Kevin Renfield presents … 15 tripped out video games

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Forward Instinct Midnight Ultra

‘In the American Southwest, a lone witch hunter travels across the desert, seeking to wipe out cultists of all sorts. Fight a variety of goons and ghouls, through small towns to dimension-spanning motels. Blast your way through a neon-dripped, pixelated nightmare in this high-speed, high-thrills FPS.’

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Artpass Playthrough

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Jeremy Couillard Sometimes to Deal with the Difficulty of Being Alive, I Need to Believe There Is a Possibility That Life Is Not Real

‘A video experience, a simulation, a game that plays itself, a database of games, an absurdist, sci-fi play, emails going to nowhere, conversation starters, meditations, secret lairs, fights, break-dancing, play on a network, play by yourself, don’t play at all and just watch, set it up in a gallery, set it up at a party…’

Home FurnishingLowRes

 

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HoneyBeeSoftware Djilyaro

‘Djilyaro is a short, first-person psychedelic game. In a strange place you awake with one goal, to find all the pieces and to be set free of this strange island. Although the closer you get to completion the stranger things become.’

 

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Double Fine Presents Kids

‘At the very beginning of Kids, you help a small group of faceless bodies fall into a dark hole. You don’t have much say in the matter, either: a crowd forms around the rim of the inky pit, and as you touch the screen, they all topple over. In the next scene, those same bodies helplessly float downward into seeming nothingness. You can’t stop them, but if you hold a finger on a body, it will temporarily slow down before falling again. I’ve played through this opening multiple times, and I’m still not sure what it means. That’s kind of the point. “Depending on who is playing it, there are quite different reactions,” explains Michael Frei, a Swiss filmmaker and artist who co-created Kids. “Some see it as something dark, some find it hilarious.”’

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Mogila Games Clinically Dead

‘It will happen eventually to all of us, but Mr. Samson is the guy who has no luck today – he’s dying. He is falling into his own mind and each next second is taking longer and longer. In the beginning, the first second felt like three seconds. Normal time was slower for him than for others. The next second one was like five minutes. He had a lot of time to rethink his life. For everyone else, this is the matter of seconds, but for him, this was taking forever. Finally, the last second of his life on earth was stretched to an infinite period of time… and this is the place where we are starting our adventure. The adventure where you are moving through a 4-dimensional system. Space and time are connected here and you are free to move not only in three directions (width, height, and depth) but also in the fourth one – time.’

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Cylne Cylne

‘Cylne is a first person surreal exploration game having a poetic and philosophical side. Explore and feel unreal worlds filled with environmental enigmas to try to achieve the chapter called “The Choice”… The meaning of the game is up to your interpretation and doesn’t impose narrative elements. Cylne is a particularly difficult game to describe. […] It renders the most basic concept of interaction unfamiliar by dropping the player in a world with its own rules, with its own sense of twisted dream-logic.’

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Rice Cooker Republic Bokida – Heartfelt Reunion

‘An open-world adventure with puzzle elements and a minimalist aesthetic. Bokida takes place on a dormant, seemingly monochromatic world of light that gradually reveals its beauty. Experience freedom while exploring a peaceful, intriguing environment.’

Trailer

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Colorfiction 0°N 0°W

‘0°N 0°W is a first person exploration game with varied visual styles. Each time you play, the available environments are shuffled around, making each playthrough a unique experience. A cross country road trip strands you in a mysterious town lost amidst towering mesas and swaying dunes, will you beckon the glowing call of its lone storefront and embark on a fantastical multidimensional walkabout through space and time?’

Trailer

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Benjamin Outram Crystal Vibes feat. Ott.

‘Experience candy-colored psychedelic sound rippling through an endless crystal universe. Crystal Vibes utilizes the cutting edge of spatial 3D audio and sound visualization that maps sound and light based on the science of the human senses, to push the frontiers of technology-mediated sensory experience in virtual reality. With the project’s predecessor described as “transcendent” and “like traveling through a psychedelic kaleidoscope” (Forbes 2016), this piece ups the ante with music from producer Ott.’

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Colin Northway Deep Under the Sky

‘Try life as a strange jellyfish on a remarkable world. Learn to fly through the skies of a psychedelic Venus, to explore and flourish. Fling, jet, grapple and roll your way through 80 levels of tentacle-flying physics fun. Time your bursts just right to explore every cleft and cranny of the floating beasts inhabiting the mysterious dark side of Venus. This game uses only one button but don’t be fooled – you’ll have to think like a jellyfish and zen to the heady biorhythms of the planet before you learn its secrets.’

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Darjeeling Californium

‘Californium is a first-person exploration game created as a homage to the American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Dick is well known for his many written works including The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? which inspired the movie Blade Runner. He is also widely recognised as the author of the short stories that inspired other such films as Minority Report and Total Recall. For those familiar with Dick’s work it is easy to see how Californium was created with his unique style in mind; Dick often focuses on the issues of drug abuse and paranoia, both of which are touched upon in the game.’

Trailer

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McKenna Sanderson Ethereality

‘Ethereality is an experimental graphic design project. The overall concept is a “three-dimensional” interactive rave flyer in the format of a simple game. Once the player has collected all 100 kandi, they will gain entry to the “real-life” rave – the door will disappear, revealing all the necessary information to make it to the rave (all that would normally be found on a flyer.) The different music throughout the environment is intended to mimic the feeling of being at a party, or club. The overall look and feel is based on the sensory overload often experienced at a rave. This project was heavily inspired by 90s rave culture and graphic design on rave flyers found on ravepreservationproject.com’

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Dreaming Methods Wallpaper

‘A US-based computer engineer and innovator returns to his remote family home in rural England following the death of his elderly mother. His agenda: to close the place down and sell it. But not before he tries out an experimental Augmented Reality device he’s been working on, primed to help him uncover the history behind one particularly enigmatic room in the house – a room that has remained locked since his childhood. Part of a research project called Reading Digital Fiction led by Professor Alice Bell from Sheffield Hallam University, Wallpaper was designed, written and coded by digital artists Andy Campbell and Judi Alston.’

Gameplay

 

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Nathan Whitmore GPT Adventure

‘I just got hopelessly lost in a bizarre new text adventure game, but for once it wasn’t entirely my fault. That’s because the game, appropriately named GPT Adventure, is generated as I play by a neural network that was trained on transcripts of existing text adventure games. It’s like a strange, dreamlike version of 1970s text adventures like “Zork” or “Adventureland.”

‘The game was created by Northwestern University neuroscience graduate student Nathan Whitmore. In his blog, Whitmore writes that he was inspired by the Mind Game, a fictional game generated in real-time by AI in the sci-fi novel “Ender’s Game.” GPT Adventure — which you can play here — isn’t that sophisticated, but the experiment is a fascinating glimpse into the future of procedurally-generated video games.

‘The game uses GPT-2, the infamous fake news-writing algorithm created by OpenAI. Like most AI systems, the game tends to forget what it already told the player, transporting them willy-nilly through various chambers and corridors whether they like it or not.’

 

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Asmik Ace Entertainment LSD: Dream Emulator

‘”LSD: Dream Emulator” is an obscure Playstation game released only in Japan. The game lives up to half its title – the people who made it clearly overdosed on hallucinogens. The “Dream Emulator” part fares a little worse. Imagine, for a moment, that your dream world is a Nintendo 64. This game’s emulation of that world would consist of taping the N64 controller to a washing machine and having you watch your laundry while a Japanese guy hums the Mario theme in the background.’

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p.s. Hey. Today we luck out because a kindly, dedicated reader of this blog, Kevin Renfield, has gathered together fifteen psychedelic video games he likes enough to pass along, and they are indeed pretty cool. Check them out. Thank you so much, Kevin. ** rewritedept, Okay, I’ll dedicate at least some initial time to McClusky. I love Pinback, as you probably know. They’re grotesquely undervalued. One of the characters in Zac’s and my next film sings a little bit of a Pinback song even. It sounds like today’s post might be up your current alley. Uh, let me think about that book recommendation thing. ** Adem Berbic, One man’s offbeat is another man’s towering. Martin Amis, role model, how extremely uninteresting. It’s interesting how ‘class’ always seems to rear its head as a fetish subject amongst Brits. I guess I associate ‘class’ with being overly adult, but I’m weird. I don’t even read The New Yorker. Charlotte would be good, obviously. You guys have a lot of very good young writers over there, shouldn’t be too hard. ** Bill, Hey. Yeah, sometimes Lee Bul really speaks to me, and sometimes the work seems like it should a film projected onto it or something. I don’t know Zao Wou-ki, but I’ll look for the work. Thanks. ** Charalampos, Ah, a true Aumont fan. Nice. The Rollin film is fun. Greetings back from … I think it’s still called Paris. ** Hugo, I just almost never find Pattinson’s acting interesting or convincing in the slightest. Did you make it to London? ** Carsten, Happy to have located a Carsten treat. I’ve suddenly come down with an eye infection, and my left eye is all swollen, which is to say I’ll be joining you on antibiotics any minute now, I suspect. Hopefully it’ll effect me like it does you. I need to shake off jet lag’s fumes. I’ll check out ‘Che’. Soderberg’s a huge fan of Robert Pollard, had him to do the score for one of his films (‘Bubble’) and attempted unsuccessfully to do a broadway musical with Pollard, which eternally endears the guy to me. Very interesting thoughts re: him/his work. Thanks, pal. ** hagai aviel, Yes, Tina Aumont was in Gian Luigi Polidoro’s ‘Satyricon’ (1969), not Fellini’s. My mistake. I’ve corrected that. Thanks. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks for the alert re: Bedwyr Williams. I don’t know his work, but I just followed him on Instagram, so I’ll catch up. Oh, and I’ll examine his Patreon too. ** John Christopher, Hi! Oh, cool. This week is a little rough for me, but write to me, yes, and let’s figure something out. Safe trip today. ** Gustavo, Hi, Gustavo. Good to meet you. Thanks a lot for coming inside. And for your kind words about my stuff. I’m really happy you saw and liked ‘Room Temperature’. Please come back anytime and hang out. I’d be interested to know more about you and what you do, if you feel like it. ** kenley, Hi! Are you still in Wonderland? My body is gradually adjusting to its current time zone. But one of my eyes is suddenly infected, so it’s trading one mishap for another. Have major fun. ** Diesel Clementine, Hi! Gluon, total news to me. Strange, interesting, I’ll investigate. Free indirect voice … what exactly do you mean by that? I’m not sure I know. A metaphysics? Mm, probably. I mostly think about form and let the other aspects happen instinctively while I chisel, but, yeah, probably. I’ll think about it. In real life? No, I don’t think I take a metaphysical approach to the real version, or not consciously. Why? You sounds very alert and percolative and great. Me, I’m angling towards full power. Thank you, Diesel. ** Steve, I have an eye infection at the moment, so, different effects, but I get and feel for you and yours. At the moment there are no upcoming film travels in the US, just in Europe (Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, maybe Frankfurt, …), but something might come up. My lag is fading out, not rapidly enough, of course, but I didn’t have to take a nap yesterday, and that’s something. ** HaRpEr //, Not right as rain yet, more like wrong as drizzle. I love Clementi’s films, particularly the one she’s in. They’re very of their time and psychedelic, but amazing. I just watched ‘Casanova’ again after decades this weekend for my Zoom Book/Film Club. It’s imperfect, but if you like the ‘Satyricon’ era Fellini, there’s a lot of great stuff in there. I wrote a porn film once that never got made, and it ended up being anti-horny, which is why it never got made. ** Nicholas., Well, hello there, sir. Don’t stop, for goodness sake. Dinner? Uh, my vegan stuff and mashed potatoes wrapped in tortillas version of my usual eating material. Your journal entry is beautiful. It has this kind of serenity or something that’s new to your tone (to me) and quite effective. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Awesome that you watched ‘Visa de censure n° X’. And dug it. You continue to rule. Clearly. ** Laura, I’m just bored of sexed up stuff. There’s too much stuff that has giving people a boner as one of its top priorities. Too often it’s just a substitute for actual thinking and aesthetic adventuring. It’s all just so edgy conventional. I don’t know. My reading got cancelled because I didn’t arrive in time. That’s all. Fine with me because I don’t relish doing readings. Here? Just trying to wake up enough to do all the things I need to do right now. Not shiny, but maybe soon. Feel upper! ** Thom, Hi. Oh, I guess I missed it, yeah. Thanks for copying/pasting. Yay, Trecartin is a god. ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ too in its own way. Worth the hunt, pal. Holobiosis is a good title. It made my mouth kind of crazy when I pronounced it. I’m so happy that you’re reading such amazing stuff, and that you’re inspired in your writing. That is the ultimate accomplishment to any artist, to trigger that. You sound really fiery. I’m sort of vaguely returning to my usual state, thank you. Any minute now. Or, well, hour now. Do your week up proud. ** Right. Let Kevin’s picks sweep over you until I see you tomorrow.