Liminal Spaces in Disturbing Old Games | Nostalgia Nerd
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- Head to www.squarespace.com/nostalgia... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code NOSTALGIANERD.... Here's a concept that my kids are fascinated with, and by extension, also me: Liminal spaces, liminality, and specifically here, liminal spaces in games. But, then I've always been fascinated by liminal spaces, and the feeling they bring; a kind of nostalgic disconnected anxiety, but until recently, I didn't realise there was a name for these spaces. So what better way to explore them than through the vessel of retro games.
0:00-04:14 Conveying Liminality
04:15-05:29 Liminality in games
05:30-07:04 Pac-man
07:05-08:17 Driller
08:18-09:06 Ad
09:07-10:06 Hard Drivin'
10:07-11:54 The Terminator
11:55-13:36 Another World (Out of This World)
13:37-15:02 Death Mask
15:03-15:48 Windows 3D Maze
15:49-17:00 The Rugrats
17:01-17:41 Mirror's Edge
17:42-19:20 The Stanley Parable
19:21-20:27 Liminal Inspired Games
20:28-20:57 Wrap
20:58-21:49 Credits
🔗Video Links🔗
Full walkthroughs of each game;
Stanley Parable: • The Stanley Parable - ...
Mirror's Edge: • Mirror's Edge - Full G...
Search for Reptar: • Rugrats: Search For Re...
3D Maze: • Windows 3D Maze Screen...
Death Mask: • Death Mask [Amiga]#01 ...
Another World: • Another World Longplay...
The Terminator: • The Terminator (PC/DOS...
Hard Drivin' (Amiga): • Amiga Longplay Hard Dr...
Driller: • Commodore 64 Music: DR...
Hovertank 3D: • Hovertank
Baldi's Basics: • Baldi's Basics (v1.3.2...
ISLANDS Non-Places: • ISLANDS: Non-Places - ...
🏆 Support 🏆
Support my channel, get exclusive videos & perks, as well as an ad and sponsor free experience at / nostalgianerd from just $1
🏪 NN Shop & Affiliate Links! 🏪
My eBay Shop: nnerd.es/NerdShop (Now Re-open!)
My Retro Tech book: nnerd.me/HVFtSB (2nd edition is out!)
Desk Shelves for Retro Computers: nnerd.me/RetroShelves (Because you're worth it)
🍻 Share/Like 🍻
If you wish to share this video in forums, social media, on your website, or ANYWHERE else, please do so! It helps tremendously with the channel! Also, giving a thumb up or down also helps with visibility on TH-cam. Many thanks!
📟 Subcribe 📟
Click to Subscribe: nnerd.es/2K4TYvX
📱 Join me on Social Media 📱
🐥 / nostalnerd
🎮 / nostalgianerd
👱🏼📘 / nostalnerd
📸 / nostalgianerd
🌍 www.nostalgianerd.com
🎥 Equipment 🎥
Panasonic Lumix G5
Rode NT-1 Mic
Corel Video Studio Ultimate 2020
Corel Paint Shop Pro 2020
📜 Resources 📜
In video links and references are provided where possible. If you believe I have forgotten to attribute anything, please let me know (drop me an email via. the about page on TH-cam or send me a tweet), so I can add it here. Apologies if I have missed anything out, it takes time to make these videos and therefore it can be easy to forget things or make a mistake.
Errors and omissions excepted.
Some material in this video may be used under Fair Dealing / Fair Use. Where under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 (UK: Sections 29 and 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), allowance is made for purposes including parody, quotation, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, education and research. Fair Dealing / Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
The same feeling you get when you’re in a chain store, but not your local, and your mind keeps trying to familiarize as though it’s YOUR local store. A different layout to the same chain store makes it familiar, but foreign
Yes, absolutely this!
Goes to any quick trip gas station, gets déjà vu
Chain store supermarkets, Doctor Waiting rooms, Office floors & corridors, underground car parking spots, subway stations, Bus Stops... Airports... Malls... and Basements in office buildings or apartment complexes.
I get that feeling. Everything in the store is on the opposite side of where I'm used to it being. I know where everything is and can find my way around, yet it still feels like someplace I haven't been to before, because everything is not quite where I expect it to be.
@@Christopher-N exactly
Okay, this hit a spot that I didn't realize existed. I always have had an obsession with liminal spaces without even realizing the proper term for it. I was in drum corps for a while and when we were camped out at high schools, I would always be wandering around during the off time. It was so surreal being in spaces meant for a large amount of people left empty and desolate. And in the rare occasion that I would get access to a side door or access hallway, the feeling was deepened. It's a weird mix of fear and excitement in equal measure.
I worked at a mushroom farm at night. Almost never saw coworkers. Just doors and halls and silence and me.
@@fuckfuckfuckityfuck magic
Empty schools are so creepy. I used to work tech support in a school system, and summers/school vacations were sometimes spent wandering around delivering gear or fixing problems in various classrooms. There was always that nagging feeling of 'I'm not supposed to be here' even though it was literally my job. It was such a relief when I'd run into a custodian or teacher and could have a conversation for a few seconds.
I got this alot exploring for example around 2000 a multistory building in hawksbury village that used to be nursing accomodation. Power still on, in slight disarray as if everyone had just left. There was even a safe and large kitchen. Set in a strange little grid set of streets with a building or two on each each with a different function but open spaces inbetween. Further back from the highway was the actual mental hospital now disused but cars parked as if living there.This was right off the main highway but you wouldn't stop as it didn't seem like anything behind the trees.There was even a pool which actually was used. You get the feeling some one owns this,. It they aren't there or using it. But they also might just appear.
I had numerous chances to wander my town's old middle school (which had been the town's high school before that) in this way (and another place or two also) when I was younger. I remember getting a dizzying feeling I imagined as a surrogate deja vu, but which was really a sort of being overwhelmed by the thought of how many other people had lived out years worth of days in those places, acting, talking, moving about, and thinking their internal thoughts, removed by unknown amounts of time.
At least a couple of times I remember it inducing what I guess was a bit of vertigo, like I might pass out if I kept focusing on it. I guess I don't get normal vertigo, just psychic vertigo, rofl.
GTA: Vice City. The mall. First time I got that weird feeling in a video game enough to remember.
It even has that vaporwave musical vibe with distortions.
How the only stores you can interface with are the only ones with indicators and NPCs and his models.
The definition of uncanny.
For me it was always the Safe Houses in Gta San Andreas, and also that one Hotel from the mission where it gets raided by SWAT later
Sameeeeee
Bloody footsteps level in Max Payne.
How about LSD Dream Simulator?
I've been a janitor (part time and full time now) for over a decade. Liminal spaces never stop being unsettling, you just learn to ignore it.
Currently, I work on a college campus, specifically in the dorms apartment complexes. There's one building here that has long, straight hallways. As I walk down them, reality seems to bend and wiggle, almost like a snake, thanks to the parallax.
My first janitor job was part time at a church ..at night. The walls seemed to crawl man, it was VERY unsettling. I also took a part time job with a cleaners, hospitals and commercial kitchens....
Mate I think you're just schizoaffective lol, I have had zero experiences like that as a night security guard at a uni.
One of my first jobs was cleaning at a hospital, I would often clean areas which only operated at set times so they would be totally empty when I was working there.
Honest to god it felt like being in a Silent Hill or Resident Evil game with those long echoey halls with no sound except my footsteps, doors leading to other hallways leading to more doors leading to weird little offices. You could almost feel the old PS2 graphics and fixed camera angles as you walked around.
Sometimes I would play music from those games through my earbuds which probably made my anxiety worse but completed the atmosphere for me lmao gotta do it for the ~aesthetic~ tbf it's one of the few things that made that job vaguely fun (cleaning cupboards are totally save-rooms btw).
Didn't help that my coworkers told me the place was haunted but they were probably just messing with me cos I was the new kid.
It's funny, when you see the usual "liminal spaces" videos on youtube, it's always made by someone who seems really young. I always wonder how that message resonates with someone who works for a living and spends a lot of time in the world's real "backrooms," working late nights and early mornings!
Fun fact, the human eye has greater night vision in its periphery due to more rods (B&W vision) but the fovea (center of view) has none. This results in more visual noise/static in the center in the dark. We can notice something in the edge of our vision in the dark, but when we turn toward it, we have a harder time seeing it!
Exploring multiplayer maps alone (for example in the original Half-Life, or Duke Nukem 3D) often used to give me that feeling of liminal spaces.
For bonus points, join an online game server for a multiplayer game, with no players in it. (the original Tribes still has a community but few people playing at any random time without coordination via Discord.) Creepy.
For me, it was Doom II and later Quake. For Doom II I would record my multiplayer sessions, then view them later. Then I'd visit the maps "alone". Very surreal. I wish I still had those recordings. I miss those friends.
Quake would be equally as eerie. After an intense game of Capture the Flag, once everyone else has left, I would explore around and visit the opposing team's lair, unopposed.
I used to do the same in Unreal Tournament
Same for Duke, but I got more of that sense from Duke Nukem 64 given the lack of sound track and the occasional ambient sound i.e. the wind.
gmod maps will always have this feeling when visited in singleplayer
We had a really long dim floor besides the gym hall at school made out of solid concrete and it was always a little bit cold but not too cold.
It was the best liminal space I've ever experienced. So surreal and calming.
I actually went to the "bathroom" every PE class just to have a few minutes alone there without all the other students. It was my strange, safe place during a stressful school day.
I have a place like that now! I walk barefoot In the soccer (football) fields near me. During the week, it’s just miles of empty soccer (what are they? Courts?) Not sure why, but being there, socks and shoes off, changes my minds speed. Relaxing…calming
@@The_Mimewar In the UK, we refer to them as "football pitches", so that might help.
@@dragonick2947 pitches. I’ll go with pitches from now on. Cheers!
@@The_Mimewar You're welcome!
Watching this video while sitting in the middle of the night sky in vr I get a similar feeling.
Lol at the kid poking his head out from around the corner :)
Wonder if he didn't realize it until after he shot the footage and just wasn't going to do the whole thing again. 😂
It's Yung Lean
@@Faceless777 🥇 Yung Lean 🥇
Can't find it. Timestamp?
@@janikarkkainen3904 beginning at 0:11
This is one reason I love games, I love these strange feelings it can create, I love exploring places like this. For example, in the first FEAR game, the office blocks, I LOVED THAT SECTION!!! Being all alone, away from people.
Maybe its because I dont like being in crowds or surrounded by people, I mostly want to be alone and find it relaxing and restful, maybe thats why I like games with these spaces.
ikr I have literally taken my little timeouts on purpose at the North Point Mall in GTA 4 just to zone out a little bit it is very powerful LOL
Portal 2 felt really liminal to me when I got to the old testing areas, especially when I got to the 1980's portion. It felt like something out of a dream I had, or even memories of a school I went to when it came to the flooring and stuff in the office space.
Disconnected nostalgia. Like, artificial nostalgia
I just finished Control for the first time a couple days ago, and it definitely has some liminality in there.
Explains why that game makes me so uncomfortable. I've tried to finish it like 3 times and something just bothers me about it. And I think that's it.
2:00 As someone who works a specialty light bulb shop, I have to disagree that incandescent bulbs do not buzz as stated. The lamp pictured is likely high pressure sodium, or metal halide.
With the light that yellow, it might even be an old low-pressure sodium. Hard to tell with a camera operating on unknown settings.
Get a real job
You're technically correct... the best kind of correct. Unless it's driven by a high efficiency switch-mode PWM power supply, in which case even the high pressure sodium and metal halide do not buzz.
@@apprenticelogic6642 you really gonna go on YT and preach about what qualifies as real job?
@@ColynBowman yes I am ,
Interesting. I've been fascinated by liminal spaces since childhood without ever knowing that they were actually a thing until I was in my late 20s. At the same time as I find them so compelling, they've always filled me with general anxiety and dread. I once got lost in the service area of a mall at 5 or 6 years old, and one of my strongest childhood memories is of that experience: I'd wandered away from my parents and gone through some employee-only door, just out of curiosity, but soon found myself wandering through what seemed like *miles* of endless, featureless corridors with blank white walls, scuffed linoleum floor and buzzing fluorescent lights. I remember going around corner after corner trying to get back to the shopping area, but just finding more and more identical empty corridors and the occasional (locked) door. Apparently I was only gone for half an hour but it felt like eternity at that age. 30+ years later and I still dream about it sometimes. Come to think of it, half of my dreams are just me wandering through empty, deserted buildings or vast, deserted landscapes. Not unlike the ones Lovecraft described in his dream journals, as I discovered when researching some of his work recently. Not exactly nightmares, but not pleasant either. Quite a powerful psychological effect these spaces have on the human brain...
Another Terminator game "Skynet" was also really spooky like that. Lots of empty destroyed 80's locations and dark streets and environments populated by Terminators and HKs
The lack of music helps with that.
I played the demo loads of times, just to get that weird experience.
I've always had a strong love of liminality as an escape from reality and anxiety. As someone with a very messy childhood and subsequent dissociative disorder, liminal spaces feel like a way to contextualise and control dissociation - to safely explore altered/unreality in a way that's safe, and then applying that to dissociative experiences which have the same detached and unreal feeling. Liminal spaces give me a sense of freedom and peace from the stresses of life.
The Stanley Parable is, by far, the best experience in a PC I ever had.
Frankly, it ruined a lot of games for me, any time there’s a slightly odd, gimmick-based game, such as 12 minutes, if it’s not as good as TSP I’m left bored. So far, very few have held up.
Too bad for completionists it’s you can’t 100% it without cheating.
@@RichardServello oh really? I never play for 100%s, what do you need to do?
@@davidlawrence8711 One is wait 5 years before playing it again for starters
@@eoinmcorks lol reminds me of how postal 1 has a achivement where you need to play on mac or linux to get it
Dude this video is so good. Thank you. I have spent my entire life since first playing a video game at age 5 thinking at least loosely about these ideas. I honestly think it has always helped me be at peace with the real world knowing that fake worlds in endless abundance are always available nearby.
Superliminal (previously Museum of Simulation Technology) is a 2019 puzzle video game released by Pillow Castle. The game, played from a first-person perspective, incorporates gameplay elements around optical illusions and forced perspective; notably, certain objects when picked up can be moved towards or away from the player, but when placed back down, scale to the size as the player had viewed them, enabling the player to solve puzzles to complete the game.
Great game
Terminator on DOS was amazing. First "open world" 3D game I played. Used to play multiplayer with a friend using a null modem/serial cable.
Is that the one where you could literally shoot the moon?
that's Future Shock!
Same
It's almost unplayable today but I sank hours into that game back in the day. Certainly one of the earliest 3D open world games. You can see the heritage of the Elder Scrolls games in Bethesda's Terminator.
The musical version of this is Boards of Canada
I have tried so hard to get that website to run!
meh
Yes! Especially "Roygbiv". It's so familiar yet ethereal at the same time
I don't feel anything from liminal spaces. I spent several months working in a department store as it got shut down, and have lived next to several houses that got demolished. Existing in a transitional space is just the status quo for me at this point.
I also don't feel anything from empty multiplayer maps. But if it's say, a 64 player Battlefield map with only a couple players, that's when it gets freaky. When the server is empty, you know objectively that nothing will happen. When the server is full, you know everything is a target.
But a server with two or three or four players? That's scary. You've got freedom to explore, but you don't know if they're also exploring. They might not have spawned and you're still alone, or they might be friendly and mess around with vehicles, or you might turn the next corner and get silently stabbed in the face.
The indie game Receiver does an excellent job of presenting liminality and that dream-like dread. Silent Hill 1, though outright horror, make heavy use of liminal space and liminality as well.
I feel like you’re describing something closer to the uncanny valley, but without people.
Indeed, liminal spaces (in an anthropological setting) are transitory and transformative, and so are one-way. They shouldn't be familiar, otherwise they can't really be transformative. They don't exist in the "head map", but as a conduit between places.
Type in the backrooms pools and watch those videos. There’re so creepy
Shoot you construct the correct sentence to incorporate uncanny valley feeling but diff object visual closing in to human figure vs unnatural background like I'm legends but without zombies
I'm surprised you never mentioned Superliminal - that game legit makes your brain feel as if it's folding in on itself!
Midwinter (1989) on ST and Amiga had the greatest feeling of this for me. Seeing empty villages nestled in the mountains and being able to go into the church steeple yet no interiors of the village were modelled at all, making them feel like weird film sets. The feeling was increased by the various modes of transport, especially when passing over these places in a cable car.
The elevator part of "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego." This is the one I can think of that really gave me that liminal feeling as a kid. Even though you could only visit a few floors of the building, I think I had more fun exploring that than playing the actual game. Unfortunately, once I started making Doom & Quake maps, I think some of the wonder around virtual worlds disappeared.
A look behind the curtain can ruin a lot of the fascination sadly.
That friggin coffee machine…
The Keymaker was in Matrix Reloaded (2003).
Ikr
Thank you for making this. I've felt this exactly. Mostly during the early years of 3d pc and console games. Hell even games like Ridge Racer where the draw distance was limited and you'd see buildings pop-up. Or games like Myst. At some point they've had my asking "what's the point?" not because they were bad games they just had settings that almost seemed dystopian and had my mind questioning it. Glad to see I'm not the only one
This is such a wonderful video! Within the last year, I’ve become aware of concept of liminality. It’s been something I have always felt comfort in, but I never thought about how it relates to earlier video games.
Great video, this is basically what made me fall in love with and remain obsessed with Doom as an 8 year old in 1993, and influenced how I look at things in a big way ever since. Also, a title that's really all about this liminal uneasiness is Kairo. It's basically a puzzle game that's very elusive in its narrative and consists of rooms and spaces, voids and impossible caverns. It's a bit bewildering (I still haven't actually completed it) but well worth a look at on Steam.
my storage unit also has an ad for Squarespace in it
@@Nostalgianerd I work in advertising. No love lost here
Elite I would say was the first that gave me the chills of feeling how large and empty space is. Good video, didnt expect this one.
Absolutely! I used to play Elite on the BBC all through the night, and flying through that universe really took you a zillion miles away from home. Or further.
Myst did this for me as a kid, everything was just slightly off and weirded me out.
the whole Myst franchise does this, as well as the other games by Cyan Worlds, to some degree.
Classic. I'm in the process of collecting all the Myst games myself right now, as it happens. My teen years were spent experiencing 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 and Skull on the Spectrum.
I could never figure out what the hell you're supposed to do in that game lol
my first liminal game was The Sims 2 on nintendo DS, you're stuck in this very little low res town surrounded by desert, you have to gather some nuclear fuel to power the hotel's generator, calm down some inhabitants that are becoming insane and sometimes you have to chase off the aliens using a water pistol
really strange vibe but also really cool game that got me into The Sims
The feeling of slightly disconcerting, slightly alien disorientation that you’re evoking in this video was, for me as a child, strongest in Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo, a pre-Myst educational point-and-click sandbox from Rand and Robyn Miller. With no goal, no direction, an unsettling aesthetic, and the game taking place entirely in a slightly supernatural cave filled with otherwise “normal” environments, I found it both engrossing and a bit unnerving when I was young. The cave seemed recently abandoned, as you could find traces of the owners everywhere but never the people, themselves; and the lonely, unfinished cavern corridors, lit by bare incandescent bulbs that would flicker if you poked them, between the crowded, finished rooms and... other chambers, filled with things to interact with, made for a surreal experience, especially when combined with the black and white graphics that drew in line by line as you transitioned from screen to screen or turned around. The fact that you were never trapped in the cave-you could exit the caverns within the game, though never go any farther from it than the entrance-probably made it that much more foreboding; offering you the option to retreat, but giving you nothing to accomplish by doing so.
Obduction had a similar feel. But that's a modern game (highly recommend it just for the VR support so you can really immerse yourself)
When I was a kid I got those vibes with two Atari games, Montezuma and Pharaoh's Curse
Well almost every fallout game makes you survive a maze or find a clue in dungeons/vaults with limited spaces. Even the creepy Metro tunnels in Fallout 3 is interesting and unsettling at the same time 🧐
I got a bit of that feeling playing one of the first Twisted Metal games, mostly in the Paris section
The second one. Usually I have this feeling with the very first one
I didn't play to much of the first game since I got into the 2nd twisted metal first and was so used to the controls in it, so the first felt a bit janky. But I def understand what your saying. Even the 2nd twisted metal zones had some of that feeling. One of my all time old favorite games that I used to play non-stop. Shame that it sort of just died off quietly, seemed to be really popular for a period of time.
The OG Metroid game, enough said.
Came here to say this.
Agreed
I love how your channel is never boring, you always pick the most interesting topics.
Just as I discovered this phenomenon.. I swear, nerd brains are intertwined!
same here what the heck, eerie
Innerinternet
@@The_Mimewar innernet
The time I've felt this most in a game was playing Revolt (21 years ago!), driving around all those empty neighbourhoods and shops, not a person in sight, just the objects they've left behind.
Oh man you just unlocked a super obscure memory! I was obsessed with that game when I was like 4 and it always tripped me out that you could hear kids playing and a dog barking in the neighbourhood level but the place was totally empty. I wanted to find that dog so bad lmao
@@j-skullz ha I remember that too! I was 15 back then :)
Absolutely fascinating. I always find myself lost in a trance when encountering a liminal experience.
I know this likely not the best experience but I found Super Metroid to be very much like this.
The glass corridor in Super Metroid that you eventually shatter to access Maridia has, along with the strange lonely theme, a strong liminal feel for me.
The most spooked I've been by a game was when I finished Fable 3 without realising that I was supposed to spend money on the city defenses. I beat the final boss only to be dropped in a world that was almost completely empty
Liminal Space really makes me feel comfy. It’s like i’m in a place I’ve been so long ago, and i’m returning to that place to be safe once again.
What a brilliant diversion you've taken. Loved it. I love liminal spaces. I think it's because of the thought that, in a liminal space, one day someone will go there and someone has been there to build it. It's like 'every dog has its day' but with 'places' instead. You did a good job of describing liminality. Thanks mate.
I get goose bumps from another world. Totally unique game, totally immersive
Like he said, the 'cleanness' of the lab did indeed freak me out.
So, I'd highly recomme the 2006 sci fi mini series called "the lost room"
Basically unplayable nowadays. Basically only stood by being very bored with nothing better to do and impressed with its visuals and just wanting to see more of the visuals but certainly not an enjoyable gameplay experience, being basically nothing but trial and error. Reading a book of the story would feel more rewarding when one could play considerably less awful games nowadays. Only people who enjoy it anymore are those who remember everything you need to do and can just experience the game without the slow, repetitive grind.
@@Aeduo people had more patience for things like that back then.
@@lotus_flower2001 sure, because it was that or do nothing. It was never a matter of it being good, just a matter of being desperate.
SkyRoads back in the day made my heart jump when I fell off the road, just picturing being in the car floating through space.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention superliminal, great game
I love this one!! Pac-man always gives me so much anxiety, I can't handle that game! That game driller made me think of King's Field on the ps1. Definitely has spooky liminal vibes. I think you really nailed the description of liminal spaces! (plus a flawless square space drop!)
Minecraft does liminality very well. Many of the pre-gen structures have a ton of little nooks and hidden rooms that you know are there but are oftentimes hard to get to. That in addition to the fact that they're generally packed with enemies makes for a perfect liminal space. Woodland mansions, strongholds, and abandoned mineshafts are some of the best examples IMO.
I'm glad you mentioned Driller. I spent hours in that world. The music, the emptiness!
The version I played did not have music
I’ve been aware of and had this feeling a ton but didn’t have words for it. This is fantastic!
The whole door thing you covered here reminded me of a dream I had about a month ago. Basically the dream was about a house that had no exterior walls. Just a lone door frame on an empty plot of land. Upon entering the door it would lead to random house rooms. At least they would seem random at first if you entered each door with no target room in mind.
But for what ever reason the details I still remember from the dream (the finer details I have since forgotten as it typically goes for dreams) are the "rules" for the place. The jist of it was I can control what room appears when I go to open a door by thinking of what room I wanted. Then there was the rule about things created by the place can't be removed into the normal world outside. So the rule also meant that one couldn't eat too much food that was made inside as you're body would slowly start replacing cell material with the material made by the house and then you wouldn't be able to leave.
I never saw what happened to anyone that tried to leave after eating the food for too long. For what ever reason I just "knew" that one couldn't do it. All I do recall is the place was a non-euclidean space. Doors could connect to rooms that would normally intersect with a nearby room. (so two doors right next to each other could connect to rooms that wouldn't normally fit there). Like some kind of tesseract house.
It was a super interesting dream. My dream must have been inspired by the doors in the matrix movie and the backrooms creepy pasta. (the version of the creepy pasta that used doors that is). So I guess it was an amalgamation of those concepts. Though I hadn't read or thought about them in awhile so the dream sorta just came out of nowhere. Unlike the Backrooms though there was no day night cycle or "monster" stalking you at night. Just normal house rooms with normal light fixtures. The only thing that made them look out of place was the lack of windows.
I have had lucid dreams where I decided to go quickly through doors and i could see my brain rendering each space. I found it slightly disturbing but astonishing when I awoke.i also had hyper realistic dreams where I could fly and lucid dream and go back to the same place as a previous dream like my dreams were a running simulation.
@@Michael-lg4wz The problem with my lucid dreams is everything starts to get super detailed which almost always causes me to wake up. So I can't really have them and do anything useful with them. :(
I was waiting you to talk about Portal! This is the game that gave most of this sensation you described…
Pretty much every Source game can feel liminal, including Garry's Mod.
I'd blame the lighting.
@@GRAYgauss It’s because of the same principle as uncanny valley. The more something resembles something real, the more our brains start to pick up on the things that aren’t congruent with reality which leave us with an unsettling feeling. In the Source engine, the lighting is prerendered using ray tracing which is slowly becoming a reality in real-time lighting. At the time, however, Half-Life 2’s lighting looked more realistic than any other game and that’s still true for a lot of games. Since it looks so realistic, our intuition picks up on the emptiness of what ‘should be’ populated areas leaving is with that disquieting feeling. There’s actually a lot of theory around the sensation and videos talking specifically about that feeling in Source games.
Probably because those games had really good map lighting for the time but not many models or a very high poly count, giving them a bleak and empty feel compared to modern titles
Especially 'Dear Esther' which is at its core intended to be a liminal "game".
@@KedViper That's fascinating...I always got that vibe from Source engine games but could never put my finger on it. Any recommended reading or videos?
I'm surprised the Silent Hill franchise, especially the first four games, weren't included here. Those made extensive use of liminality, especially the second and third games.
The beginning of Silent Hill 3 (just after Heather wakes up from the nightmare prologue) has her alone in a shopping mall, going through closed off back-end hallways. You can hear incredibly muffled voices of the patrons in the open portion of the mall as you're silently finding your way to them (and by extension to normality). Of course she ends up encountering an abomination that wants to kill her, but that tension leading up to it is deeply uncomfortable. The whole town of Silent Hill feels has this "off" feeling even outside the presence of monsters. Shrouded, familiar buildings: burger joints, gas stations, apartments, schools, all abandoned and run-down.
Silent Hill 4 even experimented with liminality in small space, with the titular room having a certain offness to even the most mundane things, as Henry Townsend is a prisoner in the place where he should feel safest, trying to transition from his caged existence going into various nightmare worlds, until he attains real freedom.
You featured my Death Mask game! Thank you :)
I remember the old Dreamcast game Toy Commander gave me this vibe without realizing it. Sort of like the Toy Story 2 action game, everything was huge but oddly familiar since you were just playing in a house, but there was always this eeriness that came from flying around with no sign of any humans.
Thanks for describing something that I have been aware of for many years but have not been able to name! Tube stations are a great example of this.
These sorts of places turn up in dreams frequently. Something about the journey I guess.
For a moment I thought this was going to turn into "Through the Keyhole"
I don’t think this is the same phenomenon, but I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D when it was new. In some level after I had eliminated the bad guys I kept searching and searching for the way out but couldn’t find it and kept looping back to where I had already been. I started getting an almost scared feeling that I couldn’t get out, completely forgetting for the moment that I was sitting in a chair in front of a computer and could stand up or look away at any moment I chose.
Every summer I've been traveling to Finland for all of my life, and the northern more desolate parts. So whenever I play My Summer Car I definitely get this feeling, probably more than any other game. Doesn't help that it's intentionally half-assed and the AI characters just wanders around aimlessly and sometimes you can spot them in a wheat field or just out in a random bog. I never really feel creeped out about it, it's just more bizarre... in a good way.
Sweet jesus. Ive always watched your videos for sheer comfort, info and nosalgia, but I've never commented on one. This video just blew my mind, most likely didnt help after a long week at work and a smokeathon. I even loved the t1 mention, still my fav of all time, and a mindblowing scene. You sir, are a god.
Since I was a child I've always found the tops of certain stairwells, specifically those of tall council-type flats quite disconcerting, in retrospect I think this is due to their liminal feel.
2:04 That's a sodium vapor bulb. I's actually closer to a florescent bulb than anything else.
Very interesting video. Probably the first of its kind that I have seen. Cheers and keep up the nostalgic good work.
I know this feeling! I have experienced this many times, in many games, and also in real life. I have vivid memories of this feeling in real life, but I can't quite remember the games I have experienced it... perhaps the old alone in the dark? Mirror's edge for sure... but there were others.
The last game that made me feel like this was actually The Medium on the xbox.
This feeling of unexplainable dread, like you are about to experience a nightmare... it's strange, but I like it, feels nostalgic somehow.
Nice video, made me remember a lot of similar experiences in my childhood.
Really enjoyed this. I wish more channels (regardless of what they're talking about) would look at the more humanistic/psychological/personal elements of their connections, because that's what always interests me more than cold, hard facts. This was really well put together.
Portal is very liminal, with oddly sterile testing rooms, noises, and GLaDOS's robotic voice throughout the game, and the main character trying to escape.
Grim Fandango and especially the mayan train station are the essence of transitional spaces for me. After all it‘s about souls on their journey to heaven in a world much like ours. The demons working in this world are stuck while the humans are constantly on the move. In other media, Stephen King‘s Langoliers captures the concept pretty well too.
Awesome video! I get feelings kinda like this while exploring the levels in 3D games from the late 90s and early 2000s. Especially from the less detailed areas that are usually inaccessible and/or only visible from a distance. As a kid, I would spend hours trying to maneuver to crazy spots and clip outside the level, and wondering what it'd be like if those areas kept going.
"Storage companies have lots of doors, and behind each of them could be anything!" The most savage hot-take of 2021.
This is the most elaborate explanation of Pac-Man I’ve ever heard!
I feel like one of the most liminal feeling spaces I've been in has been being at a school in the evening with nobody around. Especially in the hallways. Also empty shopping centers.
Metroid Prime Hunters also felt extremely liminal.
For the Stanley Parable, I'd strongly recommend playing *both* versions, the old one (which is free) and the "new" one from 2011.
Two of my favorite games, Antichamber and The Swapper, pretty much hit that spot. Something about them gives me that eerie feeling I love.
The cryptic nature of older games was fun for my imagination. For example, before the sequels and other media for Mortal Kombat, I saw the first game as a world where everybody had to be cruel to survive, and nobody was necessarily a "good guy".
I sometimes experienced this feeling when i broke bounds in World of Warcraft Classic (or just watch into those spaces). When you walk through a bizzare jagged landscape, left in chaos by the map designers and you have the defining feeling you shouldn't be here. It always sends a chilly, creepy feeling down my spine. Thanks for explaining what it made it so for me.
One game that really hit my "liminal space" button was "INFRA", where you play an engineer exploring the crumbling hidden infrastructure of a city. The constant sense of dread, both for the city and yourself is quite an experience.
name a more iconic duo: Liminal spaces and old source games (HL, portal etc)
Such a fascinating video! It must be preserved for years for others in the future to see.
MDK was the first game where I can remember this happening. There was a reactor room or generator room or something. It was a large mechanical space without too much detail, just some dehumanizingly large machines. The main thing that set the mood though was a crackling hum. Kind of like high voltage wires blended with some bassy powerful low frequency stuff. Striking enough I can still remember it 20+ years later.
Found it. Now that I'm watching, I guess the whole game qualifies.
th-cam.com/video/7KxhI2xSfTA/w-d-xo.html
no WAY this video was so awesome!! Thank you so much for doing this topic!
"Norwich - a cold disconnected nostalgia". We've got our new slogan.
😂
A fairly recent game that provided this effect for me was the Talos Principle. A simulation of a simulation, with historically accurate archetecture devoid of people, had a very eerie feeling. The music played a key role here in making everything feel surreal.
Ever play Second Life? Particularly, a sim where there's nobody present, even when there really should be? Relatedly, playing largely-dead MMOs conjures a similarly eerie feeling.
There used to be life, in these places.
Search for Reptar used to creep me out when I was little for this very reason.
All worth it though once I reached the end and got to play as Reptar!
Great video, I found it really interesting 👍
Pete, Turbo Esprit by Durrell on the spectrum. The intro to blockbusters with the corridor. Robocop 3 on the Amiga. And of course you touched on hard drivin. What is it about that weird disconnect. That other worldliness somehow devoid but safe at the same time! Honestly this video spoke to me! I think it’s the reason I’m obsessed with vintage computers to be honest. This was your best video yet. Really enjoyed it! Hope to meet you sometime mate!
This put the feeling into words so well!! I think the feeling of liminality is why I enjoy the art style of Superhot so much - also old internet escape games
Two things come to my mind. First playstation LSD the dream simulator, I always got the creeps outta that game. The second, and I think the one that better captures the feeling is the Submachine series by Mateusz Skutnik. Specially Submachine online (not sure if that was the name), as Skutnik humself described it: The first massive single-player online game.
i always get that kinda "liminal space" feeling from going into corner stores/gas stations late at night
Surprised you overlooked games like "Inca" 1992, "Mist" 1993, or "Riven" 1997, and later liminal settings such as "Cube" 1997, to a lesser degree "The Matrix" 1999 or "Gantz" 2000 which both take their characters outside of "reality" as they know it and reveal the world to be a game or strange artificial reality.
This was a great video. As a kid I was scared of clipping through walls and falling from the map, and I mean Terrified. My siblings would go "ok, look, Ik it's 3D but I swear it won't scare you"
I've grown out of it,
But damn if that Rugrats segment didn't throw me back into that sense of dread and impending doom! Great vid!
I think this puts into words what I've always felt about a lot of video games. I'm a really hesitant player, as I'm wary of the loneliness I know can come to dominate any game experience, at any moment. The high regard towards and love for any island in the Monkey Island series, the feeling of being home there, versus the suspicion and sadness that comes with never forgetting for long enough that it isn't actually my world.
I had a similar experience to what you mention about "driller" with "infestation" for PC. I still had a XT, so it loaded and rendered kinda slow, but it was amazing to see a game in first person with that kind of graphics, and you could walk on the moon, on corridors, explore a base, and it felt so alien and lonely.
Walking around a playerless LAN map on Battlefield 1942 when researching and testing out new tricks/stunts for future videos to make, is a spooky feeling. A war that has ended with recollections of memories from a map full of online players and all of the chaos and noise that that brings - but when empty with just yourself and the ambient sounds of the wind and of a distant unreachable conflict. This creates an anxiety of peace within a war game and a feeling that adds much foreboding to those overly familiar liminal spaces.
Then you rejoin an online server to be abused, shot at, mocked and become embroiled with hernia generating laughter and constant requests to record people and make them into TH-cam stars and then the liminal spaces become almost dynamic and alive.
I have never heard about Liminal spaces but.. It brings to mind what I fairly often see in my work as an illustrator. My work gets compared or seems to look like someone else's drawing. Fair enough I too draw inspiration from what I have seen drawn by others but I never had thought that there would be a name for it or at least for a kinda similar experience. Great video.
I think Myst fits the bill pretty well. That game still gives me nostalgia chills. Being alone on an island that was probably the best rendering of any game at the time. Having no idea what your supposed to be doing there, you know, like life. Just wandering around and trying to get to the next age.
The intro was so very pleasantly Max Derrat.
For people who haven't found him yet. He has a whole channel of eeriely explorative content about the feel and atmosphere in games. Frankly, the videos of his feel kind of liminal, like they are taking you somewhere. You never find out where they take you, some inner exploration maybe, but somewhere.
The strongest sense of this otherworldliness I ever got wasn't actually in a game. I was driving North on the A1 some 25 years ago at around 2am, and I got to a point on the road where there were no street lights. No other traffic. Couldn't see any town or village lights anywhere in the surrounding area. It was just me and my headlights driving down a completely black road. Only lasted for about a mile but was definitely the creepiest experience I've ever had.
first person mode on Theme Park for the PS1 gave me a lot of the feelings described here, not sure if it fully constitutes a liminal space but it felt like it.