Games That Know They're Games

Today was supposed to be my first day back in the office in a while, so naturally I'm sick. I think a frustrating thing, in times like this, is not really being able to isolate the variable that's making me feel lousy. I haven't been taking great care of myself, I've barely been home in the past month, and I certainly haven't been getting the best sleep. So is feeling bad today an actual illness or just the consequences of my own actions? Hard to say. I went into the office for a few hours and felt too feverish to get anything done so I'm back home.

I don't have much energy to write, but I did finish playing MiSide yesterday, which has me thinking a lot about games that know they're games, and the specific flavor of "anime-coded horror games that know they're games", a category that mostly contains MiSide and Doki Doki Literature Club. These games are super effective satires of the "put in kindness and receive anime girlfriend" type of visual novel or phone game, and I especially like games like DDLC or Undertale that go so far as encouraging you to interact with the actual filesystem of your computer (e.g. deleting a character file in DDLC or Undertale's threat to delete a random file from your computer).

I'm too sick to put together much of a coherent point here, but it's a game mechanic I like, and one I'd like to explore more. Games are files! We should embrace the many interfaces to their materiality, and play more with that material, rather than treat it wholly as something to be obfuscated in the Program Files folder.