if i had a nickel for every time this year i played a mod for a classic game from the 90s heavily influenced by yume nikki and the internet's fascination with "liminal spaces," i'd have ten cents. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
anyways, growing up i always felt a sense of unease playing super mario 64, though very specifically when exploring the castle. N64 games at large had that kind of creepy effect about them; donkey kong 64 is another example of something just feeling really off about the atmosphere in the titles of that specific system. the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" meme from the pandemic era always struck me as really cool in that way since i liked that people were capitalizing on something i'd always observed since i was a kid.
b3313 truly shines whenever it's leaning hard into that specific feeling and the dreamlike manner in which its labyrinthine world is tied together. exploration and quiet unease are far more effective than the cheap jump scares and heavy-handed "horror" moments or attempts at Lore. i understand much of the game's more typical and overt horror elements are nods to some of the more (in)famous net series based on the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" meme, but the jumpscares get irritating after you encounter several in a row and it's a bit hard to take the Scary Lore seriously when it's juxtaposed against literally fucking super mario.
once again i feel b3313 is at its best when it's in its element and doing its own thing built on the foundation of mario 64's innate uneasiness; the moments that got an audible "what the fuck" out of me were when the game seemed to defy any attempt at being understood even by the logic it had previously established and seemed to act arbitrarily without any reason or justification. surreality and abstractions are more often than not more evocative than anything else in this sort of medium, and it's important to remember that the reason uboa is so widely beloved is that he's yume nikki's only real jumpscare. the other memorable scares in yume nikki (such as FACE) approach more slowly and give the player time to simply sink into the dread and incomprehensibility of what they're witnessing; more often than not true horror comes in the way that a scare sticks in your mind rather than the adrenaline it evokes out of you when it makes itself known.
basically: creepy atmosphere, disorienting and confusing gameplay loops, subtlety and opaqueness? good! jumpscares, Scary Lore, and zoomer horror tropes? less good!
obligatory mention of the herculean technical effort this mod had to have been. i remember my first time emulating mario 64 i was wowed by how you could change mario's color to make him kinda look like luigi. how far we have come!
anyways, growing up i always felt a sense of unease playing super mario 64, though very specifically when exploring the castle. N64 games at large had that kind of creepy effect about them; donkey kong 64 is another example of something just feeling really off about the atmosphere in the titles of that specific system. the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" meme from the pandemic era always struck me as really cool in that way since i liked that people were capitalizing on something i'd always observed since i was a kid.
b3313 truly shines whenever it's leaning hard into that specific feeling and the dreamlike manner in which its labyrinthine world is tied together. exploration and quiet unease are far more effective than the cheap jump scares and heavy-handed "horror" moments or attempts at Lore. i understand much of the game's more typical and overt horror elements are nods to some of the more (in)famous net series based on the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" meme, but the jumpscares get irritating after you encounter several in a row and it's a bit hard to take the Scary Lore seriously when it's juxtaposed against literally fucking super mario.
once again i feel b3313 is at its best when it's in its element and doing its own thing built on the foundation of mario 64's innate uneasiness; the moments that got an audible "what the fuck" out of me were when the game seemed to defy any attempt at being understood even by the logic it had previously established and seemed to act arbitrarily without any reason or justification. surreality and abstractions are more often than not more evocative than anything else in this sort of medium, and it's important to remember that the reason uboa is so widely beloved is that he's yume nikki's only real jumpscare. the other memorable scares in yume nikki (such as FACE) approach more slowly and give the player time to simply sink into the dread and incomprehensibility of what they're witnessing; more often than not true horror comes in the way that a scare sticks in your mind rather than the adrenaline it evokes out of you when it makes itself known.
basically: creepy atmosphere, disorienting and confusing gameplay loops, subtlety and opaqueness? good! jumpscares, Scary Lore, and zoomer horror tropes? less good!
obligatory mention of the herculean technical effort this mod had to have been. i remember my first time emulating mario 64 i was wowed by how you could change mario's color to make him kinda look like luigi. how far we have come!