#it is still *incredibly* frustrating that i can't just look up an animal in google real quick to check a visual detail

[pastafossa]

Adding that if you really just have had enough of sifting through AI and just want a book to use for references instead, I guarantee your local library has everything from visual encyclopedias to older Nat Geo books full of photos that make AMAZING references for art projects.

[inkus-plinkus]

I really get a frick-ton of enjoyment out of old games, and I don't know why. A lot of them are so stupid and silly - and incredibly frustrating to boot - but yet I can't seem to hate them.

The first one that comes to mind that has a special place in my heart is Oregon Trail II. Not the text-based one, but the one with a lot of visuals and sound effects and it's very old-timey, not just in the fact it takes place in the oooooold USA, but in the graphics compared to modern-day games as well.

That game is so stupid. And yet it's so genius at the same time. It's infuriating how you can just die for seemingly no reason - that if you hunt animals you are very likely to accidentally shoot yourself - that you can spend so long trying to be as careful as possible on a run all for you to just die suddenly because the RNG decided it.

I still love playing it. The entire experience of it, really. But if we were only taking the player's experience into account and nothing else, it really is a shit game. You will have a miserable time for at least a few minutes out of any run, I guarantee it, and it will likely be a lot LONGER than a few minutes too.

But that's completely by design. The educational aspect of the game is subtle enough to where it doesn't FEEL like it's in your face, but every facet of the experience down to the emotions you experience while you play are, in themselves, teaching you something about what it was like back then. Of course, grumbling at silly migration video game is not nearly as bad as it was actually dying of cholera, starvation, or hypothermia, but it's about as close as the game can legally get to putting you into that experience.

There is something so perfect about Oregon Trail II and yet not a lot of people talk about it, I feel like. It's an exceedingly old game that most systems can't play without an emulator, so I suppose it makes sense. But I, being born in 2002, played it when I was in school, and to me that's also crazy. Oregon Trail II came out in 1995 and I was playing it in, at the EARLIEST, 2007, but it was more likely to be 2008 or 2009. Maybe all three years, actually. I remember loving the game even though I didn't understand what was happening and never actually got to the expedition part. I just liked buying up all the bacon, and the aesthetics of the game.

It's not just Oregon Trail II I like despite being so old, either. I like atari games in general, although many of them are hard for me to figure out. The Nintendo Switch Online thingies have a lot of old/older/oldish games to play and i like exploring those lists and just opening games i know nothing about and trying to figure them out. One of the games I did this with was called Burger Time and it was so hard for me to figure out (because i am stupid) that I had to look up a guide for it... a guide for fuckin BURGER TIME bro.

anyway, when i have my own house i think i will collect a lot of old games and play them. and probably write about them. get ready

-inkus

plinkus edit:

i tried playing psycho dream, i think it was named, on the switch emulator. it was pretty boring. the title screen looked neat though.

i unno about burger time specifically, but older games tend to lack tutorials and stuff, so its prolly normal to look up guides. it might be less authentic to the old games experience though, if theyre from before big internet. i dont think its worth the suffering of trial and error personally, when u can just google it, but its possible that that's fun for some people.

i do like some arcade games a lot, if that counts for this topic. like, the aesthetic of them is real cool. the music's also real cool. i like galaga and the ones like it in particular, but im not very good at them. i also really like dig dug, or maybe it was dig dug 2 that i liked. the green creatures are real cool.

i also like tetris, especially some of the music. i watched a couple youtube videos of a puyo puyo-tetris player that were real cool. i also tried playing a puyo puyo game on the switch emulator i think, but it seemed like it'd be too difficult for me. something about setting up color patterns for chains later is...incomprehensible. maybe theres a secret pattern to it or something.

- plinkus

inkus edit / reply:

i have disliked tetris for a majority of my life, as a result of my "hating mainstream things" arc; that's a wall im slowly trying to break though. what *I* liked from back in the day was the pokemon puzzle league, which was i think the equivalent to tetris nostalgia that others play. puzzle league is also on the nintendo switch online - and it might be the nostalgia talking, but thats good shit. anyway, i think i would enjoy the original tetris if i played it. i've played tetris clones and enjoyed them but i dont enjoy them as much as i think others do. i think some other puzzle types are more enjoyable to me.

i dont kno what puyo puyo is adandans and i also dont know what galaga is but i have DEFINITELY heard the word galaga before

i might try psycho dream if i can find it, mostly out of curiosity. i think a lot of things u think are boring are things i find fun sahdasndna

i am glad you mentioned that its just a thing where old games lacked tutorials; i thought i must be crazy, because every game from that era i've tried, they just... start.

like for one example stepdad got a gift one year from me and my mom that was an atari console with like a "150 built in games" type thing or something? I know ones exist where it apparently has like 2600 games and they're like $300-400. i could really spend hundreds of hours just exploring those worlds. like, if i had the money to do so i would definitely buy one of those if they ACTUALLY had 2600 fricken games in there.

but the fact you just get thrown into it without instructions can, for the most part, stress me out. like it makes me feel a bit stupid that i can't understand what's happening, because i just imagine some 6 year old in the 80s laughing at me for not being able to get it even though i'm 21. and, obviously, it isnt that i "can't understand" or "CANT get" the games, because i enjoy them actively. it's just me needing instructions. maybe its autism related? or just me being a lil dummy

anyway to continue my previous thought im glad u brought it up because i didnt want to do the "walk of shame" to the google search bar to type 'why cant i understand how old game do :(((((((((('