With all this time spent inside (it's only been a week but it's so disorienting that it feels like a whole month! time is blended together as one) you get a lot of time to check social media like Instagram, and you see that a Lot of people are playing the new animal crossing new horizons on the Nintendo switch (which I never got into, the switch, or the ACNH). But there are also people who are taking out their old Nintendo's the classic ones with the smaller screens, the ones we had as a kid. I never had one myself, I was quite jealous of all the other kids having one, I peered over kids shoulders on the school bus in Tokyo playing super Mario... new technology, with games, was so incredibly, cool when you are a kid and experiencing it for the first time. I was just thinking about the kids born after 2000, how different their experience is with technology, maybe it's not as exciting cos they're surrounded by amazing tech. since they were a baby? for our peculiar generation it was perfect - we experienced the time before thin screens, we had actual telephones in our homes, had actual tv sets, but also get to grow up as technology grows. its wonderful. its accelerating so fast though.
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| animal crossing new leaf |
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| animal crossing new horizons (that came out a few days ago) |
super mario bros on nintendo
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| Kirby triple deluxe |
[just looking at these visuals is kind of inspiring, these bright and happy colours... contrast to the ones in alice: madness returns below...]
anyway, even though I did not get to grow up with the Nintendo I was instead playing online and video games, a very select few, but some still. (I actually bought the Nintendo 2DS last year to fulfill my childhood dream) anyway, what I'm saying is, video games/virtual worlds is a really fascinating concept when you think about it, and a huge source of nostalgia for some people. It can provide an escape, some comfort, like a good book, or any hobby. Since books are heterotopias, are video games too? A lot of these popular games are RPG's too, role-playing, so you really get immersed in this entire world (especially in the case of animal crossing / sims etc.)
(I'm going to read more about heterotopias in the next posts...)
The Wikipedia entries for 'nostalgia' was quite interesting too... (provide existential meaning? as a comfort? as a political tool?)
... I suppose nostalgia is a feeling that can 'vary from happiness to sorrow' which is why it's so fascinating. you could feel nostalgia, but you can feel it in any kind of way... opposite at once, even. like the attraction-repulsion.
I've also always thought about using imagery from video games (in the same way I use film stills???) as they are an endless source of visual stimulation - and the idea of 'game' contrasted against the 'reality' of the world could conjure up some interesting outcomes too I'm sure.
some personal games I grew up with that are not actually that popular, at least not mainstream:
-bookworm adventures, literally going through library (heterotopia??)
I remember bookworm as being a big thing at the time, but not as many people played the 'adventure' series which I was obsessed with as a kid. It was a treat to go on my mum's computer in her office (this was when I was in japan, I remember the lonely feeling office, a cube) and play for hours... I think I was around nine years old? but just going through these fictional, well-known characters, knocking them down with the power of spelling long (mostly short) words... it was so exciting. You go through characters from classic fairytales to greek myths, you travel into this fictional landscape, basically bookworm is battling through this library of books.. story within stories, fighting them by the power of words... I just love how two dimensional the characters are, but still moving, kind of like shadow puppets...
-alice (fantasy, twist on well-known story) (like that book I read last year) (no matter how you turn it its fascinating)
Alice: Madness Returns is actually my all-time favourite game. of course, it's a twist on the classic story of Alice in wonderland, whereby alice here transitions in and out of wonderland, (there's a mental asylum involved in the real world at some point) and the range of landscapes within each progression of the story is just fantastic, I have the behind the scenes book that shows the development of this game and its truly amazing, from the concept art in landscape to character design. game designers really have to work hard to infuse every detail painting a believable and engaging world for the player to be immersed in. There's also a really overarching and overwhelming theme of the train, which alice is very anxious about, that it's going to destroy wonderland. and that train motif is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, I will go more into it in a future post, with that quote from foucault's of other spaces.
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the game touches on dark themes like child prostitution and trauma-based mind control.
There's also a previous version of this game that is much more pixellated but is just as scary and immersive, American Mcgee's Alice. I think that game has a lot of good strange imagery too, with unnatural rendering of certain landscapes too. |
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| alice mourns rabbit's death |
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| alice witnesses the queen's beheading |
- spore (the way you go from beginning of life, evolution)
This game also brings back a lot of memories, I enjoyed playing it and I think I passed the time with my sister when she was super young and wanted to watch me play too. you start off as one small cell/organism nad gradually eat more and more, you grow bigger, and go up the food chain, until you become an actual mammal type thing, on land, and you are either carnivore/herbivore, you interact with the different species around you, friending them or killing/eating them, it's truly the survival of the fittest in this game. there's a whole other stage after this one, where you grow a community/colony, but I don't enjoy it as much. Anyway, the customisation of your creatures and the length that people go to to create these magnificent creatures is insane. I had the simple looking creatures because I find three dimensional building, quite hard.. but anyway, the journey through evolution told by this game is something to think about.
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| building your creature with parts you find |
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| when you first start off in the cell phase |
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| they even came out with a creepy and cute parts pack to build your creature |
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some people are able to create the most horrendous creatures on this game...
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Anyway, I just think games are another great source of imagery + nostalgia that could make some interesting contrasts and layers of meaning... when the time comes I will collect from these games etc.
