A Collection Aside

“ Sometimes you’ll grab a cassette tape and listen to it later, but interaction generally just serves the story.”

FIRST WINTER

DEVELOPER DAN SANDERSON • PRICE US$3.20 danthai.itch.io/first-winter

I’ve been meaning to write up Dan Sanderson’s surreal, atmospheric experiences for a while. The first three are ‘choose your own price’ (including free). They’re short, but I spent some additional time watching Let’s Plays, to enjoy other people’s screaming and confusion. I first played The Tomatoes are OK, a not-quite farming sim, because of its amazing name. It’s (possibly) an exploration of how motivation doesn’t align with reward. It also made me wonder if farmers worry about their tomatoes, and that feels important to mention somehow.

Boolean Escape is an interesting experience, too. As with all of Sanderson’s games, it messes with expectation, reminding me of Antichamber by Alexander Bruce. It’s basically a collection of switches and objects you can interact with in a binary (on-off) kind of a way, to solve an evolving level. There’s also a shared aspect to this one, reminding me of how players experienced content created by other players in Moirai, by Chris Johnson. Both games are even more interesting during a second playthrough, when you can see context from a wider angle.

Pacific is a micro-horror experience which, according to the page, received more attention than Sanderson was expecting. This was his impetus