I made my first video essay in what felt like an escapist rush, high on the realization I could put anything on Youtube I wanted, and no one could stop me (but me). Along the way, I learned something important and unfortunate: video essays take time. Time, and energy, and creativity, and a dogged willingness to make things work, even when the work's slow. Getting time, energy, and creativity all to align is ... tricky for me, to say least. I end up editing a 30-minute video at the rate of 2 minutes here-or-there.

Between bouts of video editing, I keep watching the works of other creators, and I keep playing games. Some games I found through influencers and algorithms, but others I searched out on my own -- trawling itchi.o or Steam for anything on sale, anything arty, weird, unique. I always found more than I expected to find, more than there's hours to play.

It's overwhelming to imagine how many games get lost in algorithims, how many experiences people might miss because they haven't got the time to look. Sometimes I take notes, and those notes turn into the seeds for potential video essays. But when there's so much that's new and promising in games, so much that deserves to be shared and celebrated and talked about ... I don't want to putter and wait until the video editing muse strikes me again.

So I'm going to do something a little embarrassing, and blog about it. To start with: here's a short list of games I've been playing lately, how I found them, and how they made me feel.

How I found this: Ironically enough, by going on itch.io and clicking No AI. The title caught my attention, shouting all my AI anxieties back at me and in ALLCAPS. Also, I was in a cyberpunk phase after playing The Red Strings Club and Citizen Sleeper, and the thumbnail gave me cool 90s angelpunk vibes.

How it made me feel: I kept thinking about the elements of art. The use of composition, light, and shade, and how it made the relatively simple lines and shapes on screen more lively, engaging, and dynamic. Which is a fancy way of saying I liked looking at the sparkly lights, and they made me feel good. It feels good to play, chasing sparkles of light across the screen, collecting points of data in the dark.

The gameplay starts as the slow, tentative exploration of a dark space, darting between illuminated circles. As you go through the cycle of data collection and upgrades, each round become dizzyingly fast, almost hypnotic. You think less and less, if at all, about what each individual point of data represents: a person, giving up some private detail about themselves. And you -- the player, separate from the AI, watching and guiding its growth -- take those pieces of authentic, human expression, and turn them into cash to invest back in the machine.

Which is ... interesting in the context of AI and art, that's all. This game is still in Demo, and I'm interested to see where it goes. Wishlist it on Steam!

How I found this: Still in the itchi.o tags, I half-remembered hearing about this game, the way you half-remember a creepypasta read from a low-resolution screen as a teen. Huh, I didn't know that was real. After downloading it, I was sure I heard about it in a video essay, but I was thinking of Hypnospace Outlaw in The Internet Used To Be A Place. Different game, same feeling.

How it made me feel:I don't know what to call the feeling except for horrified, fascinated nostalgia ... nostalgia not just for the people we used to know, but the ways we used to exist. To navigate the game's interface, you have to step back to a point in time when your desktop might have looked like this. Online instant messengers used to come in this shape, music on winamp was displayed in this format, and does anyone still use winamp or make winamp skins?

Someone must, but because technology changes so quickly, because I don't hang out on AIM with friends after school anymore, once-familiar sights feel off, uncanny. To solve puzzles, you'll have to use the UI, have to look at how the windows overlay and connect in a way that skirts the fourth wall. There's even a game-within-the-game, an abandoned server of player-made worlds. It doubles a series of escape rooms, except the rooms are online.

The internet used to be a place. Places can be escaped from, in theory. It adds to that uncanny feeling, that sense of I've been here before, and may be trapped here again. Not everyone escapes.

The internet used to be a place, and places can be haunted.

How I found this: Hear me out.

It's harder for me to find things I like on the internet in 2026 than it was in 2016 and I don't think it's a skill issue. Finding explicit content I like, when so many talented NSFW artists get driven away from their platforms, is even harder. Since I could find games I liked through the No AI tag, I figured I'd add NSFW on top of it and see what showed up... (NSFW) and because of how I am, I added the pixel art tag, too.

How it made me feel: What do you think. I'm not writing my undergrad thesis here. I'm not saying it's that deep. But.

Wow, when you think about it, being a succubus is a brutally literal metaphor for being a sex worker in a capitalistic Christian society that both demonizes and monetizes lust and condemns certain bodies just for existing and certain creators just for trying to survive. I didn’t expect a game called Succubus Simulator to come out and say it. Not only that, the game has charming pixel art full of personality, and animations that can feel awkward and silly, but in the way sharing anything you find sexy can feel awkward and silly. Awkward and silly is still likeable, awkward and silly is still fun, and games should be fun sometimes, too, right?

There so many things in this game I like and never expected to find together, so I'm glad I stumbled across it the way I did. The writing between the characers is warm, and genuine, and there's a real love story in there. It's also extremely queer, so Happy Pride!!! 🌈