Has a game ever inspired you?

[dreama1]

Some games just come and go and you forget them as disposable entertainment, and maybe in half a decade or more people will consider them better than they ever were in the first place. But has a game ever inspired you in a deep way? Or left a deep impact on you?

[indenton]

I might have mentioned this somewhere else on the forum, but I have in fact been inspired by a video game.  It caught my interest first for its anime art, but then I saw a single screenshot from the game which immediately sold the game for me "I want to explore that world" I said to myself. 



Whenever I've been doing Art & Design at school, I've always had teachers and lecturers simply tell when something is good or I've just had to roll with it.  Basically what I mean is, I can draw but I didn't understand art.  Right now I'm studying Graphic Design, we started working on a 'Digital Image Creation' unit last year (Photoshop).  One of the first things we did was look through a selection of digital images and had to collect resources which could have been used to create these works.  One of the images was of an apocalyptic Paris with factories pumping pollution into a jet black sky, the land is baron and dead.  A young child is sat down with a gas mask with tattered oily clothing clutching onto a single blooming flower, a salvation of life and colour.  While I was looking up material and resources for this example I noticed that I was intrigued and drawn towards this particular image.  It made me think on think about this game

The game is 'Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon' for Nintendo Wii, as a raw game experience it really isn't all that special, but the context and the environments and the deeper meaning behind it all resonated with this same experience I had at college.  Now I can look at art and begin reading into the meaning and the reasoning behind all sorts of things.  Inspired? More like actually changed my life and thankfully this niche little title pointed me in the right direction. Trust me I could go on and on about my experience, so I'll cut it short.

[badATchaos]

For me it was definitely Half-Life 2. If it weren't for HL2 I probably wouldn't have gotten a Game Art degree that I can't do anything with now.   

[kashell]

Some games just come and go and you forget them as disposable entertainment, and maybe in half a decade or more people will consider them better than they ever were in the first place. But has a game ever inspired you in a deep way? Or left a deep impact on you?

Tee hee...you said deep impact...

[bperry731]

Kingdom Hearts hit me hard the first time i finished it.

[hellrider1988]

Just wrote this in another thread, for me it was definitely Mass Effect. At least while/after playing it for the first time completely Paragon. Kind of reinforced my tolerance towards other religions/"races" and people in general.

[romanticore]

Link's Awakening... upon completing the adventure, I just felt so... sad. The music and overall aestetics of the game has since haunted me, in a very good way.

Recently I played through Harmony of Dissonance and I was completely blown away by the masterful musical compositions by Soshiro Hokkai. I've listened to the OST on a daily basis for more than eight months straight.

[hellrider1988]

Link's Awakening... upon completing the adventure, I just felt so... sad. The music and overall aestetics of the game has since haunted me, in a very good way.

Now that you mentioned it, I felt terribly sad and didn't want to accept that it was all just a dream. Or was it...

[romanticore]

Link's Awakening... upon completing the adventure, I just felt so... sad. The music and overall aestetics of the game has since haunted me, in a very good way.

Now that you mentioned it, I felt terribly sad and didn't want to accept that it was all just a dream. Or was it...

I like to think Link died and went to Hyrule Heaven.

[dashv]

Link's Awakening... upon completing the adventure, I just felt so... sad. The music and overall aestetics of the game has since haunted me, in a very good way.

Now that you mentioned it, I felt terribly sad and didn't want to accept that it was all just a dream. Or was it...

I think I've owned up to it before but for solidarity's sake I'll say it again. Links Awakening was the first video game that ever made me cry.

But the game that's inspired me the most has to be Super Mario Bros. That game kicked my gaming fanaticism into overdrive. Coming over from Atari the Graphics. Seemed. So. Real.

My best friend and I would draw our own level designs on paper and discuss them at lunch and on the bus all the time.

I remember one time some other kids found some of our designs and oh man. They picked on me to no end about it. "Ha you think you're going to get a job somewhere drawing crappy levels on paper!? What a loser!"

Well, besides Mario Maker, I never did go on to make levels for Nintendo.

That said, I have in fact done quite alright for myself getting paid to draw, design, and build software and data centers for some pretty big names in the tech industry.

My software and computer hardware skills have mostly come from college. But almost everything I know about raw electronics has been independent learning inspired by my passion for bringing old systems back to life.

Probably no surprise I bought the WiiU the second Mario Maker was revealed.

[romanticore]

My best friend and I would draw our own level designs on paper and discuss them at lunch and on the bus all the time.

I'm curious... have your old level designs been actualized, now that Mario Maker is avaliable? If so, did they work out any good?

Kinda kewl with the "complete circle" thingy.

[dashv]

My best friend and I would draw our own level designs on paper and discuss them at lunch and on the bus all the time.

I'm curious... have your old level designs been actualized, now that Mario Maker is avaliable? If so, did they work out any good?

Kinda kewl with the "complete circle" thingy.

I have to dig through the garage and see if I kept all that stuff. I might have thrown them away at some point convinced that I'd wasted my time and needed to move on.

[gf78]

The Mass Effect trilogy.  Never before or since have I felt such a strong connection to characters in a video game.  There are moments in those games that are utterly gut wrenching.  Intelligent writing along with great voiceover work and believable characters truly made me feel like a part of a living, breathing universe. 

I cannot overstate the impact those games had on me and how they challenged me to really think about preconceived notions on things like race, religion and sexuality.  Thinking back on those games now, I want to pop the first one in and start a new game right now to experience the story once again and revisit old friends.  I only hope that Bioware is able to continue the Mass Effect series with new games worthy of the legacy and impact laid down by Commander Sheppard and crew.

[gf78]

Just wrote this in another thread, for me it was definitely Mass Effect. At least while/after playing it for the first time completely Paragon. Kind of reinforced my tolerance towards other religions/"races" and people in general.

^^this.