Mineral Cravings

Obviously part of what keeps people playing 10+ old games is pure nostalgia, but I think another common element is a feeling that this specific game contains some kind of... essential nutrient or compound, a thing (however small) that satiates a need, and nothing made since then scratches the itch.

People are still playing Spore because nothing else approaches the raw zoomorphic character-creation flexibility of its Creature Creator, no matter what other failings or flaws the game has, what frustrations at its shortcomings people feel. People are still playing Petz because the virtual pet design space has not seen a real indie revival, and Petz has specific characteristics not seen in its contemporaries. Planet Zoo exists, yet I see many Zoo Tycoon players come back to ZT1 and ZT2 because Planet Zoo's own priorities as a game don't scratch the itch. There are people who find the The Sims 4 a poor replacement for the twisted character drama of the second game and the explorable open world of the third.

The thing is, the same can apply to other art. However, while characters and specific narrative beats and concepts can be part of the appeal of computer entertainment, they often ARE the draw of conventional fiction. You can scrub away the lore and characters of Harvest Moon, replacing it with your own, and with your own mechanical tweaks and improvements to what you loved, create Stardew Valley; but if my favorite thing about some popular piece of written or video media is the particular details of the Setting, or a particular Character, creating a "non-infringing" "spiritual sequel" is inherently thorny.

Filing off the serial numbers really only works if your version of the world and setting is completely divorced from its origin, the generic fanon template coffee shop au of itself - but what if it's in a halfway point? Mutated considerably from its roots, but the bones are still recognizable, and to remove them would make the entire thing collapse? Wicked is hardly "canon compliant" to the original Wizard of Oz, book or film - but it's extremely dependent on the fact that it is derivative to function. I don't think any of the artistic problems that can be raised concerning Wicked would be even remotely fixed by cutting it off from its source material.

Frustratedly, I gnaw at the roots, because it's not even the fact that you can't monetize fanworks, and thus publish them in a way that presents them to the mainstream, so much as that combined with how it increasingly feels like you have to monetize your hobbies and passions to justify them existing, and "dude [insert media here] wasnt that good just make something new and original, like a Real Artist."

Neither is Spore "that good"! But there's an itch, powerful enough that people are trying to make new ones, despite the massive undertaking. I look forward to Elysian Eclipse. In the meantime, modders strain against the limitations of the original to transform the experience best they can.

Someone, somewhere, wishes they could write their own version of a story that was powerful to them as a child. Headcanons, like mods, can only do so much.

More interesting posts from Cohost archived...

cohost! - "Skykomish Never Sleeps: A Preliminary Report on The Esterb…
archived 21 Sep 2024 03:14:04 UTC

A very strong work of original fiction that I enjoyed. "Archeologists find things they aught not" is a well-trod concept, but the implied future setting adds a sense of deep time. Our moment is not the present, but the past as well.

cohost! - "Aquazone - Expensive Digital Fish"
archived 21 Sep 2024 03:24:31 UTC

An essay on a virtual pet product, Aquazone, that was contemporaneous with my own favorite virtual pets, but which seems to have far less survival in its online presence than Petz has. Ahead of its time in the worst ways (paid DLC microtransactions), and yet so thorough as a fishtank simulator, in a quintessentially of-its-era way, that no modern equivalent scatches the itch.