Hi hi! So, I decided to make some brief posts about the games I played for Ectocomp, since it’s my first Ectocomp ever and the whole community aspect of it is really fun. I’d love to do full reviews, but the last time I wrote a review like this was 3 years ago, and I still haven’t recovered from that. Therefore, I’ll be performing vibechecks.
What is a vibecheck in this case? Well, this is me trying to describe the overall vibe - or atmosphere, or however you want to call it - of a particular game, as I felt it. These might take a form of highly specific comparisons, weirdly poetic tangents, disjointed sentences and whatever else comes to my head. If you want proper reviews, it’s probably not the right place for you to be, but if you just want to know how a game made me feel, be my guest. The vibechecks might contain spoilers, so, be careful!
I don’t know how many games I’ll play because my attention span is not ideal (by which I mean it’s almost non-existent), but I’ll do my best. I also just play things randomly and there’s no real pattern to it all.
Night sky so bright that it might just be mistaken for a day. Iron and silver. A cornered dog bites its owner - and it’s been a damn long time coming. Partially sweet, partially metallic taste of blood in your mouth. That heavy smile that comes to your face when you know your suffering is over.
Door that’s open, but inaccessible. Eternally blinking cursor, waiting for words to be written. The figure that’s always in the corner of your eye, even if you know there’s nobody there. Melting right into someone else until you become one entity - no matter how grotesque the end result may be.
Long corridors with all the doors and no exit. That kind of tiredness that rest can’t fix. A flame that still roars, but is scared of burning out. Trying to run from the past into a future that doesn’t exist. Eternal vertigo.
Absolutely overwhelming smell of mold. Coughing so hard that you start to think you’re going to die. That one time when you fell ill as a child and became scared that you will never recover. The hopelessness that comes with losing control over your body. Just wanting the pain to go away.
Roughness of stone underneath your fingers. Curiosity that not only kills the cat, but also makes it afraid all the way through. The dread that comes with not knowing if you’ll live or die. Smell of smoke near the scorched ground. Distant past that comes to haunt the clueless present.
Vividly yellow autumn leaves. Howling of the wind right outside of your window. Mud that gets everywhere, somehow. Fields of corn swaying with the wind, resembling crowds of fans or loyal subjects. Cold nights that are more beautiful than they should be.