#also i just love unsettling pixel games that are simple but use that simplicity to their advantage

[alternate-cesar]

i just played the game 'leave house' by AYolland and it really captures how i felt in my memories. rambling about it below (spoilers under the cut, its like a 5-10 minute play and its free, definitely recommend playing it yourself. warning for themes of unreality and depersonalization under the cut and in the game itself, though)

i am in a house. i want to leave the house, but i can't yet. i go room to room. the house is not large, yet it is infinite. there are some rooms i cannot enter, they scare me. i can go in the bathroom, it gives me a bad feeling. i leave. i am uneasy.

something happens, something changes, but i do not realize it yet. i get stuck. i try to escape, but i cannot. monotony. i try everything, i try to remember patterns. none of it works. i end up in the same place. the music is overwhelming. i am desperate. i stop looking for patterns, i just walk endlessly.

i am in a new room. i am confused, it happened so suddenly. i stop for a moment. i do not want to go in the bathroom. i go in anyways. there is a person, they fill me with dread. it speaks to me. everything collapses in on itself. the world ends. i can see, but i cannot see at the same time. there are walls were there should be none, and nothingness where there should be walls. the house is infinite, more than before.

i am nothing but a jumble of noise and colors and the need to get out, to find something i cannot name. i should not exist, but i do. i drag my body through nonexistent hallways, crawling on walls and gliding across the floor. my body is heavy, yet lighter than air. i worm through tunnels and empty space.

finally, i am out of the bathroom. i have escaped hell. i go down the stairs immediately. i do not care about anything else except the feeling of relief. of freedom. nothing else matters. i am so happy. i fall into the living room. i get stuck again. i fall into despair. everything is a blur. i run out the front door. euphoria. i sprint down the driveway as fast as my distorted limbs can allow, not once looking back. i am free.

i am in a house.

...

additional notes:

-i cannot for the LIFE of me explain what i experience in a way that makes sense, but i CAN find other things that capture the feeling and explain why i relate to those things. this game was so, so close in terms of the vibe and theme. the only differences were that the torres house was one story, and it had more open space. i also didn't encounter cesar in the bathroom, i usually saw him in hallways or from doorways because i never entered the same room as him. same for ms. torres.

-that house scared me. i never felt safe in it, even as an alternate. always looking over my shoulder. never staying in one place. even with the giddiness i knew something was wrong, and i wanted to get out of that house as soon as i could. which required killing cesar. i'm not actually sure whether or not i killed either of them, i don't remember it. but i was so desperate and hellbent to kill him that i probably did.

anyways. 10/10 game. it freaked me out because it hit very close to home, and usually i am not affected by creepy shit at all. odd mixture of comfortingly familiar and anxiety-inducing.