fancyynancyy
2014
Nihilistic nothingness. One of the worst things I've experienced in my time with this medium, congrats. Stay away from this, specially if you're dealing with depression or some type of anguish. Only played it for morbid curiosity but it does at least give some context as to why the person that made it is such an awful human.
2023
Drowning In Problems if it wasn't made by a hateful person (there's even a "mechanic" here that could be somewhat compared to the one on that game). Still, some of those nihilistic sentiments are present but followed with what is a positive and much-needed reflection on them. Featuring commentary on escapism and loneliness, and the Slav setting that works as a conduit for them (I see people on steam getting tangled in its setting, but I don't think this is really about that), with a great ambiance and song choices... I think this will stick in my mind just by the music.
Watched a few playthroughs to see if I missed any details, and it's interesting to notice how the overall message also works on a meta-level. With the players that don't take time to soak in the game's world and don't interact with the people end up not finding much meaning in it (this was something I forgot to mention with A Short Hike, now that I remember).
Btw, consider turning off the pixelation filter once you start playing... made me dizzy as hell by the end.
Watched a few playthroughs to see if I missed any details, and it's interesting to notice how the overall message also works on a meta-level. With the players that don't take time to soak in the game's world and don't interact with the people end up not finding much meaning in it (this was something I forgot to mention with A Short Hike, now that I remember).
Btw, consider turning off the pixelation filter once you start playing... made me dizzy as hell by the end.
2022
A somewhat interesting concept, but a sloppy execution.
Similar to Infra because of the exploration and camera, but exclusively photography oriented. Though I don't know why you would choose to make a game about picture making and ruin it by having the indie pixelated PSX look with all the grainy mess going on. The closer you are, the worst the object looks, so your best bet is to take photos from mid-range or afar. There are even some (hideous) level-specific filters that affect your camera directly... so you would say "this looks cool", take a picture, and for it to come out different from what you're seeing.
Also, isn't like the point of liminal stuff to be creeped out from the environments themselves? Like the uncanny feeling or whatever? Something tells me that the dev was not too confident on transmitting that feeling (well, it didn't) since the game is plagued by these shadowy-men working as scares. Similar to the shadow figures you would see on a liminal Gmod map, though at least in those the figure is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing that makes you question if you actually did see something.
Anyway, probably the best liminal game that you could play, so... there's that.
Similar to Infra because of the exploration and camera, but exclusively photography oriented. Though I don't know why you would choose to make a game about picture making and ruin it by having the indie pixelated PSX look with all the grainy mess going on. The closer you are, the worst the object looks, so your best bet is to take photos from mid-range or afar. There are even some (hideous) level-specific filters that affect your camera directly... so you would say "this looks cool", take a picture, and for it to come out different from what you're seeing.
Also, isn't like the point of liminal stuff to be creeped out from the environments themselves? Like the uncanny feeling or whatever? Something tells me that the dev was not too confident on transmitting that feeling (well, it didn't) since the game is plagued by these shadowy-men working as scares. Similar to the shadow figures you would see on a liminal Gmod map, though at least in those the figure is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing that makes you question if you actually did see something.
Anyway, probably the best liminal game that you could play, so... there's that.