Well, it has been a while since I last wrote something. I overdid the programming stuff a bit during my thesis and I'm currently kind of recovering from that. Rediscovering that programming can be a lot of fun and a rewarding experience (it's about time the fun finally comes back). Anyway I'm not writing this because of programming stuff. This time it's about a game.
There are games I like. For example Deus Ex and the Unreal series. Because, well they were "cool" at their time. I spend way to much time with them as a child and they helped to inspired me to do all that technical stuff I really enjoy today. Then there are other games… games that have a soul, that have something really unique about them. I only know very few of them and it's probably a very personal matter which games you would consider to belong to that class. For me Darwinia is one of them. It really made me think about a lot of stuff and seeing a sorrowing darwinian was a heartbreaking experience.
And then, a day ago, I discovered that there is another kind of game. Games that do something I never thought possible games can do. Games that make you think… no, that let you experience emotions in a way I never imagined possible for a game. A few years ago I read the first (and until now only) book that made me cry: Nation. Yesterday I played the first game that made me cry: To the Moon. It's hard to describe why. Every life has it's own path, it's valleys, it's unique story. There are things you have to do and decisions you have to make. And these two (To the Moon and Nation) are not just a game or a book… they are imprints of life. And now they have become a part of me, probably for the rest of my life.
I'm sorry but that is the best I can come up with to describe the experience. Thanks to these two marvellous pieces of art I feel like I have lived two and a half lives by now. And if that's not true art I don't know what is.
ps.: I small Star Trek remark that just popped into my mind: There is an Star Trek The Next Generation episode (The Inner Light) where they find an old probe. This probe lets Captain Picard relive the last few decades of a scientist of a long dead world. Discovering that their sun was dying, having children and finally realising that their entire culture will die along with their sun. At the end the probe is launched to convey the memories of their culture to the first one who finds it (and that is Captain Picard). I think after the game I felt like Captain Picard at the end of the episode when they found the flute in the probe…
pps.: I bought the game at Good old Games.