PREAMBLE: I wrote a long Thing on this last week and then the power blinked out (portable AC units + vacuum tripped a breaker) and it disappeared. Trying it again.
I've been watching this unfold for a handful of years now, but I feel like it really accelerated when the pandemic started. But I don't know how to refer to it? Is it a trend? Just a rising tide of changing language that's resonating with a growing number of people? I don't want to say "-wave" or "movement", we're well past (I hope) the "WE DEMAND TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY" era of 'New Games Journalism' from the 00s. I don't feel like we have anything to prove anymore. We can just hang out, you know? Like, people talking about and writing about and videoing about games can just exist at this point. It can happen in smaller circles, it can be both public and insular. Like, if I wanted to be a twat I could call it "vibewave" or some equally stupid post-ironic horse garbage. Please don't do that. Please don't name whatever this is with something catchy and clicky. We need a shorthand term for the like, academic approach and school of thought, and you could argue it's an autonomous art movement, but that's really not the part I'm concerned with right now. We can coin a phrase later. Anyway, I'll get on with it.
I'll start with a short list of people doing 'whatever this is', so that if you know their work, you know what I'm referring to:
- ThorHighHeels: (https://www.youtube.com/c/thorhighheels)
- Kimimi: (https://kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com/)
- Dia Lacina: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrWgDSLVvrgTylGKu4xqATw)
- Blue Bidya Game: (https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueBidyaGame)
- Minimme: (https://www.youtube.com/c/minimme)
- Insert Credit Forums: (https://forums.insertcredit.com/)
- Insert Credit Podcast: (https://insertcredit.com/show/)
What the hell am I talking about.
Ok.
So.
Over the last handful of years, I've been watching more and more people enter the infinite void of "talking about video games on the internet" from a similar angle, in a similar school of thought, and with a loosely unified set of interests, priorities, and concerns. But in the last two or three years specifically, I've watched these people gain traction, find "numbers" success (whole other conversation there, no energy for that right now lol), and I've watched Olde Internet-style communities loosely form and collectivize around not the people making these analyses, but the topics/themes/interests/discussions. So I feel like I have to, I don't know, document it at some point? Not for history or anything of any importance, but to get it the hell out of my head. Apologies for using Cohost like a blog, but it's not like I'm gonna start a blog any time soon.
I'm referring to people that are analyzing games not as products, not as narrative works, not as mechanical designs and executions, not as components of an iNdUsTrY, but primarily as things we can exist in and interact with. That statement is both intentionally vague and oversimplifying, but like, there's something here. Stick with me a second. I find it difficult to communicate this idea because it so closely aligns with the way I've always looked at games since I was a kid. I have a lot of love for games that are purely kinesthetically satisfying, or narratively interesting. But the games that really stay with me, that really make an impact on my consciousness as something that I carry with me long term, are the games that wrap me in some kind of comforting mise en scene. Games where the sum total of lesser parts is a quiet and passive gestalt of sorts, that I just want to . . . Be in. Cozy places. Surreal lighting. Evocative horror. Anything with a distinct personality that compels my affections on a subconscious level. I'm talking about games that Christa Lee affectionately refers to in shorthand as "Shenmues". Games that are just a vibe. That vibe has always been compelling and alluring to me, but it's become increasingly an item of paramount importance in my life as I find myself on the doorstep of 30.
I could not give less of a shit if a game is "good" or "bad" or whatever. And I suspect that's more or less the case for most of the people in my circles that are already on Cohost. Objective measurements are broadly useless to me. I'm infinitely more interest in people doing a deep dive into weird little details they love. Like, I'm not interested in a breakdown of why Cavia's budget for Resident Evil: Dead Aim resulted in some weird cut corners or bugs or general awkwardness. But an examination of the effects those things have on the experience, and the way they contribute to an overall mood and atmosphere that may not have necessarily been intentional but nonetheless is the experience, you know? The original Ridge Racer's aesthetic and music and mechanical design have been studied and gushed about to death, but I want to talk about the way the weird little details of the low-fidelity world around the track create a highly specific sense of place, and the way Seaside Route 765's iconographic visual elements have been re-imagined and translated to more powerful hardware and different artistic representations over the years.
I've been finding more and more people that think and talk about games like that. Not just people that are out there formally writing essays and making videos or having directed podcast conversations, but just . . . People hanging out on the internet and talking to each other, simply . . . Vibing. Enjoying each other's digital company and expanding their conversations beyond just games and film but into life and the living of it. I don't know, maybe this is just another weird autism thing I'm slowly learning about myself, but this has been tremendously valuable and important to me. Absorbing the formalized material and also just hanging out with people that find similar value and import in these weird, more abstracted and ephemeral aesthetic elements of art have all helped me get to know myself a lot better over the last few years. They've also had a massive impact on me as a game developer and informed so much of my design process, and the games I want to make.
Here are a few select favorite examples off the top of my head:
ThorHighHeels - Liminal Spaces in Games
BlueBidyaGame - ...Iru! Review
Dia Lacina & Trevor Strunk - You Have A Friend in Majula
Kimimi - Field Four from From (King's Field IV)
Minimme - DRIV3R RETROSPECTIVE | GOOD. BAD. BOTH.
ThorHighHeels - Mysterious Sega Saturn Games
Kimimi - Storytelling, Strafing, and Sci-Fi (Beltlogger 9 AKA Brahma Force)
ThorHighHeels - Mysterious PS3 Games (aka the Sophistifuture Aesthetic video)
ThorHighHeels - FromSoftware's Weird Old Games
ThorHighHeels - Old SQUARESOFT Renders Looked Really Really Cool
Kimimi - Should You Hope To Survive, Hold BAROQUE Inside
ThorHighHeels - The Coolest PS1 Game (Racing Lagoon)
Minimme - Alone In The Dark's Weird 2008 Reboot
Noah Caldwell-Gervais: I Beat the Dark Souls Trilogy and All I Made was This Lousy Video Essay
Dia Lacina - A Game's Photo Mode Isn't Just a Feature, It's My Way of Seeing the World
Ario Barzan - Worlds Worth Believing In: On Demon's Souls and Dark Souls
Ario Barzan - Brick By Brick: Ardent analyses of Castlevania, Souls, Bloodborne, and architecture
--
I keep trying to find some old pieces Austin Walker wrote on his old blog Clockwork Worlds and some of his writings for Paste but man that stuff is getting so hard to find. :(
I did find this, though, since he appears to have relaunched CWW in a newsletter style, which I'm mashing the subscribe button on right after I hit send on this.
Austin Walker, Clockwork Worlds - The Only Game I Ever Replay (Dragon's Dogma)
--