Hello again, my wonderful friends! Intern-Paul here, back with some Found-on-the-Internet Friday jams while in the middle of covering this weekend’s Vector Game + Art Convergence Festival!
So since I’m at a games festival this week, why not follow a theme? That’s right! Today’s Friday Roundup theme is. . . you guessed it:
Emotions! You have them! Maybe right now? Hopefully good ones!
Now let’s start with. . .
CONFUSION – Gostak
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live within a completely alien civilization? Building a means of communication would be the first concern, but where would you start? Gostak is one of the oldest and most accessible forms of interactive media: The text-based adventure. The catch, however, is that Gorstak’s vocabulary is completely made up. Though the grammar still falls within English rules, most nouns, verbs and adjectives have been replaced with new nonsense words that are, nevertheless, consistent with an invented language.
Gostak provides a really interesting challenge: Not only do you have to complete the story, but to even get close to accomplishing that goal, you need to understand what the flip is going on by decoding its language.
HUMOUR – Niles Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A., Ed.D, Blood King
Storyboard artist Brandon Kruse brings us this fantastic, dark and Lovecraftian comic based on the now-defunct sitcom Frasier. The comic itself is a contribution to a new zine in the works by comic artist Zac Gorman focusing on—yep—Frasier. Did I mention that the comic is fantastic? Because it is. It really is.
TERROR – Imscared – A Pixelated Nightmare
If you ever needed a perfect example of what effective horror is, Imscared, a free downloadable game by Ivan Zanotti, stands pretty much as a paradigm. Behind its pixelated and simplistic veneer hides a haunting undertone and the real sensation of being watched. I’ve genuinely never encountered a more effective form of horror than this. The game doesn’t just yearn to frighten with you; it wants to toy with you. Saying any more would spoil the experience, and so I’ll just say this: If you’re willing to challenge yourself with a fright, download the game, unzip its files into its own folder on your desktop, and load it up.
Sadly, the game is only for Windows machines—there is no version available for Macs.
SADNESS – M.O.M.
M.O.M. is an animated short by Italian filmmaker Margherita Premuroso. It’s a distinctly somber and cryptic tale about guilt, despair, and ennui—among other things—experienced by an old fisherman trapped in a tragic and peculiar cycle. The artwork is stunning, and the narrative is strangely beautiful. You may feel sad upon watching it, but I don’t expect you’ll regret it.
RELIEF– Flushed
Okay, so from terror to sadness, I might have ruined a few people’s days at this point. Hopefully this makes it all better. Flush is, I think it’s safe to say, the first e-zine focusing on the convergence of toilets and video games. Edited by Samantha Allen, Elizabeth Simins and Lana Polanksi, the zine is, according to Simins, “a pretty fun time if you’re into toilets and videogames. Which, let’s be honest, we all are.”
And that’s it! I’ll see you all next week with more internet gems, and another photo of Auden maybe? The reception he got last time, guys. . . I mean, geez!