#emotional high points. shit just lacks clarity of purpose and happens as a given and banks on its aesthetic and melancholic context to

[legionofpotatoes]

I played Season over the weekend, which if I had to condense "thematic meandering" into a videogame is probably what I would most closely end up with; but it was still a cozy chill time that targeted my very specific niche of robust cow petting mechanics. Followed by journaling the heck out of them.

I do think cute indies living and dying by their sincere desire to paint the human condition should never ever ever fall into the temptation of obtuse and nebulous worldbuilding that desperately needs to explain itself so it can function as an aesthetic blanket for their vignettes. Just keep it loose and metaphor-heavy, fellas.

Cause if you're not extremely, painfully specific about your intention with a story that centers ignorant tourism and historic preservation, you're gonna beef it, bud

#season a letter to the future #I have so many nitpicks but it feels mean lmao. in a very subjective sense I had a good time with it. I am a boring playstyle guy #scrapbooking and cycling in a pretty world is right up my alley. wish it wasn't so #man idk if I can call it what I want to call it cause it's so unclear of its own optics. the intention feels pure #for whatever good that can do in a context this god damn loaded :D but at least I recorded the froggies on my tapes #(a game like this does not need elaborate lore that it then fails to adequately explain anyway. that is a barrier to many of season's #emotional high points. shit just lacks clarity of purpose and happens as a given and banks on its aesthetic and melancholic context to #provide the necessary backbone for that punch. but then you end up revealing your hand and general flippant disposition towards this #nebulously coded cultural backdrop that you've constructed for ultimately shallow purposes. especially irt to the core ethos #like the game ultimately asks us if dispassionate preservation of a dying culture is more valuable than the vicarious experience of it but #then that binary is never meaningfully weighted since the protagonist survives and succeeds in either option BECAUSE of the journal and? #it all fizzles out in thematic incongruity. maybe it's my own hangups with glorification of legacy to such a manic degree #or maybe it's really just meant to be sort-of aimless and 'human' in that way. which again negates the need for this lore-brain barrier #just keep it simple without the oddly pedestrian mechanics of the literal apocalypse and the mass amnesia prayers and tell #the exact same story. with a tighter grip on the context of who the protagonist is in this land. there's your game) #text