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 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.
one of the best games ever.
yume nikki
drop effects in the door room
i was really enchanted with this game's surreal style as a kid (and still am now, of course). it's funny, though - it's so simple! like, most of the worlds are actually pretty sparse, with connections to only one, maybe two places. and yet despite that... the world feels so interconnected and weirdly cozy. i can still trace those paths and connections in my mind, even now.
lonely places, scary places, beautiful places... i hope i can create a world like this someday, somehow.
rollercoaster tycoon
the music is nice here
there are definitely more compelling sim/tycoon games out there (openTTD comes to mind) but this has a special place in my heart as one of the earliest games i ever played. on a basic level it's just fun: building coasters is awesome (even if you're bad at it, which i am). there's also something deeper here though: something about the art is weirdly charming. the maps are larger than the park space you're allotted to build in, and those out-of-bounds places contain little dioramas - abandoned mines, highways, forests.
i remember playing on 'bumbly beach' and zooming out to find rows and rows of identical, 90s-style american suburbs. there was something kind of haunting about this to me.
deadly rooms of death
wait - you've got food? i'm starving!
i often point to DROD 3 as a really good, self-contained entry, but this is MY favorites page and i can just say all of these games are really dear to me.the puzzles themselves range in quality a lot... it's kind of interesting to see this series go from monster slaughter rooms to deliberate and tight monster manipulation puzzles over the course of decades. still, every one of these games is engaging, and i think that's due to the art and storytelling. it's a story about epistemic questions not just on the macro level of 'what is truth?' but also the interpersonal level - who can i trust? it's kind of awesome and you don't really see this kind of theme explored that well in games. it's also just, super pretty. i especially like the ui and how each monster is animated on different frames. it makes the entire screen so pleasing to look at - like a little box of jewels.
petscop
we can investigate this together
imagine you're (i'll put this in polite terms) a shy, nerdy, introverted person. you've been this way for as long as you can remember - maybe even to the chagrin of others. (probably to the chagrin of others, let's be fair. especially to your family.) it makes it a bit harder to connect with people. consequently, you grow up... a little bit isolated. very isolated, actually. isolated, and deeply alone at times. you curse yourself. you wonder why you turned out this way, why things seem to be so hard for you. you try to make connections, but you're not interested in the things most people are. you turn further inward into strange hobbies, like old video games. is it an escape? is the rest of the world just not interesting? whatever the case, you eventually grow up. you become a semi-functional adult, somehow, and can look back on all this with some distance; the worst parts of it half-forgotten.
and then you find something.
it turns out, there was a reason. it wasn't just a stroke of bad luck. there was a reason why you suffered the way you did. not only that, but what you found - that fucking thing that can explain it, all of it - just so happens to be a video game - a thing that's still an obsession for you. so of course, you play it. it's not much at first, but slowly, it reveals the answers to you. it hits you that you were intended to become someone else. the dreadful atmosphere in that house wasn't just your imagination. the resentment was real; you weren't what they intended you to be.
in your shock, you explain everything you've learned to your friend - your closest friend, maybe even your only true friend. (you always had trouble making friends, after all, so this person is probably quite precious to you). they merely smile and nod, seemingly half-interested in the details of your story. not because they aren't paying attention, but because they know all of this already. they grew up with that same alienation, that same self-doubt, and came to discover the truth a long time ago.
they've waited a long time for you to finally realize the truth as well. they've waited, and waited, and waited - even keeping something horrible alive - so that the evidence wouldn't disappear. so that you could both walk together, hand in hand, out of the darkness. not only as friends, but as a real family.
i'm making it sound nicer than it is. it's a scary story. sometimes i still get scared thinking about it. but i think it's a very beautiful one too. to be able to be free. to look across the room and see a vision of yourself, smiling, sitting contentedly. no longer half-born.
knytt stories
among knytts and other creatures, many stories about Juni are being told.
it was so fun to just lurk the nifflas forums and download random levels back in the day. i was too young to contribute anything of value then, but i had a blast playing this game. juni just controls so well and some of the powerups you can get are really inventive.
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.
maplestory
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not much to say here other than this is probably the mmo i spent the most time playing, and that i did it with a diversity of people - both friends i met online and friends i knew from school. i can still sort of trace the shape of the map - the one i remember, at least - in my memories. warm summer nights watching a tv show in the background while i failed at another jump quest...