very first characters you run into are three dudes listening to an instrumental cloud rap beat talkin about "finding the light" and "money". this was how all you drainers sounded like to me back in 2016. the good (low fidelity, usage of vaporwave/cloud rap/house music, smoke button) works here more than the bad (a bludgeoning of an ending, "loneliness +1", a general briefness). some striking moments like goin on a elliptical bender in a coastal town & getting really nervous eating potato chips around girls. think the ennui ultimately misses the mark for me in a way that other games with similar experiences don't though--the mood feels so particular to a college-adjacent early 20s anxiety & somehow too abstract to strike a real nerve. the ending convo is going for the jugular on a certain type of person but it feels a lil tacky in how subdued the rest of the experience is. VtM:B still clears for climatic conversations with a taxi driver i fear. i liked it enough to be invested in sad3d's other works when they go on sale tho.

A wonderfully moody game that sees you exploring the nightlife of a crumbling, post-Soviet cityscape. Diegetic music and radio broadcasts invite you to encounters with strangers all in search of their own place in an indifferent universe. Where other experiences may become overbearingly nihilistic, Neyasnoe manages to find warmth in the pockets of life people have carved out as respite from the cold and dark. You share a smoke and ruminate on the state of things. You attend a poetry recital amongst friends. You drink and dance like fools into the fleeting night. What else is there to do at the end of days?