The Substantially Similar Weblog

Pete, an old high school friend and biology-project partner, recently discovered my email address and we reconnected. It occurred to me that the next generation may never experience reunion with long-lost friends: they’re all on Facebook and Myspace from middle school on up, so how will they ever lose touch in the first place?

Peter wrote to ask me the name of an Amiga game we used to play in the late 1980’s. I knew immediately which game he was asking about: Mind Walker. I remembered it as a fantastic surreal action/video game exploration of the human psyche. I think it was probably more Freudian than Jungian. Only a few games stuck with me at this level — another one was Weird Dreams. (The problem with Weird Dreams was that it was impossibly difficult to get past the level where you have to smack Dali-esque statues with flying fish. If anyone ever did, I’d like to know what happened next.)

This review gives a good summary of Mind Walker:

You are a physics professor gone mad. Your course of action? Delve into your Mind, to inspire “Ideas” by tracing “Paths of Coherent Thought”, with the help of your split ego. Then through opened-up Tubes, enter your Brain, to retrieve “Shards of Sanity”. Finally, put them back together in Subconscious.

I remember Mind Walker as having amazingly spooky and captivating graphics. Then I found this screenshot:

Oh well. I’m sure it actually was impressive at the time.

This discovery reminded of times when I’ve rediscovered a favorite food from childhood — for example, a certain type of cookie — only to find that it really isn’t very good at all. Just kind of sugary and low-quality chocolate. It’s also like going back to watch the original Jurassic Park again. The amazement is gone.

Actually, even though the Mind Walker graphics aren’t as impressive as I remember them, I’m sure it was still a great game.

Anyone have screenshots from Weird Dreams?

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