I am so right there with you. You've been in games much longer than I have, but I think for those of us in the 20+ year bracket, there's been this steadily growing feeling of something fraying and coming apart. (I suppose there are a lot of reasons to feel that way more broadly in the world.) Disconnected. I completely resonate with your comment about having a deep appreciation for the production accomplishment of AAA, and the gem-hunting expedition that is the indie market -- and somehow this leaves a kind of malaise that's a big part nostalgia but something else as well. AND yes, Minecraft! I have such mixed feelings because as an online game operation I'm finding it miserable to work with as a sysadmin for my son's server (and this offends me on some kind of deep level, colored by general corporate animosity) -- but I was just yesterday showing a designer friend the book Minecraft STEM Lab and the profiles of some of the things creators are doing with it independently now. (Like Templecraft! https://www.thespace.org/commission/templecraft/ ) And telling my husband a few days ago that Minecraft servers are today what MUDs were when I was a teenager -- small, intimate environments where the continuum between player and builder was an indistinguishable gradient. We live in an era of ambiguity that seems to approach toxic levels, but congruently the possibility space is richer than it's ever been.
"The magic system, used to manifest objects and restore scenes in the play area, involves holding the mask in one hand while performing a series of clicks and waves over it with the other hand." Is that for real? That's amazing.
I am so right there with you. You've been in games much longer than I have, but I think for those of us in the 20+ year bracket, there's been this steadily growing feeling of something fraying and coming apart. (I suppose there are a lot of reasons to feel that way more broadly in the world.) Disconnected. I completely resonate with your comment about having a deep appreciation for the production accomplishment of AAA, and the gem-hunting expedition that is the indie market -- and somehow this leaves a kind of malaise that's a big part nostalgia but something else as well. AND yes, Minecraft! I have such mixed feelings because as an online game operation I'm finding it miserable to work with as a sysadmin for my son's server (and this offends me on some kind of deep level, colored by general corporate animosity) -- but I was just yesterday showing a designer friend the book Minecraft STEM Lab and the profiles of some of the things creators are doing with it independently now. (Like Templecraft! https://www.thespace.org/commission/templecraft/ ) And telling my husband a few days ago that Minecraft servers are today what MUDs were when I was a teenager -- small, intimate environments where the continuum between player and builder was an indistinguishable gradient. We live in an era of ambiguity that seems to approach toxic levels, but congruently the possibility space is richer than it's ever been.
exactly
I wonder if you would like this game if you haven’t already played it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Under_Presents
Looks cool, but I do not have a VR rig.
"The magic system, used to manifest objects and restore scenes in the play area, involves holding the mask in one hand while performing a series of clicks and waves over it with the other hand." Is that for real? That's amazing.