slowdance-2h

by mr. a

https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/10665

in slowdance-2h you control a little grey cube, or sometimes three or four little grey cubes, on a white screen populated with larger grey cubes. these guys move slowly towards either the top or bottom of the screen, and pop when they get there. you can push them around a bit, but they give the impression of being entirely indifferent to your existence.

this indifference is emphasised by the bleak brutalist visuals as well as the soundtrack, threadbare synth punctuated by aleatoric pops of exploding cubes. within the framework your actions are largely unrestricted, but your locus of control is small and no matter what you do the universe carries on in generally the same fashion as if you had done nothing. if you can come to terms with this, it’s rewarding to explore the subtleties of the world and your slight influence on it.

–

later i discovered that you can also press spacebar to fire little bullets which push the big cubes upwards. this gives you much more control over the world and results in quite a different videogame. i think liked it better before

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Destroy Your Home

by Juliette Porée (screenshot by Blueberry Soft)

[this was written for the Glorious Trainwrecks x Babycastles zine in April of 2018.]

I am playing ‘Destroy Your Home’ by Juliette Porée. When the game begins I am looking out of a second-story window. It must be morning because it’s just becoming light outside. There is a weird-looking dog looking up at me from the grass below. In the sky, a few clouds, not moving. I turn away from the window and I’m in a large bare room, just a table and a chair. Red-brick interior, faux-wood laminate floor, thoughtfully placed pot-plants; typically suburban and distinctly middle-class, though I will not understand this until much later. A woman – my mother, I think – is telling me to get ready for school. I ask her why I should do that. She says if I don’t I will become stupid. I ask what’s wrong with being stupid. She says she will disown me if I become stupid, and hugs me. I feel safe. I learn that I can ask my mother these questions but never my father. I learn how to distinguish good people from bad people. I learn how much pain I can cause my younger sister without her crying. Classical music on the radio. I like the music of Ravel and I talk about it with my friends at school.

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2 garden games

Garden Simulator

by Hamilton Hickers

in Garden Simulator you watch a pretty little garden shuffle into existence over a few seconds. if you’re lucky you can walk around it afterwards.

Flower Garden

by sylvie

Flower Garden is a small, slippery garden with flowers in it. feels fun but also lonely, like when you think of a good joke that no-one in the room will understand.

some uncollected thoughts on the first one: