Games that Aren't Games
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- Опубликовано: 8 июн 2023
- What do we find in linking the sapient dream? | Get the intended version of this essay and many more of my exclusive videos (at a discount!) by joining Nebula: go.nebula.tv/jacob-geller
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Patreon: / jacobgeller
Twitter: / yacobg42
Merch: store.nebula.app/collections/...
Translation help by Sarah Podzorski: / sarahpodz
Radiohead covers by on4word: / @on4word
Increpare Games: www.increpare.com/
Monuments to Guilt by Louis: louisthings.itch.io/monuments...
‘LSD: Dream Emulator’, an Avant-Garde Game Released on PlayStation by Sébastien Raineri: pen-online.com/arts/lsd-dream...
Interview with Osamu Sato by Nick Dwyer: daily.redbullmusicacademy.com...
Creating KID A MNESIA: an exclusive look at Radiohead's new virtual exhibit: www.unrealengine.com/en-US/sp...
Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood on Kid A Mnesia: blog.playstation.com/2021/11/...
Cameron Kunzelman on Mountain: www.pastemagazine.com/games/m...
Ian Bogost on Mountain: www.theatlantic.com/entertain...
Carolina Miranda on Mountain: www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Michael McMaster on Mountain: / on-formalism
Ben Kuchera on Mountain: www.polygon.com/2014/7/3/5868...
Ausin C. Howe on Mountain: hapticfeedbackgames.blogspot.c...
Media: LSD Dream Emulator, Slave of God, Mountain, Monuments to Guilt, Kid A Mnesia Exhibition, Haunted PS1 Demodisc, Daytona USA, Her, DONE (music video), Minecraft, Guggenheim and Louvre virtual tours, Who’s Afraid of Virigina Woolfe, Everything, Stephen’s Sausage Roll, Oh Shit the Cameraman Ist Arrived, Battlegrounds, Running Memories,
Music Used (Chronologically): Waltz of the Flowers (The Nutcracker Suite, Tchaikovsky), Start Menu (Gallop Racer 3), Acid Groove, LSD Choir (LSD Dream Emulator), Season Mode (Gallop Racer 2), Temple Dojo - Ambient (LSD Dream Emulator), Slave of God OST, Waltz of the Flowers (The Nutcracker Suite, Tchaikovsky), One Life to Live-Maya Remembers (UnearthU), The House Part 1 (Gone Home), Everything in Its Right Place (Radiohead), Floating Kite (Tellsonic), The National Anthem, Idioteque (Radiohead), Weird Fishes (on4word- Mario x Radiohead), Reminiscence Captured on Tape (Ave Air), End of the Ocean (Tellsonic), Jenny’s Theme (The Darkness), No Surprises (on4word- Mario x Radiohead)
Thumbnail and Graphic Design by / hotcyder 
Игры
Sad the video is over? Head on over to Nebula to get another whole essay, in which I take the concept of quad-wielding far more seriously than it deserves. Also, you'll be supporting me at the same time! nebula.tv/videos/jacob-geller-the-world-has-forgotten-quadwielding-but-i-wont
Great stuff Jacob!
Liked your video!
Too bad Im russian and can't buy a nebula subscription :(
too bad i'm fucking broke :,D
love you tho
whats the play at 15:18
I'm so glad i got Nebula, I ADORED watching these videos yesterday ❤
I’m disabled, and as a result I can’t walk for long distances without having to sit down. Throughout the years I’ve noticed benches slowly disappearing, and how much of an impact that has had on my ability to traverse public spaces. I’ve heard every reason, from wanting to prevent crowding to wanting to prevent homeless populations from having places to sleep, and none of them make any sense to me. So a Monument to Guilt hits me pretty hard. I’m glad it exists to bring attention to a problem that a majority of people probably don’t think about often.
I'm reminded of when I moved to New York City and decided to walk from Penn Station to where I was going to live, which was 60 blocks away. During that 3 mile walk, the only benches I saw were ones by the entrances of Central Park. Once you got away from the parks, benches more-or-less disappeared. There's a definite trend towards making public spaces hostile to any use other than passing through them, which is incredibly depressing.
(My "favorite" bit of hostile design that most people don't notice? While I was living in New York City, a pipe burst in the basement leaving my building without running water for 14 days. One thing I discovered while our bathroom was out of commission was how rare public bathrooms were in New York City... which goes a long way to explain the way that city smells.)
I've noticed this, and noticed particularly public seating being replaced by commercial installations. For example, the Montparnasse train station used to have lots of benches where you could wait, and now they've put tables for the Starbucks they put there and you have nowhere to sit without being expected to spend money
Same. I really felt that section. Hostile architecture makes me want to chew furniture.
Cruelty for cruelties sake
@@LadyMapi oh yeah. When I went with my family to visit New York (and Washington too, I’m not from the USA so greeting from outside), it was a constant stress to search for bathrooms and places my parents could sit (we had to walk a lot). My parents are quiet old so it was hard for them. The only places we could use the toilet were in business if they had them available.
I was having such a good time watching this video and then you dropped the Kid Amnesia title card and I almost fell out of my chair. I was one of the members of the sound team on it! Primarily I was just making sure things weren't broken and fixing some audio programming, but there's a few sounds of mine in there :3 I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed it so much and it fills me with excitement that so many people love the experience so much.
That's awesome!! Thank you for contributing to such a sublime experience
Thank you so much for contributing to one of my favorite Radiohead projects. You a homie frfr
@@crepequeen643
Yeah this was my favorite "videogame" release in the last few years, I was so hyped by the trailers and by the whole experience. So sick you worked on this!
@@JacobGeller No not Sublime, it was Radiohead.
:P
I was the character artist/tech artist on Kid A. Thanks for covering and giving it such a warm and glowing review, it makes me feel that much more proud to have been a part of it. It always makes me happy to see my creepy little sons out there accompanying folks in such a weird and wonderful little museum.
You did great work man, loved the whole experience!
That exhibit was one of the greatest digital experiences I’ve ever had. Thank you for your work and helping it become a reality
You did an amazing job, ever since I've played through the exhibit, listening to the songs always put the imagery into my head, it's truly transformed the music into something else for me
That was such an incredible experience! Unlike anything I had seen before!
I snuck in through the back entrance, and got jumpscared by one of the creepy little dudes. Love them though
!!!! I was the character animator for KID A MNESIAC EXHIBITION and I lost it when I saw it covered in this video!! Thank you for articulating so many things that make this project special, it was an honor to be a part of even in a small way. The zooetrope monsters, the stalking minotaur in the pyramid, the giant stickman and red cube guys were some of my contributions. I worked alongside our tech artist David (my husband!!) who created all of the museum occupants as well as bringing the player character to life from Stanley Donwood's paintings. Thank you again and cheers!!!
i loved that game, i am a huge radiohead fan. Great work!!
@@fwionafor real! it looks awesome i love everything about it
good job there caw caw
Just "played" Kid A Mnesiac Exhibition a few hours ago, and the pyramid Minotaur was one of my favorite parts. Wonderful job to you and everyone else on the team for that project
oh my god this is the cutest thing ever, you guys are a couple who works on games together
I actually played LSD for longer than anyone should, probably around 12 hours. One thing that may not be obvious from the first glance is that there are reliable methods of reaching certain places within a game, so you can see all the possible events through your playthrough, if you are willing to draw a mental map of which place connect to what. Certain doors, sometimes posters and windows can take you where you want to be and more you play, more randomization aspect messes with how game look and sounds. But one location that always intrigued me was a creepy sea side town. It had a lot of possible events and it's probably best place to meet with a mysterious man, that sometimes spawns in your dreams.
Game actually have a really good amount of content, since there are different events that can play out on same location. Someone should use this game a template for a modern exploratory indie title, hopefully not a monster screamer fest, like many exploration games nowdays.
> "that sometimes spawns in your dreams"
You mean in the game, right?
...right?
the recent “MyHouse.WAD” evokes a somewhat similar exploration experience, albeit a bit more gamified in its structure and maybe not on quite as nebulous a scale
@@thomasi.4981 Supposedly, many people have seen a similiar figure in their dreams.
@@Eve.with.a.Y MyHouse.wad is a poor comparison because it does actually offer concrete gameplay and the storyline is told relatively coherently. Much closer to LSD Dream Emulator is Yume Nikki
@@Eve.with.a.Y MyHouse is mostly focused on the "unsettling" aspect. Most notable with the beginning of the mod, when the doors become properly rotating and the music starts becoming desynchronized.
Even the later parts are mostly horror to an extent. And a bit unoriginal too, seeing as they are either basic modifications of the house, the Backrooms, or a generic gas station in the middle of a forest. By then it loses a lot of what makes the beginning strong.
The inherent comedy of Jacob saying “but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try!” followed by the text “Slave of God” is fantastic lmaooo
Not sure if you missed it or just didn't mention it, but in "Monuments to Guilt" following the numerical order is designed to be confusing and annoying, forcing you to backtrack multiple times and scan each room just to proceed to the next numbered monument. I think it's to give you the feeling like whoever designed it didn't care much for your ease of access, kinda like the benches don't either for people who need them for more than sitting.
mmm so you have to walk more,
so you get more tired,
but yet you are not allowed to sit and rest
that's evil :)
The coolest thing about LSD Dream Emulator to me is how we still don't really know how the dream chart works. All we know is that doing some things might take you in a specific direction on it. Even after decompiling and looking through the code, we don't have a full understanding of it.
hearing everything in its right place gave me goosebumps. kid a art exhibition is one of my favorite games ever
They should do something like that for back to black nickleback
@@dongvermine i would definitely play a game based around nickelback albums.
I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this project!!
@@cobaltnightmare5920 I have a feeling I will be bawling lol.
hear hear!
I left a rather well-regarded game design program for a new program that took artists and taught them to code, model, and animate saw what kind of art they would make. The games made in the program broke my idea of what a game is. I went from a program where you had to make sure your cover shooter had to have enough cover, and your UI had to be a carbon copy of an existing game -- to one where the restrictions were what one could accomplish on their own. One of my classmates even called her work "I make games for old people" which disregarded decades of game design to just create an experience.
What is the name of the program?
I would also like to know what this program is, as someone who wants to go into game design
That sounds so incredible. Wish there was more of that mindset in the industry
I want to know the name too
What the others said, and also where pls
I was shocked when this video started discussing the things it did. _Just this morning,_ I was taken to an art museum. And to my horror, the experience was almost exactly like how they depict it in popular culture. All of the installations made me think, "I don't get it. What did the artist mean by this? Did the artist mean anything by this?" Everything looked like they were important pieces to something bigger, but had been plucked out of their context and placed together in this location and given the spotlight. I spent the whole trip trying to come up with angles from which to appreciate the pieces.
There was this one outside installation, a big,..geometric...thing... all of us thought that it looked like a jungle gym. But you couldn't climb it or walk under it. You had to keep arm's distance from the art - no touching! What was the point of meeting this giant form in real life if I was prohibited with interacting with it in ways that I couldn't with a mere digital recreation??
Pieces plucked from their context is such an accurate, beautiful way to put it. I have seen many wonderful things at art museums, but, just as you put it, it always feels a little cold to be kept at arm's length. I was far more connected and moved when I visited Meow Wolf. It's just a completely different experience to be 'within' the art. Because of this video, I just 'played' the Kid A mnesia experience, and it gave me similar emotions. Truly wonderful.
Reminds me of the time I visited an art museum with my grandmother as a kid and was reprimanded by a security guard for sticking my hand into a sculpture that included a basin of sand.
@@halkiierid4084 Ha! I have a very vivid memory of when I was like 4 or 5. We used to go to museums all the time as a family, and at one of the museums we went to often they had this awesome exhibit where they told like a hundred artists to do whatever they wanted with a cubic meter. A lot of awesome stuff but there was this one cube that had this kind of mud like substance that bubbled as if it were a swamp. I wanted to touch it SO GODDAMN BAD but I couldn't of course because it was a museum. I was so sad. I just wanted to stick my finger in the mud dammit! I think to compensate for my disappointment the next museum we went to was one where you were explicitly invited to interact with a bunch of stuff, haha.
I went to the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA last summer and what I liked about it was that many of the pieces actually allowed or even expected you to touch them and interact with them in interesting ways. For example, the Mirror Room there was sort of terrifying in an almost impossible to describe way, but I really liked it. My best friend and I were just staring around in circles at what felt like a limitless space covered in dots. It's worth a Google, but nothing beats seeing it in person. There was also some really cool exhibits that unfortunately were only temporary and likely wouldn't be there if someone visited today, but the Mirror Room is a permanent exhibit that's been there since the 90s I think.
@@halkiierid4084that’s such a funny idea to me. If it were me, I know as a child I would’ve wandered around mostly bored and confused the whole time, maybe seeing some of the pieces as pretty but it’d all go right over my lil kid head. Then you see a sand pit, the only thing in the museum a child’s mind knows exactly what to do with, and youre immediately reprimanded for doing that. Idk feels like a little play about irony or something
A small but important correction: The dream diary that Osamu Sato drew inspiration from when creating LSD Dream Emulator was not his, it was that of Hiroko Nishikawa, a close associate of Sato's and screenwriter on a lot of his works.
I love the idea that art is a resource that meaning can be harvested out of, like you're hitting the art rock with an attention pickaxe and sparkly chunks of meaning fall out of it.
Well, i am not sure about "meaning" but experiencing "interesting things" does provide "food" for your mind. A lot of art can be somewhat generic and simple though, not always all that interesting. It is essentially just like learning; you read a book and learn what it teaches, you look at a piece of art and are inspired by what it is portraying. A bird may inspire someone to invent the aeroplane, a piece of art may inspire someone create something based on what the art is depicting. The mind needs stimulation to stay healthy and creative. There is this idea a lot of people seem to have that entertainment is purely a luxury to indulge in and has no practical purpose, or that any value is purely "spiritual" and impractical, i disagree. Entertainment has a very real and practical value.
On hitting the art rock with the attention pickaxe: that links with the idea that some forms of art (especially high culture) need training to fully appreciate. You won't get much meaning out of the art rock if no one has shown you how to correctly wield the attention pickaxe.
And some pieces are carefully constructed so you can derive specific meaning from them if you use a soft brush to dust them off, while others are deliberately ambiguous and vague and intended to be hit with a sledgehammer. Or some are pretty preprocessed rocks that require little additional effort to appreciate.
I like the way your brain works
Yo, Jacob, a small correction at 4:37: the dream diary that inspired LSD Dream Emulator was actually from Hiroko Nishikawa, an Asmik Ace employee, not Osamu Sato himself. The whole thing was published alongside the game as a sort-of graphic novel called "Lovely Sweet Dream" that has each dream accompanied by illustrations from various artists (one of them being Sato himself), there are tons of scans of it on the web and it's a really interesting read!
was about to mention this!
Do u have a link to find the scans?
@@higuerap1975 It's available in full on the game's wiki!
One of my favorite little puzzle games growing up was the indie title Bad Milk, and the creators said something about they originally wanted to make art installations but everything they wanted to do was way too expensive to realize in the real world so they ended up building everything in virtual space.
As someone who fell out with Radiohead around the time they released TKOL, I have to say that museum thing was great. SO MANY LITTLE GUYS.
The little guys are perfect, love them.
You should give A Moon Shaped Pool a listen if you haven't, it's really a great album
i thought by fell out you meant you knew them and had an argument for a second 😭
As the other comment said, AMSP is an amazing album, very minimalist and desolate but also full of emotion, kinda like Kid A. The songs 5 songs they’ve finished and released from OKNOTOK and Kid A Mnesia have been pretty great, too.
Genuine shoutout to you for putting up a real flash warning at the beginning, especially with voice over. Most people will just hold a pop up on screen for a few seconds without narration and your consideration is really refreshing to see. Fucking amazing video
Even the most recent spiderman movie fails to even put a warning at all. I really appreciate the extra efforts Jacob does to keep viewers safe
@@gotgunpowder
Imagine judging somebody for telling _someone else_ "thank you."
@@gotgunpowder people sometimes will tab off a video and watch it in the background to tab in sometimes, how the fuck is this an issue for you??? oh no, a creator paid extra attention to make sure his viewers didn't have a fucking seizure in case the visuals didn't have their 100% undivided attention, oh no!!
@@gotgunpowdermy time with RUclips video essays is literally probably 80% listening instead of just watching, that sort of thing happens. Some people have stuff to do, bro
@@Saya-ng1sl Err, that's the responsibility of the movie theater you go to.
I've always felt that this conversation only happens because of a historical accident. It'd be like if we called paintings "watercolors" because the first paintings happened to be watercolors, and then spent ages talking about whether or not a watercolor made with acrylics was a watercolor.
Similar to how films are called films, but the vast majority nowadays are done without film, purely digitally. Or how smartphones still have phone in their name, but the majority of their use is without calling someone. Or how record labels don't sell records. Or rather, that records aren't on records anymore.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Kinda makes me wonder when we'll start to gradually shift to updated iconography as a society; a floppy disc is universally recognized as a symbol to save your progress for example, yet there's a large portion of the populace who has never even held one.
@@HappyBeezerStudiosI’ve seen it with food. Is a “pudding” a type of meat product or a type of dessert? (“pud” means “to swell” and is generally referred to non-solid food stuffed into casings ie. sausages and haggis).
@@psyc840oh no this kinda ruined pudding for me XD
@@VivaSativaMusic kids are using a flat hand up to their ears instead of a thumb and pinky out style to imitate talking on the phone
I think one of the best game non games I've seen was a beginners guide. More a walking simulator, it was still such an emotional journey and it will always be in the back of my mind.
Beginners guide is phenomenal. I still think about it
Loved that game. I wish it was included in this list of digital installations
Jacob wrote an essay on The Beginner's Guide in 2017! It's called 'The Beginner’s Guide and the falsification of memory'
I instantly recognized the beat from "Slave of God" even though I only played it once at an unimportant evening in my childhood 11 years ago and never thought about it once since.
But still it instantly resurfaced with the beat. That is fascinating.
I remember playing LSD as a young adolescent and feeling extremely validated for my vivid and overwhelming dreams. Weirdly enough, I stopped having them after playing it a second time after high school. I thought of it like exorcising a demon.
I’m one of the art teachers at my school, but I’m also the sponsor of video game club. Maybe I’ll get em talking (next year)
Nice
Exorcising LSD dreams sounds like a really interesting concept
Thats so cool. Im a vivid dreamer to I’ve memorized my map
@@clubbasher32Wait a freakin second, having a dream map is normal?
Do most other people with perfect dream memory have a hub area in their dreams?
I kinda wish there were more virtual museums like Museums To Guilt.
The Shape of Time does kinda that
there are! not necessarily museums, most of em are exhibitions, and are very often linked to some stuff like metaverse and crypto, but still! i cant access my folder of links at the moment, but most of em are on stuff like mozilla hubs or spatial and can be googled as virtual exhibitions, a lot of contemporary artists are and have been exploring the virtual space, its possibilities and limitations, to various results, but some are very unique and impressive! ill try to come back to this comment when i get to my laptop some time soon, hopefully with actual names and links
there's an ending to stanley parable that places you in a museum dedicated to the stanley parable! maybe not what you're looking for, but it's one of my favourite virtual spaces so i thought id share
In ultrakill (doom on crack) there is a virtual museum that has like alot of stuff to do
There are allot on itchio and some on steam. I also like making those myself.
Its incredible how often Jacob's video essays tend to unlock memories of games I played years ago. I'm going to recommend two games of this ilk that I remember having an emotionally-impactful time with that came to mind watching the video. Hopefully, I can lead people to discover more great abstract or artistic games:
-Proteus, a 2013 game that gives you a randomly generated, very polygonal island. You'll explore it in Spring. As you go to different areas, the music dynamically changes to reflect where you are. Once night falls, a portal opens that you can enter at your leisure, allowing you to explore the same island in summer. And again in Autumn. Once you reach Winter though, there is no portal and you can't choose when you leave. After a limited time, you'll simply float away and get taken back to the main menu. Because the island is randomly generated each time, once winter whisks you away, you'll never get to visit that specific island again.
(EDIT: It seems Jacob actually covered Proteus in an earlier video; "A Thousand Ways of Seeing a Forest", a video that I had not seen at the time of originally writing this comment, as I had been avoiding it for fear of spoilers for another game discussed in that video).
-The other is TIMEframe. Much less abstract, but it still fits the theme in my opinion. You are given ten minutes to explore a Roman-style city. Time has been slowed so that your real-life ten minutes are only ten seconds within the world of the game. Again, there's no interaction, and I won't spoil this one, but it's one of only a handful of videogames that made me cry. Like Mountain though, TIMEframe has a weird Steam release that adds unnecessary achievements. Avoid that version if you can.
Oh my god I got TIMEframe through a bundle ages ago and paid zero attention to it til now, can't wait to try it
My favorite comment about "Slave of God" was from a playthrough I just watched on another channel: "This is an art game, so to get the 100% achievement you have to understand ALL the meanings, all the metaphors"
Dream BBQ from Joel G is most likely gonna join the ranks of 'games that aren't games'. The ENA series it's from is heavily inspired by LSD Dream Emulator, so it's neat to see what's so snazzy about the original
source?
100% this entire video I’ve been thinking about DBBQ
Dream BBQ is almost certainly going to be a game
I think it's going to be a game, but definitely more artistic and abstract than most. It's interesting to speculate about.
agreed. the environments of joel's videos remind me of the games mentioned. although that could be because it's in a video format at the moment
"The museum is gamic , not in what it allows but what it denies, and it uses that denial to further its point." Your videos always have lines that make me pay even that much more attention and touch me to my core and this right here be this ones.
As an art stundent, this is one of the most astounding videogame related videos I've ever seen on RUclips.
Reminds me of when games used to have "museums" to see all the areas/props/models that you could walk around. Metro Last Light and MW2 comes to mind.
Jacob, I think this is your first video post-1 million subscribers? Congratulations, seriously. Your content is amongst the finest this site has ever produced. Your insights have broadened my media consumption and appreciation of games, movies, anime, music and literature. For that, I can’t thank you enough. Enjoy this milestone you’ve reached; you’ve certainly earned it
Thank you so much!
this comment made me realize he didn't already have over a million before! he has some of the best and most thoughtful content on the platform I'm so surprised it took this long
I really loved Every Day The Same Dream, a flash game about being depressed because you work a corporate job. The only thing that really makes it a game is that you have to do 5 experiences to see the ending. The music was really good, too.
Thank you so much. I played Every Day The Same Dream once, couldn't remember what it was called or where to find it and wanted to play it again. It's really something.
That game has stuck with me ever since I played it over a decade ago.
Reminds me of Payroll. A similar little microgame about boring 9-5 work
This game is one of the seminal influences always humming in the back of my mind, no kidding. I think about it all the time.
@@CossackGene It's a game that stays with you forever. If I ever break the routine to appreciate like a leaf or something small, if always takes me back to that game.
Jacob, I’ve been watching your essays for 4 years now and each and every time a new one comes out, I feel something so unique that nothing else comes close to it. You’ve made me cry tears of joy, helped me sympathize with myself and my past and have helped me appreciate all aspects of life through image/text. You’ve made my life so meaningful with your videos and I couldn’t thank you enough. This one was incredible
Just wanna say this video pushed me to download the Kid Amensia Exhibit, and that in turn pushed me to finally listen to Radiohead’s discography for the first time and absolutely fall in love. Can’t believe it all lived up to the hype, thank you Mr. Geller for your service🫡
So I downloaded Kid A Mnesia before I listened to your thoughts on the Pyramid and it really was a existential feeling for me, I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt this emotionally connected to any piece of art
I'm so glad to hear that!
Just FYI, while Osamu Sato's own dream journal is often credited as the main inspiration behind LSD: Dream Emulator, it was actually the dream journal of Hiroko Nishikawa, an employee of Asmik Ace Entertainment at the time.
Aww that's a really interesting thing to share! I didn't know this
I used to watch all Jacob Geller videos with my ex and ever since she broke up with me it was too painful to revisit the channel. This is my first video since then and I am happy to be back. Thank you Jacob for the amazing content!
I can’t lie man, you give me such inspiration to pursue my writing hobby even further. The way you formulate words and how well they flow off eachother, is an inspiration.
I kinda wish you had also talked about the distinction that Will Wright made between games and “software toys”. Some of the early Sim games, especially SimEarth, were interesting in that they didn’t give you any goals, you could just watch the world develop and it was up to you if you interact or not.
Townscaper is an excellent modern example of that.
@Lavinia Whateley so basically it was minecraft before that existed
@@Azurethewolf168 The full 1.0 version of Minecraft was released a week after Skyrim, Skyrim having released on November eleventh 2011 and Minecraft releasing on the eighteenth. Alphas and betas for Minecraft were publicly available, however, all the way back from 2009 leading into its full release. Meanwhile, as far as I can tell, Lonely Skyrim was released in 2017. So no, it wasn't really Minecraft before Minecraft snfmmcv
I'd love if you talked about Yume Nikki. It's kinda like the creator's own LSD Dream simulator
I was really expecting yume nikki
The coolest thing about Yume Nikki is how influential it is. Games made in RPG Maker don't usually have much impact, let alone inspire a whole generation of indie devs.
Yo please speak on Yume Nikki! Its such a cool experience
Oh yea well I DONT want him to talk abt it muahahaha take that dorks!!
Yume Nikki was a most influential game for me.
The Kid A Mnesia experience reminded me of how many trippy 90s games were made by/with musical artists: The Residents’ Bad Day on the Midway, Laurie Anderson’s Puppet Motel, Peter Gabriel’s Eve and 9: The Last Resort (to a lesser extent).
I simply love the narration, I can hear every punctuation. The script is also excitingly well-worded. love it
i didnt get to finish high school because of disabilities, and when i watch your videos i feel this great sense of relief, that there are the right words to voice how i feel about the media i consume, that i just didnt get the right vocabulary to word it. i really appreciate your academic view of video games, as much as i appreciate reading everyone else's comments that agree and expand on your words. it might be a small thing to anyone else, but i deeply appreciate you sharing these accessibly and with so much passion. yr work amazes me, just finished downloaded an lsd rom after putting it off for years :')
thinking of you hurting :'(
I made an essay on visual novels in university. It's about the question on whether they count as games or not. I came to a similar conclusion, a game is something that urges you to engage with it. Then, even a visual novel with no branching paths, like say Umineko, counts as a game. Agency in a game will always have limits. There's a limit to all the options that can get programmed into a single game. Then, a looping narrative in a visual novel is basically like watching a Let's Play: you get together with Battler and look at him try the "routes" of the game. The game portion is within the players head. Something like that.
Remind me of the movie "War Games" quote "The only winning move is not to play". Not choosing to play is sometimes also playing.
I haven’t finished the video yet, but I’m personally inclined to fall more on Yahtzee Croshaw’s side of the argument: a game is something you can win, and if you can win, you must also be able to lose.
@@tommyscott8511 This is a more traditional definition of the concept, and I would generally agree, but only if the definition of "Losing" is expanded also to "not winning".
There are games withotu a lose condition but a clear win condition. You "lose condition" is being unable to get at the winning condition. Check, any graphical adventure game.
@@Hyperversum3 I agree that’s definitely a hazy area, and where something like, perhaps, ‘interactive experience’ or some other title/genre/classification is perhaps necessary.
@@tommyscott8511 Pretty much. I don't consider something like a virtual museum a game simply because... Well, it isn't a game by what the Word "game" means.
Of course classification isn't 100% objective, but I already cringe when someone tells me they are playing a visual novel. Buddy, you are at best choosing a path rather than another for crying out loud.
VNs that you play are at best those that meddle with an actual interactive element.
Umineko is 100% one of my favourite experiences of the last 3 years, but it's not a "game". It was a novel. A novel with a menu, visuals and music.
Unlike one of the other best experiences of the last 3 years: Disco Elysium.
Is this second one also very text heavy? Yeah, but the game elements were present and relevant to the way my experience ended up happening. Even if you removed the map to explore, DE had stats, checks, items and all of these elements shaped the experience I had.
Mountain is the first of your covered games that I’ve actually played and you unlocked a seriously old memory for me!! I usually love finding new weird things to analyze but thinking about something I know but didn’t remember was a completely new experience, thank you for bringing this up
it’s one in the morning and i am reading through the comments before starting the video. i am so blessed to get to see how many people were able to relate their real life story’s to themes in this video. i’m so thankful i am able to read them all and learn so much about so many strangers experiences. thank you for making this video, thank you for watching it and thank you for leavings your thoughts in the comments for anyone to read. connecting with humanity (even in ways as small as reading a youtube comment) is such a liberating experience.
Deeply appreciate the seriousness of your seizure warning! I'm generally pretty well controlled on my meds but I'll just listen to this one for now (on nebula too). Enough creators are not do not take seizure potential very seriously and I understand that it's hard to even recognize danger before you're personally connected to someone who has epilepsy. So I deeply appreciate the thought you put into that!
What usually triggers your visual epilepsy? Like is it just any flashing screen or like quickly changing colors?
Are you able to lessen the risk by being a good distance from the phone screen? Serious question.
Not so long ago I've seen a video that displayed seizure warning AFTER like a second of flashing lights and just... What? This is fucked up.
I remember for a while (it may still be a thing you can do) that you could pilot a robot around a London art museum at night. It was basically just a camera on wheels but it was entertaining to drive it around in the dark, not sure if a game but an "experience" nonetheless.
I think the Jojo’s art exhibit had a similar thing with 「Remote Romance」
That sounds like one of my childhood dreams come true. Exploring a museum at night 😂
And now imagine between the time everyone left and the time the robot went online they had a couple of those "human statues" people take up the spots in the museum and then told them to move only when the robot isn't looking. At first only small, barely noticable changes like turning one's hand or tilting one's head, but over time the changes get more noticable until they walk around and only stop when the robot is looking at them.
Now THAT would've been art that made headlines.
The shot of you walking up to the pyramid in Kid Amnesia legitimately took my breath away. And all I did was watch it, I didn't even experience it for myself. I HAVE to experience it now. It's crazy to me that one image could be so impactful.
I think what's so fantastic about Jacob's videos is that it never feels like I'm listening to another "RUclips brand" video essay.
I don't know if it's the writing, the format, the topic. Maybe it's simply all three. But each essay feels more like I've stumbled on to a short story I've found on audible. They read more as mini narratives than they would do as a formally informal essay.
I remember seeing a trailer like 10 years ago for a "digital horror/platforming game" that started with lines of code being written, then exponentially scrolling faster until bringing you into a weird 3d environment made up of trippy digital architecture where you had to platform to certain locations to progress. The mechanic of the game was that you had to line up pieces of the environment with your perspective to get them to join and become traversable. Can't remember what it was called but I don't remember if it ever released.
Memory of a broken dimension game still not finished
@@dskawaii9200 Yes thank you! Could not remember the title for the life of me.
kind of sounds like "fez" its a really cool puzzle game
This also makes me think a lot about the ARG and unfiction communities, where "This is Not a Game" is commonly used to describe the methodology of how said pieces of media operate. Excited to see if Geller's going to call back to that in this video. Incredibly happy that he brought up LSD Dream Emulator, though - it's a game that deserves to be covered, imo, alongside Yume Nikki and the many spin-off games that's birthed.
It's great to have these types of discussions on digital interactive experiences. There's so much room there and we have only scratched the surface. I'm very interested to see where this genre will take us.
If you enjoy experiences like this, games such as The Norwood Suite, Tales From Off-Peak City, or Off-Peak (all made by the same person) will definitely be up your alley! They're weirdcore experiences with minor interaction on the player's part, and you're mostly left to just explore the worlds and talk to the characters. Super fun for people who enjoy becoming immersed in worlds without being expected to do too much. Great video and introduced me to some really cool titles!
4:38
Correction: The dream journal did not belong to Osamu Sato. The dream journal was owned by Hiroko Nishikawa, who gave it to Sato for help on developing the game’s locals and such. Although, of course, Sato’s own dreams also played apart in some ways.
because of my souls-borne player tendencies when i played kid a mnesia i went in through the exit and experienced the whole thing backwards, which i appreciate is even possible. great game
What an incredibly phenomenal video essay and experience this is, thank you for making my life a little better.
The kid A amnesia playable experience rekindled my love for Radiohead. So amazing! And the room where you walked through the stars and colour explosion made me very emotional, and I don't know why.
Thanks for talking about it!
Very glad that this didn't turn into a debate of whether visual novels are games or not
Look, clearly visual novels aren't games.
Games are visual novels.
The term "game" itself is actually pretty meaningless.
What makes a game?
Something that is done for fun? Many sports have "games", but are also taken very seriously.
Does it require interaction? Which would put "walking simulators" into question, but if we look at sports, more people enjoy watching them then playing them.
Does it require a lack of monetary motivation? There are tournaments with large sums, just as how there are big pots in things usually considered gambling and not games.
And visual novels skirt into the question from a similar angle as old school text adventures. Or books with picturess. Or comics.
@@HappyBeezerStudios People should just care if it's good/bad or provides a meaningful experience. Might as well shill Umineko out while I'm here
Really glad you made a video that at least in part centers on music and its impact. I've found a lot of great music from you videos (epidemic truly does have a ton of excellent music if you go searching), and your perspective on music video's is always great. I totally agree that music is often better when listened to on its own. A lot of music is great because it stimulates your own thoughts and feelings through it. When you put context to it, you forever connect that meaning to it, which is sometimes an improvement, but is often to its detriment. It's kind of (exactly) like when you listen to a song, don't really listen to the lyrics, and create your own interpretation. Then find its original source and learn that its actually about x and y ... It loses a little bit of its magic (but it can still slap).
I thought you meant the chromosomes.
You're videos are legitimately the most thoughtful and mature video game content I can find. You're a real credit to the industry, and I'm really happy you're part of the canvas of this genre. Great work man!
Sometimes your videos make me feel this certain type of way that is hard to explain. I've even watched your videos when I have wanted to feel that way again. This video got me to write four abstract poems. I guess this is a thank you for another well done video that made me think and got me to create. Thanks.
It's always nice to have Jacob's notifications, specially when I'm struggling with the weight of existence and BPD. Thanks for existing Jacob, I really wish I could help you more than just watching and liking your videos :/ but, for now, I can only thank you for helping me in these dire times.
hope things get better man :)
@@toegobbler7449 Thanks dude! It's only a matter of time too :)
well id been debating whether to get into nebula for jacobs content there for a while, but this comment helped me finally decide to! so id say you are supporting him quite a bit :)
@@sidney9796 I do hope so, but I still think he deserves more, as soon as I get a job I'll support him on Nebula too
@@joca_solnebula is quite cheap for the first year (like 20 bucks for the whole year) so you won't have to spend much when you have your job. Get well soon
Kid A Mnesia Exhibition is freaking amazing. Obviously if you're not a Radiohead fan you probably won't get much from it but speaking as someone who not only is a fan but is particularly fond of those two albums I'd rank it among the best in the non-game/walking simulator genre.
I sat down multiple relatives and friends who don't listen to Radiohead to explore the exhibition, and many of them were touched by it and actually were interested in the albums afterwards. I think its abstract, cryptic nature makes it enjoyable by newcomers
Radiohead has been the soundtrack to my entire life. From the womb til now (30 years). I can’t believe I didn’t know this existed but I am so excited. Also apprehensive? I think I’ll probably need a whole day to process it
Personally I'm very interested in it, despite not caring about Radiohead at all. Because I go to games in search of new visual art. I am always looking for new, interesting 3D spaces to explore and take in, yet it's hard to find games that truly embrace the possibilities of virtual worlds. This game looks like exactly what I'm into.
I just hope this video hasn't already spoiled all of the best visuals.
@@tbotalpha8133 Just finished the exhibition myself and I have not voluntarily listened to a single minute of Radiohead in my life, you should absolutely give it a shot!
@@baseballviolation I have. Loved it. Bit smaller than I assumed, and this video unfortunately did spoil a bunch of cool visuals, but it was well worth the time.
It's what I wish the "walking sim" genre had actually been. Just an excuse to have the player amble through some wildly creative and evocative 3D environments, at their own pace.
The mountain section reminded me of the time someone dropped a pair of glasses on the floor at a museum and the people thought it was an art piece and crowded around and discussed it's meaning; the human nature to overanalyse and theorycraft and find meaning where there is none. Other than that I enjoyed the video very much!
Unless you can link a reliable source documenting this I highly doubt something that ridiculous actually happened.
@@janNowai think i heard of this incident once
Modern art is absurd
@@mikk.t.7824 "Think I heard it once" does not mean it happened, it means you heard the same rumor being passed around the Internet in anti-intellectual spaces that OP did. I'd recommend watching Jacob Geller's video on modern art, this type of myth and attitude towards non traditional art forms stems from reactionary thinking.
@@janNowaThank you, I will watch it later :D
Congrats on hitting 1 million followers, Jacob. I love your content , and I can truthfully say you are my main source and reason I take RUclips as a medium so serious, and you are the first person I think of when I think of the words “video essay” . thank you for all the videos for all these years and I am grateful to be able to see the content you upload here for free. Hopefully one day I can afford to see the awesome stuff behind your paywall as well, because I know it will be worth it
Heading over from Nebula to say I was hoping Ultrakill would get a mention for quad-wielding, you can pick up as many dual wield orbs as you want and each one just adds a hand (and if you do the revolver ocelot spinny revolver attack while dual wielding you take off like a helicopter)
ultrakill is so much of a videogame it hurts
Ultrakill is the videogamiest videogame to ever videogame
This feels like an in-joke we're iust not privy to.
Ultrakill is just doom on steroids, has no place in this video lol
Guys, I'm pretty sure this comment is here because of the other video he mentioned at the end of this one... The one about quadruple-wielding...
Dream Emulator is one of the best games ever made.
Around 2017 i got obsessed and played it so much that I started to have dreams like it.
A true multimedia experience, that was.
Hearing about mountain made me remember this website where you could watch this cool animation set along to music and at the end you could see everyone’s creations and even make your own. It’s probably not around anymore but thinking about those lost things like that makes me feel happy
Best content on RUclips. Suprised how quickly you can get these out at such high quality
I'm so so curious if you've ever seen the unusual weird worlds folks make in VRchat! There's a lot of art and museums, that you just walk through, a virtual exhibit. I like the calm peace of a game where all you do is experience it, rather than I dunno..interact? input? change the world of? A really thoughtful piece again from you!
what are some of your favorite exploratory maps on vrchat
Glad somebody else is talking about VRChat as an art gallery! :)
I played through the ORGANISM trilogy of maps recently and they definitely feel a lot like the KID A MNESIA gallery and LSD Dream Emulator in terms of abstract, dream-like set pieces that have a thematic underpinning. They’re definitely up there in terms of my favourite digital art exhibits.
@@greatmaccao yeah the organism Trilogy is a great exploratory space to experience
and I suppose one thing that is nice about it being on VR chat is it can be easily experienced by yourself or with friends
VRchat is the true actual cool cyberpunk world the people made for the people for free, metaverse can rot in hell
@@drakep.5857 I know some cool cyberpunk themed maps on vrchat Antiheat apartment would be a good one to explore
The use of the Weird Fishes x Mario cover is a hilarious way of avoiding copyright especially if you now the "Thwomp" bit at the start
I work with photography, what got me really into it was how gamelike the experience is, the camera is like a controller, you learn the inputs, and getting the right photo is all about perfect timing and framing, in situations where you only have one chance to do so.... So yeah, photography is a game
This and other essays you’ve produced about art have made me question what I desire to create as art. And question some of the ordinary types of art I see around on a regular basis.
I mean, landscapes are beautiful. They always are. But they’re nearly always as forgettable. It’s the oddities, the unexpected things, the deviant that actually produce lasting impact. And now I want to know what I can produce musically that might provide similar types of experience for others.
I love that idea of Art and Endurance you bring up, the thought of forcing yourself into a space with art you might not initially understand to interrogate it. Maybe I'm not someone who can really communicate that idea, or follow it to some conclusion yet, but I want to at least try practicing it more.
I think you eventually have to do that because if you only spend time with things that are familiar you'll eventually get bored of them.
“Forcing conversation with a creation you don’t understand is one of my favorite things in the world” you would love talking to my family during the holidays
Jacob, i hope you understand how incredible your videos are, your storytelling, editing, audio make me so happy.
your videos have really helped me to find the love for things in life again. I feel like i lost my way and forgot the love i have for art, games and reading.
Dont mean to be soppy but just wanted to express my gratitude :)
This was exactly the kind of stuff we made and analyzed in my program in college, so it's awesome to see this kind of conversation out in the wild! I was in "pick out a video essay to sleep to" mode, but this was so well articulated and thought out that I had to watch the whole thing through. Well done! I gotta check out your other stuff now (after I get some sleep fr now lol)
as a fine art academy student, i can say yes some ppl made 'games' and other interactive exhibitions in a game engine for projects or even diplomas. Just to play around the possibility and new media tools. Its really cool.
I love these sort of "experience games" and i think that's why I'm so entranced with KittyHorrorShow, they're all definately "games" in the sense of medium, but even Monastery- the most game-like apart from grandmother or Anatomy- doesn't really have a goal, you're just put in a world and told to explore, and I love using that as storytelling. I've been committed to writing out transcripts for every one of her games, and as much as I enjoy doing so, it really settles in how these stories have to be told in a game format. I can write out all of Lethargy Hill, but that won't compare to the gradual corruption of the music, the aimless wandering in a senseless landscape, the flashing geometry and red sky, the way you're interrupted by jagged text. It's not creating a game, it's creating an experience. Basements does the same, it's lengthy poetry put into a 3D space, you can just read about the house fire, or you could scramble through burning hallways room to room reading text scrawled on the walls, no particular order, unable to escape. You can read all the stories people in Tenement tell, but it's not the same as restarting, wandering a warped floating city with flickering residents with unrecognisable faces, and keep restarting until they beg you to stop, and the world locks you out.
These aren't games in the sense that you do something, but they place you in a world, tell you to look around, and experience it, and that, basically, is a game
First video essay I’ve seen in a while that was moving. Well done.
I wrote a paper talking about Radiohead and how they were adapting to the rise of the internet back in like 2009. It's really cool to see them continuing to push the envelope.
I think this is Jacob's way of saying ''My life is like a video game''
Starting to think the raw excitement i feel at a new Jacob Geller upload needs to be studied
the feeling of sense slowly merges into consumerist excitement huh
One part human instinct to explore, one part human need for companionship
One of the most fulfilling experiences as humans is to merge them together
To explore the feelings art causes in all of us, and to have another there to say "Yeah, i feel it too"
good job on getting 1 mil. Keep up the amazing game reviews and video essays. Definitely a favorite
Great video, unquestionably. And right around the time you started talking about Monument to Guilt, I had a feeling you were going to include Kid A Mnesia Exhibition. And you did! Joy! Thank you, Jacob!
I remember the day the Kid A Mnesiac exhibition "opened", i downloaded it immediately, it was night at the time. I sat in my dark room with my headphones on and i slowly walked through it. It took me some 4 hours. I cried in the pyramid during How to Disappear Completely. It was amazing and i had such a nasty headache afterwards, but that was totally worth it.
I paused the video and downloaded kid a mnesia as soon as you mentioned the pyramid. Just spent 45 minutes walking through and having an incredibly emotional experience (and wondering how I'd never heard of this before) and I can confidently say that as someone who can't listen to how to disappear completely without crying, I was in absolute shambles. That was gorgeous.
Its not the act of watching ice melt thats artistic, its the proposition that a person can take something they overlook and reframe the situation so that you're admiring and finally observing something you normally take for granted.
If you haven't already, I'd look into KNOWMAD, a video game museum piece that is an exploration of the difficulties of being a nomad in the modern era. One of the most impactful experiences I've had in a museum
I loved Kid A Mnesia Exhibition because it felt like an expansion and refinement of both albums and the accompanying audio visual artworks, blips, sketchbook pages, website maze, paintings, etc., created alongside them. I had to ease myself into the game because the creatures and images make me a bit uncomfortable and on edge as if I'm anticipating a jump scare that won't happen. My favorite bit was where you're on the outside catwalk and the camera angle changes to reveal that you're one of the minotaur creatures.
This video put into essence the sense of wonder I had discovering indie games through let’s plays around 10 years ago before my university’s game development program tried to bury it with courses that taught you how to be “marketable” enough for big companies to hire you. This was a school that kept teaching development for web games long after flash games had gone out of style. But I digress. I’m happy I left that program to rediscover what I loved about games in the first place and happy to say I fell in love with game development again.
this is an amazing video. the feelings its invocated in me are complex and simple. thank you.
I always love it when Jacob posts a life changing video again
6:37 actually made me stand up and scream. best transition in youtube video essay history.
Best video game essay channel on YT, change my mind. Great, evocative stuff.
Every video, thought provoking as it is entertaining. Food for thought videos that have me find myself with thoughts I never would have had without consuming his content.
Honestly, glad I eventually found Jacob in the midst of youtube. I even recall: the very first video essay I ever watched (a video about finding a specific minecraft seed), the first Jacob video essay i watched (the Decade-Long Quest for Shadow of the Colossus' Last Secret, i was also emotionally touched when I read that comments section), the Jacob video that pushed me to subscribe to him on Nebula (the Single Best Gaming Moment of 2022). And with having watched a lot of this content among others, I've started to really feel smarter about my perspective on all kinds of media.
Without Jacob, I wouldn't have also subscribed to Max Derrat, a fellow RUclips essayist who makes just as sublime and enriching food for thought content with a focus on the profundity elements of a piece of media, usually in gaming. Without Jacob, I wouldn't have started listening to podcasts, like "Something Rotten", or any other podcasts on other topics that interest me. Without Jacob, I wouldn't have discovered youtube's A Pixel A Day, and watched their 2 hour long retrospective on Ninja Theory's mainline titles.
In short, 1 million subscribers, congratulations. Thank you for enriching my experience with things I love. And hope for more.
I appreciate this game you put out, including the mechanic to start, stop, and rewind its content whenever
This is why you are my favorite youtuber/artist/critic/writer, Jacob. You seriously have a beautiful way of connecting thoughtful arguments to the pieces. I watch your videos even after I finish them. I went back to your video about Perfect Vermin and How Fish Is Made, with their interpretation of death, 4 separate times. Seriously...i can't express the level of intrigue I pull from your video essays. You make some of the best content out here and I want to support all of it. Keep on keeping on!
congrats on 1 mill, man! been watching you forever and am so happy for you.
KID A MNESIAC EXHIBITION is one of the best thing i've ever played. Being a really really big radiohead fan also helped so much.