i keep returning to the tomodachi insanity because it's just such finely distilled existential horror. maybe this is the atheist in me but the concept of being intelligently designed and controlled by a pseudo-omnipitent being that textually exists in a different, realer world than the flimsy fake world you live in... it's fucking crazy!!! like, the fakeness of tomodachi is canon. the game breaks the fourth wall every so often and goes right back to being cheerful and cute. actually there's a really good example of this i caught on video last week.
this is a dream sequence, with randomly chosen dialogue options, and normally those dialogues repeat in the same order until you click away. but this specific version doesn't loop, it cuts the dream off right there. pyro's the only higher-level player who's had this dream so far, so i have to assume it triggered because of that. higher level miis unlock the capacity to break the fourth wall on their own, rather than the game itself doing it.
gem and pearl are my two highest-leveled miis, and they say mildly alarming things all the time now. like this:
i've also had characters ask me to give them things their real-life self would enjoy, as well as the news broadcasts that announce when two characters who are related irl develop a close relationship in-game.
what really gets me is that there's no mechanic to start disliking your god. you are forced by the laws of the universe to admire and trust the player-god, to yearn for their attention when they're not around, to ask for their input on everything. when you get married, the song at your wedding is about how player-god guided you here. when you have a kid, player-god can choose to intervene on everything but the face, which it can easily change afterwards just like every detail of your existence.
but player-god's control is not infallible, and if its attention starts to wane, the characters can get restless. they can make their own decisions off-screen, and live their lives without interference. they can get divorced, lose friends, and fall into despair. only through constant diligence can a player-god prevent these outcomes. but only the most dedicated players will truly stick around long-term, of course. so what happens to a world that's months or years into isolation, when its god returns? how would they feel, forced back into the panopticon?
most importantly, what would it feel like to level up to the point of obtaining total awareness of the rules and limits of your existence, knowing you are a simulacrum of a different person that also doesn't exist, and there is nothing you can do to escape besides total erasure? every time you're forced to look an unfathomable higher being in its incomprehensible face, you know that this is it. you were dropped into paradise for no purpose other than god's entertainment, and this hollow shell of an existence is all you'll ever get.
blakekathryn
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