What is Nostalgia?
Nostalgia is a very hard concept to generalise and create tactile representations of, because of this, it is a widely researched topic. It can be evoked by sounds, scents or images. The person usually thinks back to fond memories from childhood even if the time was not very good, nostalgia makes the person see it fondly or through “rose-tinted glasses”
How Does This Relate to Games?
As nostalgia can be triggered by sounds and images games are a perfect vehicle for evoking it, not only have many people grown up playing videogames but they are uniquely suited for nostalgia as most games reflect the technology of the time through their visuals and gameplay.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329189861_Video_Games_as_Objects_and_Vehicles_of_Nostalgia
This paper looks at videogames as objects and vehicles of nostalgia by acknowledging the “nostalgia” of arcade retro games such as 8-bit soundtracks and visuals as well as the content of the games. It also looks at how games can accurately create a historical location possibly evoking nostalgia for the place through the videogame.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X22002652
Whilst I cannot access the full paper the summary and abstract suggest that nostalgia through videogames can be psychologically beneficial. It also suggests that the average age of a gamer has changed to 30 as they are the generation that grew up playing them.
“As video games mature, so are their players—by some estimates, the average age of a gamer is in their 30s, and often playing games with their children.” – (Bowman and Wulf, 2023)
The part that really captures my attention is that these players are now playing with their children, creating new nostalgia. In my game I want to appeal to this subsection of players by creating something that evokes the parents nostalgia via the gameplay or visuals and it also appeals to the children, creating a new generation that feels nostalgic towards the same kind of games that their parents played. This interest of mine is because I grew up playing the remastered versions of my dad’s favourite games, The Secret of Monkey Island, The Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. These are some of my most treasured memories and I want to create something for other people to have the same kind of memories.
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