What would you do if all time came to a halt? With no way forward into the future, how would one have any sense of place? To know when to eat, when to sleep, when to embark on new endeavors and to shed the shackles of listless melancholy.

Most of us would likely find ourselves adrift, succumbing to boundless ennui and without ambition, now unable to sense the changing of the seasons or feel the delicate touch of the sun’s rays. We would have no choice but to put our faith into someone, anyone, who might put things right and set the hands of our once great clock tower in motion once more.

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You step out onto the muddy pavement with your trusty weapon in hand, it’s time to liquidate your enemy and give them a piece of your mind. After selecting the right tool for the task, you take aim and pull the trigger:

FSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Everything drips, the floor is slick with viscous fluid- there’s no traces left of your opponent, not even the slightest evidence of what stood before you. Caked on dirt and mildew are no match for your quick thinking skills and pressure washing prowess. Another 5 star rating, another payday.

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Have you ever been sitting around and wondering, “If only I had some way of listening to cutting edge culture critique mixed in with some pop philosophy” ?

I have good news for you! You can! Today we’re serving up a fresh appetizer platter of our favorite video essays in recent memory, let’s dig in:

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Ever feel weighed down by your worries? Can’t get out of bed without falling out of it? Late to appointments? Can’t find anyone to talk to about it?

The answer is simple: Pretend you are a plane, and start throwing your troubles out the cargo bay door! It’s a classic technique. Kiss your stress BON VOYAGE!

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(Content Warning: Parents, Familial Relationships)

Bookstores are a special kind of consumptive hell, their walls insulated with the drab unending detritus of bygone publishing trends. Countless tomes wash up upon the shelves where Graphic Designers trade in their enthusiasm for cynical cash-ins to survive, their work adorning the latest innovations in shallow pop-philosophy, tacky comic books disguised as ‘novels’, and ahistorical biographies that skip over all the messy bits. Yet here you are, still browsing them in an endless mobius strip of indecisiveness, stuck wandering between the trite poetry and the robust offerings of wizard fan fiction, trying to find something compelling for dear old dad.

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The Great Engine has ground to a halt, parts are missing, smoke is everywhere! Is that guy’s hair on fire??? The inner workings are so incomprehensible, it’ll take years of expert analysis to figure out how to fix all of this. Panic! Fish! Despair!

Well, the economy aside, there is some good news: your time machine is broken, and that’s waaaay easier to understand how to fix.

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Our protagonist crash lands on a distant star, trapped on a sandy beach with nothing but determination and a trusty spherical lifeboat. As the calm waters lap against the shores, The Seeker takes a moment to center herself and steel her courage, embarking on her journey at dawn to recover the remains of the spacecraft to build a new future on.. Aquamarine.

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(Content Warning: Domestic Disputes, Childhood Trauma)

A colorful rubber ball bounces past, immediately drawing your focus and illustrating the short lived nature of your fledgling autonomy against your newly formed limbic system. Play, at this point, is far more important than any budding sense of self-awareness.. such a vivid color, so squishy… it even bounces… You could toy with it for hours on end and never lose any satisfacti- Is that Mister Caterpillar? He’s so green…

Lurching towards the plastic green structure adorned with egg-shell colored “eyes” to provide animistic illusion, you fumble and fall over… you’re still getting the hang of this walking thing after all, that’s what mum keeps telling you at least.

A distant figure by the back yard gate catches your vision, an animal like silhouette announced with an audibly heavy breathing sound… is this a new friend you wonder. But before you can investigate this character, mum calls out to come inside to get ready for snacks, and the good child that you are you head in paying no mind to the mysterious new friend.

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It was meant to be a simple case
Pay my rent, get me outta the rat race
But I’m starting to think I’m out of my depth
And it might just mean my horrible, untimely death
Trying to get out of here, but it’s no use
And for the love of God, the name’s not Pimplemoose!

Musicals are a time-honoured tradition in both theater and cinema, but sadly, the artform has seldom made the jump to video games. Dominique Pamplemousse by Squinky, however, happily bucks this trend with a foray into the even rarer musical noir subgenre. You control the titular gumshoe as they sing their way down the rabbit hole of a case full of intrigue, deception, delinquent landlords, autotuning, and brutal student debt.

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Sitting in your car, you take a deep breath in a vain attempt to mellow your nervous tics and anxiety. You’ve been showing up increasingly earlier to your store over the past month, you lie to yourself that you’re just playing it safe to avoid rush hour traffic, but deep down you realize it’s become harder and harder to work up the nerve to walk through those doors.

Sitting there in a moment of numb serenity as the clock ticks closer to the top of the hour, you shut off the engine, the radio cutting out after half a second. As soon as the cold silence of the car interior hits, your stomach drops and the anxiety comes flooding in: Time to start your shift.

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