first land
in the far reaches of the sea, away from winds of commerce, an image forms...
do you ever look up and glance at apartment building windows? i do. on long nights out, when my vision is already blurry from drinking and fatigue, i scan the balconies for lit rooms. you can see shadows dance, cast by warm or harsh light. i wonder to myself - who's in there? what kind of life does that person live?
first land is the only game to capture and deal with these feelings. sometimes i still find them; strangers wandering the land like myself. we follow each other around for a while, and then they're gone.
this game is teeming with secrets, and finding them requires really thinking about what you can do, and how you can interact with the world. it doesn't expect everyone to find everything, and that's okay.
it's very, very close to my heart. i hope you play it sometime.
yume nikki
drop effects in the door room
this game has such a surreal style that totally enchanted me when i first played it. there is nothing else like this game. it's amazing how simple it is, too! each time i revisit it, most of the worlds feel so much sparser than i last remember. each map actually connects to only one or two other places; despite that it feels like an extremely interconnected and weirdly cozy space.
i can still trace over those paths, even now.
rollercoaster tycoon
the music is nice here
this isn't the most compelling sim/tycoon style game in the world (openTTD is also a favorite of mine) but it does have a special place in my heart as one of the earliest games i ever played. it is still pretty fun: i could never get the hang of building coasters, but it's enjoyable to just see them move around.
there's something deeper, though, with this games art and scenery. it's weirdly charming in a way i'm bad at describing. the maps are often larger than the park space you can build on or buy - in the out-of-bounds, little dioramas often litter the map. setpieces like abandoned mines, highways, and forests... there is a real lonely quality to them that makes the game feel a bit mysterious.
i remember playing on "bumbly beach" and zooming out to see rows and rows of identical, 90s-style american suburbs, with polished dark blue windows. it was a very strange scene to me back then.
deadly rooms of death
wait - you've got food? i'm starving!
this whole series is very dear to me, which makes it kind of hard to sum up why i like it... it's hard to put a neat little bow on a series that is decades old! the puzzles run the gamut in quality and style, but that sort of adds to its charm; it's interesting to see the early entries go from slaughter rooms and hidden information puzzles to tight and challenging linchpin based design.
still, each one of these games is engaging. the art and storytelling is always top notch. drod's bread and butter is interpersonal stories about what to believe, who to trust, and what kind of attitude you should take on against a friend, possible friend, or enemy.
the game itself looks like a little box of jewels, especially how each monster is animated on different frames. it's just so pleasing to look at.
petscop
we can investigate this together
imagine you're a shy, nerdy, introverted person. (i'm putting it in polite terms.) you've been this way for as long as you can remember - maybe even to the irritation of others. (okay, let's be fair: probably to the irritation of others - especially your family). it makes it a bit harder to connect with people, to really feel present in the world.
consequently, you grow up... a little bit isolated.
isolated, and at times, deeply alone.
you begin to curse yourself. you wonder why you turned out this way; why things seem to be so hard for you.
some of it you recognize as your own fault - after all, with that isolation comes stubbornness, maybe a sardonic attitude, or even a mean streak.
sometimes, you do try to make connections, but it's difficult. you're not interested in a lot of the things other people are. this necessitates a further shift inward - to strange and silly hobbies, like video games. you find yourself drawn to odd things, and for a while, you might even feel at peace.
time passes.
eventually, you grow up. somehow, you become a semi-functional adult, and can look back on all of it with some distance. sure, you might not have hit all the "classic" milestones expected of you, but you turned out okay. even the worst parts, the ones that made you curl up into a ball and cry, distraught - even those are already half-forgotten.
and then you find something.
it wasn't random, after all. it wasn't a stroke of bad luck, or chance, or just not fitting in. there was a reason why you suffered the way you did. if that wasn't enough, the thing you found - the thing that can explain it all - just so happens to be a video game, that old obsession of yours.
obviously, you play it. you have to. it's not much at first, but slowly, it reveals the answers. no wonder they were irritated by you: you were intended to become someone else.
you start to remember the dreadful atmosphere of that house. now it makes sense. the air of resentment wasn't just in your imagination. you existed for a purpose, and you didn't fulfill it.
you explain what you've learned to your closest, most trusted friend. (it has always been hard to make friends, so this person is quite precious to you). they nod along to your story, only half interested in the details. you feel a little bad, as if you're boring them. (you have always felt like you are boring or burdening them).
that's not the case, though. in truth, they already know all of this. they are much more like you than you think. they grew up with that same alienation, that same self-doubt: and in fact, they already came to understand everything long ago.
they've been waiting, waiting, waiting. hoping one day they can tell you the truth as well. something horrible had to be kept alive, so that the last vestiges of evidence wouldn't disappear.
what you find together after that journey can't really be explained. after the revelation, a feeling of calmness spreads over your body. you both walk together, hand in hand, out of the darkness. not only as friends, now, but as a real family, as a replacement for those broken bonds that wouldn't take hold in childhood.
i'm making everything sound much nicer than it is. it's a scary story, and a sad one, too. sometimes, when i'm awake late at night, in the darkness, i still get scared thinking about it. but more than anything, it's a beautiful story. it's a story about being free. to be able to look across the room and see a vision of yourself, clean-pressed blue and white dress, sitting contentedly. smiling. no longer half-born.
knytt stories
among knytts and other creatures, many stories about Juni are being told.
when this game was still new, it was so much fun to just browse the nifflas forums and play whatever levels showed up from time to time. i'm a little sad i was too young to contribute anything of value. juni controls so well, and some of the powerups are really inventive (i love the ghost eye that permanently makes certain blocks/obstacles exist in the world). people still make levels of course, and there are more powerful mod tools available, but i haven't taken as much of a look at the modern stuff. maybe i should sometime.
some levels i remember enjoying:
- unclesporky: don't eat the mushroom
- okay everyone knows this one. but i'd feel bad if i didn't put it here.
- rrc2soft: colours
- an inventive platformer where you can choose your own path. not too tricky, but fun.
- anyndel & drakkan: gaia
- a huge playground to explore. i loved this as a kid.
- drakkan: training ground
- this was hard and a bit bizarre. sticks out.
- almightyzentaco: dark sky of wish mountain
- a classic exploration level. really nice
- nik the b: weird / weird 2
- just some very silly joke levels, but i found them quite charming
- googoogjoob: capitalism
- another silly level
opera omnia
many years ago, when I was a young man, there was a great war...
hard to explain just what it is that makes this work so well. i could point to the more superficial stuff (the music and ui really make it feel appropriately unnerving) or the gameplay (which genuinely gave me headaches until i could wrap my brain around the central conceit). i think if you read parts of the story without context they'd feel a bit boring and obvious, but reaching the end of it yourself, the full complexity and terrible atmosphere of the game sets in.
anodyne 2
some say that life is a circle... madness! all things grow from a point - a center. everything to come was already here: it melts out from a tiny capsule, like a sponge in bloom.
one of the most moving queer coming of age stories. my connection to christianity is a bit weirder than most people i think; i never really internalized it as much as other kids did, although i still had to deal with it growing up etc. a lot of stories about religion and fighting that sort of conditioning bore me, but not this one. it's hard not to relate to nova's guilt or willingness to always blame herself first. maybe i was more affected by that upbringing than i realize.
the exploration is fun and the environments are so beautiful and haunting. the metacoins are one of the coolest twists i've ever seen in a video game. i tried to get all of them but i think i missed some skippable ones. ah well. i should make another go at it someday.
maplestory
@@@@@@
the mmo of the mmo era that i spent the most time playing, that i remember the most fondly, and that i played with the most diverse group of people: online friends, irl friends, mixes of the two... the scale of the world felt fun and mysterious. i liked when you had to take big airships to get around different continents.
memories of warm summer nights, staying up late, playing while watching something in the background as i failed at another jump quest...
homestuck
OF COURS3 WH4T K1ND OF 4WFUL C1V1L1Z4T1ON WOULDNT 1NV3NT OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S
i started reading this not long after it began, in around 2010. i only finished it in 2025, long after it had concluded. i can only sum it up as bookends on a particular chapter of my life.
i think around ~2012-2013, the peak of the "fandom", is when i grew to dislike it a bit. in fairness, part of this is because it's a very long and meandering story that i was getting sick of, but i think some of it had to do with the fact that i was a teenager who resented the kind of people who liked it and had made it popular.
i remember around this time a particular video was going around - a group of kids, in troll cosplay, taking turns spitting into a bucket at a restaurant. (it's something from the story, don't worry about the particulars if you aren't familiar). it was shared with the usual "cringe" video context: to make the viewer feel superior, to laugh at a bunch of loser nerds embarrassing themselves.
sure, it's a gross video. but anyone who is laughing at something like that is not much better, at least in their hearts. i spent a lot of my teenage years as a repressed and depressed person, and i almost think i would have been happier spitting in a bucket in public instead. you can laugh at "cringe", but anyone willing to be cringe has an earnestness and openness that it took me a long time to feel.
say what you will about the fandom, but the comic still holds up as an achievement. hussie's brand of humor is kind of hard to describe but it's still pretty funny, outside of the... more questionable bits. the final ending arc, which involves the protagonists meeting alternate versions of their own guardians, has a kind of catharsis to it that i haven't seen anything else really recreate.
the northern caves
to remind herself that this was untrue -- that her scores of unnamed, beloved Cherubim even now depended on her -- she held up her left hand and inspected her index finger, where indeed the scar remained, the scar that would never vanish.
a phpBB love letter that gets to the heart of obsession and obligation. if you have ever felt strongly, very strongly, that the world is wrong, that something is deeply amiss, you will relate to this. that overwhelming sensation of duty, seeing the people you love and crying for them, thankful that they can enjoy their lives without feeling similarly crushed.
my own "mundum" has taken different forms over the years, but in my dark moments, i find myself inexorably drawn to that same brutal sense of responsibility.
knytt underground
...and then there was an explosion.
it is rare that a game like this gets made nowadays. a game that is really huge, totally filled to the brim with secrets, and yet so small and personal. it makes me happy to see these same characters and places from nifflas's older games, re-imagined in a story about grappling with personal demons. it's a heartfelt and real story, about real fears.
the game itself is beautiful and the movement tech that you can do is incredible. you'd think this would be a "metroidvania" but it's not, and it's better for it. it just feels so good to move around, to do little platforming puzzles and take in the gorgeous scenery.
roblox
you dreamed it, now build it!
this is a game from my childhood that i played from around 2008-2009. i still experience it sometimes; not through playing it (my account has long since become inaccessible to me) but through discourse about it. i had a lot of fun with it back in the day, when it wasn't as well known. it was so cool to be able to design spaces to hang out in and games to play with your friends. i don't doubt it's bad now - we've all heard the stories about child exploitation (when i played, it was not possible to convert robux to real money).
i hope that somehow the kids on that space can still have fun, despite the issues. for me, this game was a reprieve from my first period of deep, deep depression. this also marked the time when my friendships and social life shifted from people i knew from school towards people i met online. it would be a while until i met like-minded friends in the real world. the friends i made on roblox were an eclectic bunch who helped me through everything as i struggled through that time of sadness. i can only hope they are still doing okay now - wherever they are.
my last memory of playing this game is building a house with the last friend i knew who was still active. we both knew this was probably the last thing we'd ever do in roblox. it's still there - saved on my old profile.
void stranger
for these defects, and for no other evil, we now are lost and punished just with this; we have no hope and yet we live in longing.
my feelings about this game shift a lot. as a puzzle game... it's okay. it tries to do a lot of unconventional things; some of them land, others don't. part of me thinks that if this was a "traditional" puzzle game in the style i'm accustomed to (linear, with tightly focused levels) i'd enjoy it more.
on the other hand... the story is really incredible. i have not really encountered anything that deals with the themes void stranger does, outside of maybe my own work. i wish i had come up with it myself.
desktop dungeons
ut sit semper felicem terra timebat monstra
it's my ultimate comfort game. i've played hours and hours of this over the years. i forget about it for a while, and then inevitably return to it to play hours and hours more.
i think it's ultimate success is that every class feels fun and interesting to play - the systems allow for so many different kinds of run and playstyle to fit whatever mood you're in. sometimes you want to play a tinker and create a cool build with items; other times you want to play an orc assassin and stack conversion bonus until the dungeon breaks. it's so fun!
return