*trailer voice* In the year 2010…
The amount of nostalgic but GOOOOD ART is too damn high!
Well Again, Traveler,
I haven’t been totally honest with you in the previous emotional piece. Collecting ultimate expressions of the human spirit is not the only thing I love about these letters.
Every piece of ART we find reminds me of something warm, something I've forgotten.
Each of them shines a light on the little pieces of my past self. The parts of my soul, I sometimes hide with teenage angst: the child that just wants to get back home and hear that magical beep of the family computer and dial-up internet.
And I hope it is not just selfish indulgence in my memories, but can also bring a smile to your face. Maybe because they help us share a bit of humanity through the lifeless pixels of our screens. Nowadays, it is hard to feel heard on the internet…
If you haven’t realized yet, we will yap about the past in this one.
BUT WAIT! Only about good stuff…
About the things that you love as much as we do, like WoW, Elma, and PlayStation X (our list’s a bit gaming-heavy this time) and most importantly the artist’s journey. On second thought, perhaps you haven’t even heard about this stuff. Perhaps, you have no idea what the “save button” represents or how to reverse a cassette with a pencil. Which is also fine, but I doubt it…
*trailer voice* In the year 2010,
when he saw her turn into a panther, his heart was lit like the ground below a necromancer. But no matter how hard he tried, reasoning with mother was futile. The grave parent was not supportive of his new passion for a
womanworld outside of this dimension. But this inspired our young hero to shatter his shackles of outdated ideals bound by this reality; and by the time the Burning Crusade began, he could afford to buy the disciform key that granted passage to his love.From that point on, his schoolbag could not land before the sentence “Who’s up for a raid?” was finished in MSN. Only mother’s dreaded dinner call could tear away the main tank from his beloved guild. Even though he caught mother listening to the WoW OST in the kitchen, she was inconvincible that this game cannot be paused. He even had to disgrace himself by lying to the guild about the internet connection.
Shame!
How could she apprehend the severity of the situation?! She didn’t know how big of an honor it was to fight alongside a rogue with not one but TWO of Illidan’s blades…
The young hero continued to visit the world regularly, and slowly but surely his family got acquainted with his preference of the digital world over dinner. He even received WoW-related presents for Christmas. What a twist of faith!
He grew up in no time, but never forgot the fortuitous meeting with the nightelf druid lady. He even created his own world with its unique character customization system strongly inspired by her world.
To make sure I’m not too cryptic:
This is Dani’s World of Warcraft story. (The pics are from this and this WoW trailer.) Nowadays, playing with it is more like a comfort food for him, it relaxes his mind.
As I was listening to his childhood story, I thought it would be nice to have a collection driven by our nostalgia: the 90s and 2000s. So here we are…
Beside originals, that may be hard to find online (legally), there are also fresh picks on our list, clearly inspired by classics. Take them with the curiosity of Omnimorphs, and I do hope you have fun dipping into the past with us.
1. 🎨 Drawing: Wei Wang
“So today I wanted to bring your attention to someone whose art you’ve definitely seen if you played any of the Blizzard games back in the day, but especially World of Warcraft. Wei Wang is an artist who did so many iconic artworks of notable characters like Kael'thas Sunstrider, Illidan, and The Lich King, including them on box covers, loading screens and Trading Card Game cards.
Personally when I look at all of his work, it instantly brings me joy with the amount of nostalgia I feel, and the time spent exploring the world and story of Azeroth. He unfortunately left Blizzard in 2017, but I think we can all safely say that we will always be grateful to him for sharing these awesome illustrations with the world.”
Dani
You might also like his new project: Astropulse, a sci-fi saga spanning multiple media platforms. Pretty strong StarCraft vibes with a generous hint of nostalgic cosmic horror and gore.
2. 🎮 Gaming: Hollow Knight: Silksong
“The original Hollow Knight game was one of the best 2D soulslike-metroidvania games ever made, so the upcoming sequel should be on every indie game fan’s wishlist.
The game inherits the beautifully dark and surreal underground world from the original title, while improving on key aspects like combat and traversal. At the time of writing, there is no release date announced.”
Huba
3. 🎮 Gaming: Elasto Mania (AKA Elma)
While talking to Huba about all the whacky stuff we played as kids, this gem came up. This is the mother of all physics based motorbike simulation games. I quickly looked into it, and they have released the remaster of the whole series! Now I can finally relive the competitions of the geek squad in the dorm.
4. 🎮 Gaming: Bionic Bay
I’ve been following the dev, Juhana Myllys, for a while now. This crazy platformer has a beautiful art style, and the vibe somehow reminds me of the thriller world full of shadow creatures in Heart of Darkness. The indie game’s mechanics are totally different, though. It is worth following Juhana, as he regularly includes fans in the creative process.
5. 🎮 Gaming: FUMES
Do you remember the PlayStation X franchise, Twisted Metal? This vehicular combat game doesn’t have a release date yet, but the funny physics, the pixel(y) art style in the trailer definitely brought back some sweet memories.
Now that you got all we promised — whether you asked for it or not — make yourself heard through the black chasm between us, we call The Internet:
(you have 3 days to decide 😈)
If none of these seem to represent your point of view, do rant to me in a message or in the comments.
Escape to your world, may that be the past, and come back refilled and ready to build! Looking forward to your reply,
Adrián
Scribe of the Omniscient
👁🗨
ps.: Just to make it clear, I can give all my attention to you, as I’m not flooded with messages. So far, I’ve received the well-rounded amount of 0.