Something about the somewhat realistic and yet clearly artificial recreations of the kind of place i lived, but devoid of people, really got to me. i would feel a sense of unreality after i played one, if i was alone in the house or my family members had all gone to bed. it felt like maybe no one else actually existed and it was just me, alone, like in the game.
anyway this was years before the phrase "liminal spaces" gained widespread usage on the internet but in retrospect i think it 's basically the same phenomenon