Have you ever watched Breaking Bad? Either way you probably know what it is – a series about a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin and everything in between; and beyond, even. You might be surprised to find out that the featured image on this article comes from a piece of fan media centred on a retelling of the series: Breaking Bad Gameboy’d by Lumpy Touch.
I won’t be spoiling Breaking bad Gameboy’d here, but it’s a short and fascinating watch if you want to dig into the playlist right now.
This masterpiece takes the characters and themes of the series and condenses them down to their elements. It then bonds them together again in a way chemistry never intended, as a gameboy game featuring Junji Ito levels of eldritch body horror and mutants fighting quicktime battles over Albuquerque.
Fake Video Games Are Real
Breaking Bad Gameboy’d is not a game you can go and play. The footage on Youtube might resemble the art style of old and indeed has a game UI, but this is where I might just be introducing you to the world of fake video games.
“What is a fake video game” I hear you wonder. The answer to that is simple and complex at the same time. For one, they’re exactly what they say they are: games that just don’t exist. But that’s not quite right is it? The game above does exist if you’ve watched the series on Youtube. It exists in your mind; it exists in the mind of the creator; it exists to all the fans who flesh out this world together.
These game worlds are built entirely from game guides, manuals, videos, images, forum posts – you name it. To me, that’s absolutely fascinating and, especially if you spent time in the 90s reading game manuals, I’m sure you’ll agree.
If you want some terms to go and chase down in search of this niche artform, check out:
- Apple Quest Monsters DX
- Bird World by Leon Chang
- Valle Verde
- Vermis
- Plastiboo
I watched a video essay that was recently produced by Super Eyepatch Wolf. Each of the above are “games” that he explores throughout the video (and more). I highly encourage watching his video, even over reading this blog post.
Part of Super Eyepatch Wolf’s video includes a mention of what is known as “secondary media”. He brings it up in a discussion around how, when playing older games, you would often be dealing with small sprites for characters. With perhaps only 99 pixels, your mind has to turn to artwork from the manual or even the cover art. That art in the manual is secondary media and when you were seeing those 99 pixels you were really seeing your character from the cover. It’s powerful stuff.
Secondary Media
This idea of secondary media and of fake video games draw me back to an idea that I’ve had for a while – to write a book that serves as media for a world that doesn’t exist. Instead of taking a story and writing about characters, I could instead write alongside this world in the form of a blog, as letters, or really any other style that makes sense.
The problem I’m having right now is that I just don’t have any fantastic ideas for that sort of fiction as of yet. I didn’t write this post as some announcement of a book that I’m writing. Hells, if I did that I’d probably end up never starting.
The idea, though is just intoxicating. Or at least it is to me as a writer. Great plot and dialog is not an easy task and, as a newcomer to fiction, I can image that I would suck at diving straight into writing classical fiction. What if, instead, there was a world quite different to ours where a person like me was writing blog posts?
What if I never wrote ashyin.space and instead of EVE Online, I blogged and theorycrafted about ships in some other, entirely fictional game. Sure, it wouldn’t be useful at all. I wouldn’t have people coming to read how I teach and guide people in my articles. But would it still be interesting? Would it be like reading a game manual back in the 90s?
This technically isn’t secondary media, I suppose. I like to think of it in this way, though. The worldbuilding becomes the primary media perhaps, or is it the unwritten ‘normal’ book?
If I can pull together the energy I might just give it a shot to see how interesting it really ends up being. If you’ve any experience with the artform, drop a comment below. Though with this site being much newer and without a commercial goal, I don’t expect so many readers 🙂
That’s all I wanted to share for now! Some thoughts, a funky art medium, and the awesomeness that is Breaking Bad Gameboyd.
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