Why I Adore Video Games!

 

A few weeks ago, one of my friends recommenced me this cute little game here, Moss Moss, as something to check out whenever I was free! Well today was the day that I decided to play it, and it was a really enjoyable experience. It only took me 30 minutes or so to do everything, but the way it handled it's secrets and mechanics was pretty neat, and it made em sit back and reflect on how much I really love this era of gaming. I'm not the type to say games were never good, or games are awful now, but I do think nowadays games can seem to be in a pretty bad place. Whether it be micro transactions, generative AI being forced in, huge company layoffs, game breaking bugs, awful live services, it can seem like gaming has never been worse, especially if you just focus on the triple a side of things, but honestly, I think we've never been in a better era for video games! I find Indies are the best example of this, I remember back when I was a little girl the most notable indies were stuff like Super Meat Boy or Braid, not bad games per say, but ones I think were rather standard as platformers, so seeing Indies in the state they are in nowadays has been really sick! There's still the big names of course, stuff like Balatro, or Deltarune and Ultrakill, but then you got the really cool niche stuff, the ones not many will know about, but will be some of the sickest game experiences you'll ever have. I think about the Milk games a lot for example, those are decently popular I feel, but they start to do their own unique thing, with how it explores the mental state of someone suffering from mental illness, and it was an experience that hit me personally, one that I found insanely relatable with everything that has come my way, and one that is personal to me now due to it! There's Zeroranger and Void Stranger, two games that changed my life due to the people I got introduced to due to it, but also insanely sick experiences in their own right, pushing the limits of a video game, and using each respective genre to their fullest! This is why I find the conversation of gaming to be dead or ruined to be so baffling, there's so many awesome little experiences packed away in every single corner now, experiences that you won't get anywhere else, in any kind of genre! It's not even just relegated to storefronts too, you got stuff like this in things such as your web browser (like Moss Moss) or romhacks and fangames, passion projects made for free to just be enjoyed whenever! The way these games can use interactivity to really put you into the experience, to really make you love what you're playing, that interactivity is what makes video games my favorite form of art, there's just so much creative stuff you can do with that aspect, and from the hundreds of games I've played, I've experienced so many world changing moments. I'd argue you can find a lot of these even from before too, with stuff such as Oneshot or OFF, rpg maker games that use that medium and expectations to it's advantage, to take you off guard and surprise you! Games such as Drakengard or Metal Gear Solid, games that use mechanics in a strange way, sometimes even being unfun, for the sake of pushing a narrative, to put you in the role of who you're playing as! If you want the best example of how amazing indie games are nowadays, check out UFO 50, a collection of 50 full sized indies, in so many different genres that use so many cool mechanics. The first one alone, Barbuta, is such an intrinsic and strange experience, it had me making an entire map just to bea tit, I adore stuff like this! I won't argue that there's some bad shit happening in the gaming sphere, but in terms of what's actually being released daily? It's never been better, and I cannot wait to see what keeps coming out next, my over 800 long steam list will never go dry!