The Upside Down: The Feeling Of An
Empty Plate
Perspectives
Traveling
to the Upside Down is something I typically like to avoid. It’s cold there,
dark. Unsettling. Spores float in a pitch-black sky, wood creaks like an
explosion in its silent canvas. It is a scary place, sure, but the most
terrifying thing is the listlessness. The timelessness. I’m in a void with no
direction and I only want to get out. A new game is my ticket to escape.
The Upside
Down is the place I’m transported when I’ve got nothing on the docket, no
game I am working towards completing. Games are huge part of my day-to-day
life. They fall into a pair of categories. Lifestyle games fill in short
moments or during travel. They don’t stave off being pulled into the Upside
Down. The second are my sit-down experiences, console and PC games that I play
from start to finish. AAA or indie, these are the games that load up my gaming
plate. These are the titles that keep my tethered to this side of the board. They
keep me in the light.
 |
| Beware the Upside Down. |
I’m a task
oriented person and have been for as long as I can remember. My preferred
form of organization is a bulleted list, and I’m a several sticky note a day
scientist. Try as I might to ingest video games at a leisurely pace or without
a goal in mind, I always fall victim to my habits. A new sit-down game always,
always becomes a box that needs to be checked off. Or more often, a series of
boxes that cry out to be x’d in. While consuming, my inclination towards tasks
doesn’t hinder my enjoyment of the sum experience of a game – I’m able to lose
my self in the world, gameplay or story. Where the problem lies is in the space
between games. The Upside Down.
Stranger Things, aside from being the year’s best
show, has finally offered a graphical depiction of how I feel when not
‘working’ on a sit-down game. Because you see, not having a game on my plate
makes the world around me change. It’s my world, the one I typically live in, but
darker and more listless. There is a permeating sense of “off.” It’s not
malicious. The closest I can compare it to is when you’re sleepy and put
creamer in your cereal instead of milk, or getting winded 10 minutes into a 30-minute
run. Like the Upside Down in Stranger
Things, my in-between space imperfectly mirrors my normal day to day just
enough to be unsettling. The danger isn’t being there, it’s being there too long.
 |
| It's like my world, but off. Dark, quiet, listless. |
It is a
feeling I like to avoid, for obvious reasons. The Upside Down isn’t the most
pleasant place. But I found myself exploring its dark woods a couple weeks ago
after I completed Severed on the PS
Vita. My “now playing” section of my living games document went blank. The games
remaining in my backlog were all a couple years overripe – still worth playing,
but not anything that called out to me. Being on a graduate student budget
doesn’t always allow for me to stay on top of all the new releases either. But
as the days began to add up, I felt myself slipping deeper into the Upside
Down. Ranked games of Overwatch here,
legend ladder in Clash Royale there,
nothing could stop the quiet from becoming louder and louder. So I reached out.
I texted a
good friend about a game I had been indecisive about, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It was a title I knew I would like to
play at some point as I enjoyed the prequel, Human Revolution, but whether to get it while it was ‘new’ was
another question entirely. I heard the Demogorgon coming, though, so I had to
act. His glowing review for Mankind
Divided sured up my decision and parted the cold vines in the Upside Down,
revealing my way out. I had something to put on my plate. I defeated the Demogorgon. I jumped into Mankind Divided and haven’t looked back.
 |
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is no paradise, but I'll take it if it
means escaping the Upside Down. |
Usually as
I get towards the end of a game I can see portals to the Upside Down begin to open.
That’s why I take it upon myself to always have a game or two, or three, lined
up as next. Because having an empty plate is like a dinner bell to the
Demogoron and no array of Christmas lights are going to be there to warn me of
danger.
 |
| Uh oh. Time to find a new game. Fast. |
I’m out of the Upside Down and relieved to be back in the light. I already have three
games lined up after Deus Ex: Mankind
Divided – Psychonauts, Darkest
Dungeon, and Inside. My escapes
from the Upside Down feature a dystopian near future, a macabre adventure of
psychological horror, and the struggle of a young boy against totalitarian
forces. Bleak, but I’ll take it. I don’t plan on returning to the Upside Down
anytime soon. I intend to keep myself quite occupied.
