This post is about video games i swear.
2025 has been a really bad year.
I mean, obviously, I'm trans and autistic and live in America, I cried when Trump got reelected for a reason, I knew it meant all the futures I had ever dreamed for myself had been, by popular vote, disintegrated. It meant that whatever bigger picture stuff I had thought I had wanted for myself, some sort of financial stability, the possibility of physical transition, etc, was all gone because the American people wanted, genuinely wanted, a holocaust for illegal immigrants, autistic people, and trans people. And so, those goals would have to be shifted to future generations, I would have to fight to my death for a future I would never see even the barest minimum of.
So yeah. All of that. Beyond that, however, this year has sucked in alot of other ways for me.
In what has been the worst possible timing, all of my closest friends, all for legitimate (capitalism mostly) reasons, have been incredibly difficult to contact and connect with, so I have felt deeply alone. My sense of community is frayed. The two senses of community I have left, a local queer organization and a local friend group, literally hate each other and it makes me want to pull my skin off. So, my plans, very very basic plans of: getting a job over summer, working a part time during my last semester, and then working a full time after to hopefully move out to a shitty apartment with at least one other person, seem increasingly out of reach, both from the political state of things, and the social isolation. I also figured out that i hate my major! And have now pivoted to a different concentration to hopefully make my final semester feel not horrid. In summary, everything in my life, related or otherwise, has fallen apart.
With this all in mind, I've had to find something to keep me sane. If only because I know a conservative will masterbate on my grave if I succumb to everything. So I've turned to something I really didn't want to have to, because it signifies another section of my life where I felt incredibly isolated and alone: video games. I've gotten into other media as well, but, videos games have been something that has made the last month in specific bearable. So, I wanna talk about some of the games I've been into and why I think they are neat, and also spotlight some games that I'm particularly excited for.
My previous post is about my wierd relationship to Undertale and it's related media, but i have done the self reflection necessary for me to like this game. It rules. Chapter 1 not as much as chapter 2 but still.
I started to get back into it when I thought I was going to be able to play with my best friends. That hope has very much died but I'm still at a point where I'm playing it again.
I have talked to my therapist about this game. It really has redefined my relationship to work, and given me license to take breaks and not destroy myself under the weight of my own expectations. The world is already trying to crush me, why should I be doing the same? Obviously, i have to work, and am applying for summer jobs right now, but it's still brought alot of good perspective. It's also just very well written, with characters I'm not soon to let out of my heart. I wish more people were talking about it, but I think alot of people were dissapointed that it was so different from the writer's prior work and so intentionally unresolving.
I barely play games upon release, so it has been a truly novel experience to, through the magic of my dad's gamepass, play two of the greatest games I've ever played as they have come out.
This is a puzzle game. Take the room card mechanics from the board game Betrayal, slap em on a Rogue-Like, and put in puzzles to rival Myst? You get absolute fire is what you get. This game consumed me for a good while, and it was a super novel experience. I haven't been playing it "right," I've been looking up solutions and things when the solution is "through RNG, get the magnifying glass, get this specific room, find this specific picture frame, profit," or I've just been really stuck, but this game is so new I've yet to ruin literally anything for myself by doing this because all the guides has been so deeply barebones. Hell, the chess puzzle guide i pulled up was just wrong, and I had to act check it before doing the puzzle. Still, I've had a blast and only slowed down playing it when I thought I broke the game. (If you know what "room repellent" is high five.) I'm still not done with it yet, but I'm excited to keep plunging deeper into the manor's secrets.
Clair Obscure: Expedition 33
I have been deeply excited for this game since the trailer that showed it was a fucking turn based RPG. In a world where you can seemingly only make those in pixel art or anime style, this looked like such a breath of fresh air. (No shade on jrpgs, P5R literally in my top 5 of all time, but I don't like role-playing as a high schooler at this point in my life.) And holy shit, has it yet to dissapoint. It is so French. I LOVE HOW FRENCH IT IS. I'm in a mime costume with a baguette on my back and I am living. The combat is a super cool mix of turned based and action, kinda the opposite way that FF7 Remake Trilogy is, and it's made every encounter consistently fun and exciting. The systems are super deep, I love the characters, gaahhh. A small thing that is specific to me: I've never played an older Final Fantasy game long enough to get to the world map. The active time battle system of those games just kinda... doesn't do it for me. So, this is my first time experiencing a game with this kind of world and... WHY DID THIS GO AWAY?! It's super fun I enjoy it alot.
Now i want to talk about some games I'm excited about that are coming this year and will hopefully augment my sanity.
This is the sequel thing to Demon Turf, a 3D platformer i like alot but never finished because it was a little too frustrating at times. I honestly wasn't super excited by the reveal trailer of this, because i felt it was removing one of the strongest aspects of Demon Turf: it's Paper Mario-esque artsyle (don't know what it's called.) But after playing the demo- the expanded moveset and the way they have used the new artsyle have sold me. It still has a TON of character, and seems super fun.
I'm a big Binding of Isaac head. I watched Northernlion nearly daily for three years of high school. I've done my time. Obviously, I'm excited for the new game. Every trailer that comes out adds an asterisk to that excitement, because I find the eugenics we do to domesticated animals really icky and this game leans pretty heavy into that, but I'm reasonably sure that this will be a like Isaac where it isn't condoning eugenics (like Isaac isn't condoning religious trauma) but that theme can dissappear under the gameplay loop at times. This is skewing negative, I'm quite excited. I'm not a big tactics RPG gal, but given how deeply into Isaac i got I'm sure Edmund can pull me in. Also the music slaps.
Games without posted release dates
This seems like my kind of cringe. I got super into Doom 2016 like 5 years ago and always thought it had a criminally low amount of female centric y2k nostalgia.
Inscryption is one of my favorite games.
Hypnospace Outlaw is one of my favorite games.
This has writing credits from Michael Lutz, a creative at really respect. My favorite works of his are his podcast (along with Cameron Kunzelman) Homestuck Made This World (i swear it's great even for not Homestuck fans,) and all of the works i have discovered through his website correlatedcontents.com like Patrick and 'scrow. Him having a writing credit is enough for me to be excited.
So, that's it. The sparks that light up the dark world i live in right now. This year Is truly a great year for video games, which is wild given its sucks for everything else. I hope yall have found your little joys as well, and if you haven't... maybe one of these can be that for you.
