Malfsyde

oops double post....

Pathologic was rad. For me Pathologic triggered an understanding of the possibility that games can be something more than id-level "fun." Pathologic is not a "fun" game at all, but there is something deeper and more satisfying to it that you don't often encounter in games. Buried underneath the bad UI, tacky translation and janky controls there is a strange emotional truth to it that you usually only get from other media. Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now and Schindler's List are not "fun" films. Metamorphosis, Anna Karenina, and The Brothers Karamazov are not "fun" novels. Games have a hard time appealing to something other than the instant feedback, positive reinforcement and constant reward associated with what people call "fun" that I think they often miss the opportunity to use gameplay to actually represent something worth a shit. But damn that game was broken. I guess that kind of added to the charm.

Not gonna lie... the first time I read a synopsis of Firewatch I thought Gone Home + wilderness as well. Narrative exploration game set in a retro timeline about a physically and emotionally isolated character exploring a real-world environment to solve a mystery... in Unity. Obviously there's much more to it than that, but if someone can find a third game that fits that description I want to play it. Now.

Howdy. I discovered the Idle Thumbs podcast through a dream. Chris Remo appeared to me dressed as a wizard to tell me to stop dreaming about video games and listen the podcast where people send in mail about dreaming about video games.