There’s a whole world of video games out there that even people who regularly read this very site have never heard of. The only issue? They’re not real – at least in the sense that you cannot plug in a controller and play them. But that doesn’t make them any less worthwhile and, in many ways, serves as a strength. On the latest Aftermath Hours, YouTuber extraordinaire John “Eyepatch Wolf” Walsh tells us why he’s become obsessed with fake video games.
Walsh recently released a book called The Bizarre World Of Fake Video Games, which is about exactly what it says: meticulously crafted settings and rule sets for games that don’t actually exist. Walsh explains his fixation with fake games and how, as he sees it, they broaden the landscape of who can imagine and create games in the first place. He also gives us a history lesson about proto-fake games like the almost unnervingly strange Codex Seraphinianus. Then we discuss more modern, regrettably AI-driven fake game trends like Bird Game 3, which has become a bonafide TikTok sensation.
After that, we move on to the week’s biggest video game news: Horses, an otherwise off-the-beaten-path art game from a small indie studio, got banned on Steam for reasons that remain unclear, causing a series of cascading impacts on other stores like Epic and Humble. What does it mean for a single storefront to essentially have sole say over what and what does not constitute acceptable art? And why is everyone losing their minds over a game that, according to Chris, is actually pretty tame? Lastly, we share our wild animal horror stories.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can make an art game so messed up that it’ll get banned from Earth.
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Nathan: We, on our podcast and site, talk about real games all the time. What makes a fake game compelling? What is it about them that made you say “I’ve gotta write a book about this, I’m gonna do multiple videos about this, this is gonna be my obsession, this is gonna be my whole personality”?
John: Part of it is that people do go overboard talking about how video games are the most experiential medium. There’s so many different ways something can be experiential. A delicious plate of food can be experiential.
Gita: That’s the most experiential thing: eating food, right?
John: But what games let you do is inhabit a fictional space. That’s fucking cool. And that’s why horror games are so distinct and interesting; they engage you in a way that a noninteractive medium can’t. I think what’s interesting about fake video games is the frameworks they build to make you feel like you are nearly interacting with the world.
So one of the games is this thing called Bramble. Imagine a Dark Souls game, but instead of fighting the different creatures you’re encountering, what you’re doing is building these little Amalgamoids, which are like fucked up little Pokemon, and they are fighting for you. It goes so in on the menus you create these little creatures with, how each specific one of them works and the rule sets they operate under, and the situations you can use them in – to the point that it’s very easy to imagine problem solving with these mechanics.
And then Godhusk, which is the follow up to Vermis, goes even harder on that. There’s this entire system about how you equip limbs and what different limb sets do to your body and help you navigate the world – in a way that would take so long to explain. You’ve just gotta read it. It’s incredible.
So that’s all kinda stuff video games can do. I think what’s interesting about fake video games – and why I always push back on this idea of, when I show people fake games, they’ll be like “I wish this was real” – is to me, this is more interesting because it’s not real. Because it’s collaborative. I think it’s Shigesato Itoi, the Earthbound guy, who was like “Video games are a collaboration between the player and the designer.” Because ultimately games happen in your head. Your console produces light, sound, and signal, but you’re the one who applies meaning to it. I feel like that is the same thing that happens with fake games.
But on top of that as well – and I say this with all the love and respect to anyone who has ever worked on a video game – fake games don’t have to go through the nightmare grinder of game development. Which means a different kind of person is able to create them. And so, not that there isn’t an infinite of interesting and weird indie games, but [fake games] let someone show you what they would do in a video game in a way that is so broad and strange and really, really out there – in a way that would be so much more difficult if these same people had to think about not even game design and light shaders and gameplay loops, but logistics like “How do you financially create a video game? How do you raise the money to make a video game and live on it?” And so, all of the sudden, the concept of a video game becomes something that so many more people can mess with.
