Forgotten
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In Forgotten, you’re the horror inside the computer

“It’s now safe to turn off your computer.” Anyone who owned a PC in the ’90s should be familiar with this strange statement. It only appeared once you’d instructed the computer to shut down. But now it also serves as the ending to Sophia Park‘s new Twine game, Forgotten. It’s a fitting closure given that you spend your time inside an old computer with a nearly exhausted hard drive. When you leave you have destroyed the last remnants of a virtual world and the inhabitants that had spent years dwelling within. That final statement suggests that, after your cleansing (or destructive) act,…

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An unfinished demo provides a surreal meditation on grief

Outside, the waves crash against the shore rhythmically. Inside, a broken robot suit lies sprawled on a bed, one arm yanked off and left dramatically on the floor. It’s accompanied by a keyboard that, upon further inspection, is literally made of gold. You can pick up the broken arm, or attempt to play the stubbornly immovable keyboard, but your cautious avatar doesn’t want to go near the robot. That’s understandable, as she just came to this beach, this cabin, to mourn. This is, more or less, the unfinished demo recently released by Arielle Grimes called Simulus, subtitled Cabin in the…

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This game reimagines the glitch aesthetic as an emotional breakdown

Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. WHAT NOW? (Browser)  BY ARIELLE GRIMES Arielle Grimes has developed tremendously as an author of videogames over the past year. She has expressed grief, sorrow, kindness, and love through her interactive art. But her first foray into the medium focused on translating the stress she felt around that time into a bite-sized snapshot of her life. Called What Now?, it had you meandering between the landmarks of her room, reflecting on it a piece at a time. If you moved without stopping, allowing all of the…