I’ve recently fallen down a rabbit hole of fake video games. Not fake like fraud, but fake like art; games that don’t exist to play, but do exist to tell their stories. I’m super into it but finding more is kinda difficult, so here we are!
What fake games do you like? Why do you like them? Pictures, links, videos, whatever.
I really enjoyed Petscop (video 1/25 linked) and Valle Verde (video 1 linked, Spanish with subtitles), both series are let’s play style, exploring fake games to tell their stories. Petscop is much more narratively involved, and tells a great story (you’ll probably want an explainer video afterwards… it’s involved) while Valle Verde is more ghost-in-the-machine horror.
I found this rabbit hole through this video, from Super Eyepatch Wolf about fake video games, why they are made and how they “work” as an art form. Their content is weirdly enjoyable to me, and pleasingly entirely too long. Plus they have their own fake video game.
Edit for clarity: Fake video games is a super broad category. Pictures with gameplay hud that implies a video game, videos of gameplay or cutscenes styled after games count (even those weird live action “games” people record for TikTok count), books or stories that describe gameplay for games that don’t exist count, even soundtracks modeled after game sound tracks count. So if it’s a game or part of a game that doesn’t exist, it counts!
I think everybody misunderstood what you meant by “fake Video game” and I’m still a bit unsure myself, lol
It’s honestly a wildly broad category, so kinda no wrong answers.
There’s all sorts of things that count. A picture with game hud elements to imply gameplay, videos of whole fake games, books that mimic play through guides that describe how to play games that don’t exist.
There’s even fake video games that are just one cover art picture, and a sound track that implies how levels would be played.