The Long Drive is an example of what I'm terming "Post-Social Games." This phrase has a double meaning, because it describes games which take place in a world in which it is not possible to return to the civilization that has since been destroyed (similar to post-apocalypse), as well as describing games in which social interactions are strained by the game's resistance to any ability to form a community within its systems.
In this video, I compare The Long Drive to a number of works, including Dark Souls, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, LSD: The Dream Emulator, and Desert Bus, reflecting on how the contemporary indie gaming scene has been built on a long history of prior works of art to generate a new paradigm of games that systematize mundane activities and prioritize player experience over an assumed narrative "meaning." I connect all of this to the role that neoliberalism plays in the design philosophies of games broadly and how the indie game scene both resists and affirms elements of neoliberal values.
Aside from the intro, there are 5 songs used in the background of this video. Songs 1, 3, and 5 are original songs that I wrote for this video. Song 2 is "Long Tall Eyelash" from Osamu Sato, and Song 4 is a remix I did of the Lord Gwyn theme from Dark Souls.
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22 мар 2023
