Pathologic seems an impossible masterpiece to follow-up, especially for the hundred hours I've spent in the Town-on-Gorkhon, and the hundreds more considering it. Considering how oddly close to my heart it struck, how alien and punishing, yet familiar and comfortable Pathologic feels to me. I can never write about it or speak about it without feeling like I'm doing it a great injustice, or else exaggerating my feelings to make it feel more special, as though it's my own little piece of art untouchable and thus incorruptible by anyone else. I've waited, paced myself out between experiencing Ice Pick Lodge's other work because I expect to be let down in one way or another after reaching the highs Pathologic offered me. The Void, then, has an unrealistically high bar to reach, one that I was ready to accept and temper my expectations accordingly. What I didn't expect was for this piece to forge a new bar altogether, not higher nor lower than Pathologic, but in a different plane completely. The Void, as it so happens, is completely special.

The Void's surreal and challenging design makes me feel sensitive, submerged, in a way that art rarely makes me feel, as though I don't have full control over myself while I'm inside of it. I think about the colors, the compartmentalization of emotion, and wonder how I use them in my real life, how I approach my emotions and attribute them within myself and paint them onto others, how I nurture relationships with them. I wonder if its manipulative to be aware of this, to consciously grow colors for an intended outcome, or just to feel them inside me for a period. I am sensitive to the colors, and feel them burst like pollen from firework blossoms inside me, spreading through my body and swaying me one way or another. When I smell, touch, see, remember, colors burst and I am forced to place them neatly into compartments within my heart, savoring them and keeping them until I know what to do with them, or until they metabolize and pass through me. I can try to grow colors myself, inspiration from art, passion or hatred or anxiety, but is this the wrong way to approach the world? When color decides to enter me, should it be spontaneous, do I risk burning out when I harvest it myself? Sometimes I have no color at all, sometimes I wake up with it from dreams or finished thought experiments, sometimes it fills my brain and lungs and makes it hard to think and breathe. Within the bounds of the game, there is a correct answer, and end-goal for your attribution of color, or at least one that lets you feel satisfied with having experimented until an ending comes for you. In the real world, in my own body and my own void, what do I do with these thoughts and feelings?

It's difficult to even pass by thecatamites' work and not be changed in some way or another by his creative energy. Anthology of the Killer amps up everything he does well to a 10, even at its slowest it is incomparably clever and funny and stylistic.
I've written a lot (and will continue to write) about how his games make me want to create something grandiose and messy, and I think this has been the biggest shove towards actionable inspiration so far. Who knows what this means for me, having recently started a new full-time job, hunting for apartments, trying to manage a few handfuls of projects in my off-time while also catching up on reading and gaming and film and long walks in the forest... but something will happen, if just in my head, and I think I'm learning to be ok with that.

It's difficult to even pass by thecatamites' work and not be changed in some way or another by his creative energy. Anthology of the Killer amps up everything he does well to a 10, even at its slowest it is incomparably clever and funny and stylistic.
I've written a lot (and will continue to write) about how his games make me want to create something grandiose and messy, and I think this has been the biggest shove towards actionable inspiration so far. Who knows what this means for me, having recently started a new full-time job, hunting for apartments, trying to manage a few handfuls of projects in my off-time while also catching up on reading and gaming and film and long walks in the forest... but something will happen, if just in my head, and I think I'm learning to be ok with that.

It pulls some really fun conceptual tricks to add new life to the sliding-box-hit-the-button puzzles, but really doesn't have enough substance to keep the gimmick interesting - especially if you're stuck with blue shirt's view, which looks cool for maybe a screen or two and then gets old real fast. Narratively, I'm sure there's more depth if you play through it 3 times or whatever to unlock the true ending, but honestly I don't see a reason to, unfortunately none of the tidbits of dialogue were interesting enough to hook me or my partner.