quake Remastered

Age of Empires 4

Let’s Play – Shooting a scene in Nightmare Puppeteer

Ricky Grove Blog August 26, 2021 Leave a reply

All four of us at Completely Machinima decided to each to a short Let’s Play video. My choice was to shoot a scene in M dot Strange’s game Nightmare Puppeteer (on Steam at $4.99). After creating a puppet in Adobe Character Animator (another program I like very much), I use that character to narrate my Let’s Play inside of Nightmare Puppeteer. If you are interested in either of the programs just click the highlights and you can find out more.

If you are having trouble seeing the video, try this link: https://youtu.be/8qZonW7xyNo

Completely Machinima Interview: Slavo Strangeovich

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes April 10, 2021 Leave a reply

And Now For Something Completely Machinima is a long-form podcast devoted to machinima (movies made in game engines), real-time technologies and virtual reality. This month (April 2021) we are splitting our podcast into four sections which will post once a week: Machinima News (April 1), Machinima Films (April 8), Machinima Discussion (April 15), and a Special “Build a Machinima PC” podcast (April 22).



This episode was produced by Ricky Grovejoined by hosts Phil RiceTracy Harwoodand Damien Valentine.

Summary:  Ricky interviews Slavo Strangeovich (formerly known as m dot strange) about his new game “Nightmare Puppeteer”, which is actually a great machinima-creation tool. 

Contact and Feedback for this show: https://completelymachinima.com/#talk

Fully detailed and link-infused notes for this episode are available at:
  Address is coming

Slavo Interview

Imagination Rabbit Youtube channel

https://bit.ly/2QJkjpA

Nightmare Puppeteer on Steam-like

Nightmare Puppeteer on Steam (steampowered.com)

Nightmare Puppeteer website

Nightmare Puppeteer

Time links

1:31         Sets in Nightmare Puppeteer

3:35         Running Man set

5:35         Slavo corrects Ricky: He outsourced set creation like a good capitalist

6:48         Slavo on “Rando” characters and their use in Nightmare Puppeteer

8:28         Public response to Nightmare Puppeteer

9:28         Ricky can’t read his own handwriting but asks question anyway

10:17      Twitch Integration 

12:53      Fast overview on how to create machinima in Nightmare Puppeteer

14:38      How to record video in Nightmare Puppeteer

15:31      Hidden features in Nightmare Puppeteer

17:48      How to bring in custom content

19:45      Ricky’s Strange Opera idea and how to remove singers voice from a recording

21:14      Aida with Caruso and music credits

               link to Caruso recording at archive.org (public domain

https://bit.ly/39lvnj4