A list of games that have been featured in my Itching For More series.
A curation of interesting and thought provoking alt/art games. <3
Like Roots In The Soil is a small walking sim, focusing on the interconnectedness of the past, present and future.
The dilapidated city boasts a gorgeously dusty palette of colours, giving a stark contrast to the clean, bright alternate city of the younger man. On top of this, the beautiful ambient score distorts a little in the broken city, becoming more rough. The small differences and parallels between each city is what makes Like Roots in the Soil interesting to play, and what holds the players attention for its tiny five minutes of play time.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
Where The Goats Are is a contemplative loop of goat farming and letter reading.
She is alone, in a patchwork world,
Her farm isolated.
Abandoned,
A patch fallen from the quilt,
A songbird dead on the ground.
Mura Toka is a short, stark reminder of the battle between nature and humanity.
As you explore the island, a day-night cycle slowly takes place, trees transforming into luminous green as you stumble across ancient artifacts, glowing on the dim island. In addition, old structures are found occasionally, each with a distinctly brutalist feel — Linke’s signature. Once the second night appears, you are transported back to the entrance of the island. However, everything has changed. Mura Toka transforms from a relaxed island exploration to an anxious landscape of towering grayscale skyscrapers, uncomfortable music assaulting you as you begin to re-explore the landscape you thought you once knew.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
The Catacombs of Solaris is a mend melting mess of maze, art and colour.
The Catacombs of Solaris is something that could only ever work within the medium of games. It exists under the same umbrella as Strangethink’s works — interative, infinite art, existing in a world between glitch and game. The premise and goal are simple: you are in The Catacombs Of Solaris. Explore them and find your favourite room.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
2000:1: A Space Felony is a hilarious space detective game. Play it.
I know this piece isn’t especially long, but I don’t really have much more to say. 2000 to 1: A Space Felony is a brilliantly funny, short experience that you should check out. I went into it quite sleepy and full of veggie lasagna, and had a brilliant time. Optimum playing conditions are definitely full of lasagna and sleepy. Uhh, anyway, yes. 2000:1 is great and I greatly look forward to National Securities future work!
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
Insight is a small musical toy, allowing you to unlock deep secrets of the universe
Legend has it, that out there, a certain tuning can cause the fabric of the universe to softly rip apart, revealing its core. Somewhere out there, the equipment exists to let this happen, letting you gain insight into the symphony of creation.
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Isolation is a fun, small post-monument valley puzzle game.
Drawing deeper than this, we can see Isolation as a journey out of the state of Isolation — where changing your perspective often helps. Starting with internal, small struggles Isolation grows as multiple changes of perspective and multiple entities begin to fill the screen, the sense of Isolation beginning to grow.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
Wonders Between Dunes is an incredibly detailed, vast exploration of a gorgeous environment.
The trail lights up the desert like stars fighting to be seen in a vast cosmos. They twinkle and catch the eye as you scan the expansive landscape, traipsing through temple to skyscrapers to jungle to pipes. Moshe Linke holds nothing back in Wonders Between Dunes.
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BEST FISH MARKET SIMULATOR THIS DECADE
The Fish Market, places you in a market run by fish, and lets you explore. Sets you free. Free to do anything in your wildest dreams. You can look at the stalls, you can walk around the stalls, you can listen to the fish band, you can watch the fish swim, you can talk to your screen at the fish at the stalls, you can find the lil starfish hidden away. ALL THIS AND MORE MY FRIENDS, ALL THIS… AND MORE
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Charcot is a fascinating piece centered around autism. I wanted to say more in this piece, but held myself back as the brilliant thing about Robin Moretti's games is the abstract nature and subsequently the space left for interpretation by the viewer. I wouldn't want to take that away.
Charcot places the viewer in the shoes of someone with autism and lets them deal with it. People will stare, your goal will be unreachable. People will laugh and play with you. But you keep going, keep repeating and keep pushing through the cycle, because it is the only way forward you know.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
The Pokisfiori Museum Installation is a captivating study on the combination of art installations, ambience and a digital space.
This is a small thing, but the colour palette employed in The Pokisfiori Museum Installation is one of my favourite things in it. Each colour perfectly fits the music it is tied to. These are colours you can submerse yourself in, dive into, stare at for an eternity. Colours that match the room they're, perfectly complementing the exhibits.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
A narration of the battle for perfection.
Once passing through this first ideal, it haunts and chases the player — following it through the hatch. The black slime is the embodiment of this first ideal — the search for perfection that causes you to get stuck, that devours you and consumes you. It follows you and is constantly beckoning, a consistent option to the player to simply let themselves go. It brings into light the question, is existence imperfection? If we live to die, then is living a flaw?
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
Figure 8 is a discussion about the the creative process and the troubles behind it.
Making something you're proud of and excited about can be an incredibly tiring process. Motivation wobbles, doubts may cloud your vision and your opinion changes on so many occasions that it is often hard to tell if what you are making is even worthwhile anymore. Figure 8's thematic arc skims over a lot of these topics, the narrator musing upon them, the journey through the island seemingly leading to a breakthrough in the narrator's mind.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
THIS IS THE HAPPIEST THING YOU WILL EVER EXPERIENCE.
As I've talked about before, in our current political and global climate, happiness is something sought after. So many people are shouting at each other, big countries are slowly imploding as their political leaders fit more and more into the stereotypical "villain" category. Anger and sadness are pervasive across the globe. Take a moment out of your day to pretend all of that doesn't exist. Instead, immerse yourself in MORNING POST's ridiculously happy world.
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Living With The Moonoliths is stunning. A greyscale world haunts your monitor, synths pulsing through your veins,
constrained by the walking,
living for the walking
a slow thud towards the unnatural
journeying to the blue
away from the harsh grey.
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Packing Up the Rest of Your Stuff on the Last Day at Your Old Apartment is a masterpiece in creating a space that describes a character.
This sparse density expertly crafted by turnfollow is one of a few things that turns this into an old apartment instead of a room of objects, another being the tiny tiny details that pervade the apartment: a crumbling wall, scuff marks on the wall, broken blinds and a believable outside world. Missing drawer knobs and avacados add to the character behind the camera.
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DYSTROPICANA is concerned with the commercialisation of Paradise and its effect on the natural world.
Dystropicana, at its heart is about the commercialisation of paradise and the rise of fake paradises in order to compensate for the slow loss of our earthly ones. As we slowly create more and more pollution, consume more and more, watch more and more species and fauna become extinct, we compensate by creating more immersive Cybertropics, content to sit and stare at screens whilst our world slowly disintegrates, until we are left with an ocean of islands of bricks and no one but ourselves to blame.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
Rain in the Month of January is a contemplation on the effect of something we cannot control
The rain brings arguments and doubts between people, yet comfort to others. It provides a welcome contrast — a character sits happily next to a fire, glad of its warmth and light in comparison to the cold rain and dark night. All of these scenes are portrayed in a gorgeous blue and black palette, light morphing in and out, slowly disappearing as you near its source.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
and i made sure to hold your head sideways is about recollecting the memories of a drunken night out, set to a background of ethereal music and stars.
A popup book was the first thing that came to mind due to the movement of this piece — you move from scene to scene by aligning images, following along a tiny personal story, memories moulding as the images move, each scene a pulsing, swirling puzzle of thoughts, lines in your head until they slowly click together. It creates a cohesive and clever piece, the comforting music and soft pulsing of everything giving everything a whiff of nostalgia.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
Birthplace Of Ossian is a misty plain, full of mountains and heights, peaks and lumps.
One of the many things Conor Sherlock does best, is space. In Birthplace of Ossian, there is vast amounts of space. A painterly landscape of browns, yellows, greys and oranges spreads out before you, mountains glaring down at you as you wander. You are at the Birthplace of Ossian, narrator of epics.
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Alien Caseno is cute, funny and really fun to explore!
I really appreciate the level of research put into human life that the alien creators of this museum have put into it — adding helpful facts along each wall to accompany each room, giving careful explanation in order for the aliens to understand the true meaning of the space. Through these facts, the caseno becomes not just a fun place for the aliens, but also an educational one.
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Solitude is a game of selflessness and sheep.
[...] that is what a Shepherd does — they guide. They guide people, help others, without want for reward. As the protagonist of Solitude slowly becomes a Shepherd physically, they do so too metaphorically, the ones they help becoming sheep, following you as you progress further and further away from your office job, further out into the fields and land of the countryside, grey turning into green, concrete into dirt and leaves.
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t- e ni hтm-are of·`a c ty, is a city envisioned as a nightmare — huge, unknown, identityless and landmarkless, full of buildings ready to topple and cars ready to mow you down.
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QUUR is a game about the permanence of ink, colour and consequence.
QUUR pushes against the instinctive violence that games inherently imply — tempting you towards violence, whilst subtly hinting at more passive solutions. Giving you options for both selfishness and empathy, QUUR lets you move forward choosing your actions — your ink leaving its permanent mark on the world — once you've killed an something and drawn its ink from the environment there is no turning back.
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The Disappearance of Eileen Kestler plays with scale, sound and senses to deliver a cohesively unsettling experience.
Eileen Kestler is a tiny experience, but plays with scale well — huge trees looming above you are counteracted by the wide open field the house is placed in, juxtaposed still by the night sky, shining down on you. The journey is cyclical — fire -> calm -> buildup -> fire. However, despite its simplicity, the execution is perfect — giving enough breathing space before launching another assault.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
ROM is a gorgeous island of experimental atmospheres.
There's something undeniably tempting about the unknown. This is where ROM starts — an exercise in grabbing the player's attention, through small buttons littered across the island. Yet it quickly moves from a game of unknowns, to a game of moments and experimentation.
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Friary Road is about looking up into the stars and letting their scale flow through your veins.
Whilst their conversation continues to remind us of the human-like nature of Ao and Bo (the occasional joke and playful line), Ao and Bo softly explore normality and morality, two very human worries. Yet , normality is nothing — if we were normal we would be just another flower in the garden. If anything Me, You, Ao, Bo are all abnormal — strange creatures yearning for the stars in our back gardens, a life full of observation and contemplation.
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Vestige focuses on observation and deterioration.
The leaves blowing in the wind emit a the flutter of loose tissue paper. This juxtaposition of natural vs manmade is echoed throughout the rest of vestige — ruins, slowly and naturally being destroyed as vines and foliage reign.
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Fruits of a Feather is a relaxing experience that lets you fly around a beautiful island. If you have a spare couple minutes and need to chill, check this out.
Fruits of a Feather is relaxing in that wonderful way in that you don't have to think when playing it — you can just fly along, watching the landscape move and shift underneath you, as you, and your bird, drift away.
Read my full thoughts, here [x]
