Basements: A jarring, nightmarish world of sharp, twitching, epileptic red forms, like a shattered, hellish parking lot. Despite the ever-present crevices, suicide is impossible; the game mocks you for thinking you can escape so easily. And inside the structures encircling this hell you find doorways that lead you to a more panicked, urgent hell- room after room is burning, spikes jab obscenely down from the ceiling. Text is scrawled upon the walls, but you feel an urgent impulse to keep moving, to escape.
Castle Wormclot: A much more relaxed little game. You find yourself as a cute little monk character on a floating bridge that encircles a strange castle. Accompanied by a calming medieval song in the background, your job is to light all the candles along the winding path. Despite the occasional friendly NPC you meet along the way, there is a powerful melancholy loneliness that permeates this one, underscored by the colossal castle that is perpetually just out of reach.
Ghost Lake: This is the standout here in my opinion. You begin in an empty town, eerily lit by green streetlights such that the buildings, whose textures stretch and slip away as you approach them, seem to be only silhouettes. And then you discover the car, and the whole world opens up. And you can drive for a really long time, accompanied only by the slow guitar plucking on the radio, through this desolate, dark land. You drive so long you think there must be nothing out here, but then suddenly a strange building will come into focus as a dark silhouette against the mountains- and then a massive temple in the desert, and then a colossal skeleton emerging from the lake. There is something hauntingly beautiful about getting out of your car and exploring these structures at the end of the world, illuminated only by the red taillights of your car. It really makes you want to smoke a cigarette.
Seven Days: You explore a small house and read little notes posted around the place. The gimmick here is that, while the house will stay mostly the same, it will find itself adrift in various strange environments depending on the day of the week that you boot up the game. If you're not impressed wandering around the little house, make sure you come back and see every day, because some of them (one in particular) are really cool.
Castle Wormclot: A much more relaxed little game. You find yourself as a cute little monk character on a floating bridge that encircles a strange castle. Accompanied by a calming medieval song in the background, your job is to light all the candles along the winding path. Despite the occasional friendly NPC you meet along the way, there is a powerful melancholy loneliness that permeates this one, underscored by the colossal castle that is perpetually just out of reach.
Ghost Lake: This is the standout here in my opinion. You begin in an empty town, eerily lit by green streetlights such that the buildings, whose textures stretch and slip away as you approach them, seem to be only silhouettes. And then you discover the car, and the whole world opens up. And you can drive for a really long time, accompanied only by the slow guitar plucking on the radio, through this desolate, dark land. You drive so long you think there must be nothing out here, but then suddenly a strange building will come into focus as a dark silhouette against the mountains- and then a massive temple in the desert, and then a colossal skeleton emerging from the lake. There is something hauntingly beautiful about getting out of your car and exploring these structures at the end of the world, illuminated only by the red taillights of your car. It really makes you want to smoke a cigarette.
Seven Days: You explore a small house and read little notes posted around the place. The gimmick here is that, while the house will stay mostly the same, it will find itself adrift in various strange environments depending on the day of the week that you boot up the game. If you're not impressed wandering around the little house, make sure you come back and see every day, because some of them (one in particular) are really cool.