VIDEO CALIBRATION
A deep dive into the hauntological properties of a particular VHS TV recording that intersects with my earliest childhood memories.
Exhumed in Decker for smilejam on the theme of “your first memory” (although arguably too discursive and longwinded to fit the “short and direct” criteria…)
Assets:
Thanks to a comment from @SuperJSP over on Youtube for identifying the specific channels involved in the ghost signals.
Download
Install instructions
Playable in HTML graphical interface format above in browser. Downloadable in .HTML and .DECK formats for offline play either in a web browser or in native Decker.
Development log
- Changed distracting background GIF!62 days ago
Comments
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I love it, worth every second. I know that feeling where you vividly remember scenes from early childhood, like they're almost a part of you, and that déja-vu-like feeling when you rewatch them is super weird, and it's not nostalgia but another weird feeling, nice game tho i loved it!
Thank you glad it resonated with you too! I agree it’s not the same thing as nostalgia, more uncanny, and above all, obsessive!
Really cool read. I'm jealous of how well you can immerse us in the mindape and ride its waves while holding us by the hand.
I really appreciate it! Honestly it’s hard to tell if I am getting anything over the fence otherwise and just drowning in my own paychobabble. So thank you!
I was very surprised at how well integrating a 3/4 hour video clip fit into this game. It's always very hard to capture the exact 'feel' of a kind of found media, but the limited color palette and your philosophical prose help give it that feel of something from another time.
A lot of this is recognizing my own nostalgia, but perhaps this sort of connection means I feel the effort and thought that went into bringing those memories back. Thank you. :)
I really appreciate the comment thank you! So glad to hear the resonance made it through the metaphorical screen, as it were!
I think it's awesome you got to have this retrospective view of your own childhood through a VHS recording from the late 80s. It's a weirdly, seemingly surreal form of time travel in it's own way. Thank you for sharing :D
Thank you so much! Yes, a very disconcerting form of time travel—-though I guess they all are!
really interesting perspective, great presentation. thanks for sharing
Thank you very much for trying it out!
incredible
Thank you!
I was also entranced as a kid by the Snoopy WWI flying ace segment of Great Pumpkin...
Great game!
Thank you so much! Yea that Snoopy sequence is so incredibly weird when you look at it with the eyes of a kid with 0 context. But mesmerizing!
wonderful thoughts and images.
i can't believe it took me this long to find someone else who was frightened of polkaroo.
Thank you so much, it was a great jam!
That’s wild that you are also a “Polkaphobe”. I have also never met anyone who understood my terror, I mean, what’s so scary about a towering, unblinking psychedelic bipedal llama entity!?
absolutely phenomenal. loved exploring a memory with all the little anecdotal inclusions, which felt necessary+enriching+fun so I'm grateful you shared them. carpet texture and nightmares are all part of the vhs terroir
I’m really glad you enjoyed it and all the digressive details, mills! It’s hard to know what will connect with people, but seeing all the cool curated stuff pile up in your “memoirs” collection partially inspired me to try out more personal anecdotes!
oh thanks! nobody felt luckier than me making that collection right before the smilejam prompt went up
By the way, I referenced/linked to your amazing memoirs collection in an article I did for the latest issue of ChoiceBeat:
https://willyelektrix.itch.io/choicebeat-issue-17
!! I had just opened ChoiceBeat in another tab when I saw this message. I'm so :). thrilled my list population can beget even more lists + excited to play through all the kinetic reportage that I haven't yet
This is exceptional. Strange and wonderful.
Thank you big Ah, I really appreciate it!
digressive indeed but delightful all the way through. i can’t help but think on the soft-bodied digital experiences from my own life that will or have already resisted convenient fossilization…
True, although who knows what traces really win out in the end (whatever that means!)… Thank you for burrowing in!
That polka thing… any relation to the Irish Pooka rabbit?
Good question… POOKA POWER