I desparately need videogames that treat me as an adult (looking at you, Unfinished Swan!…).

The prototype was so artsy, wasn't it? Not that I oppose to it being oriented towards younger audiences, as they also starve for something finer in taste. But selfishly speaking, I can't help feeling it was a missed opportunity.

It just felt to me like they didn't know what to do with their mechanic.
Lesson learned: don't build games around mechanics. Always know what your game is about. Or what you are looking for with the game.

I haven't played it, but I was similarly excited and then disappointed by the old and new trailers respectively.  Maybe that statement should be amended to be don't build games only around mechanics?  It's perfectly fine for art to be a process and a dialogue with yourself through a particular medium.  A priori, I don't have an problem with a game starting with a mechanic as long as you end up discovering either of Michaël's latter points.  A posteriori might be a bit of a different story - given that games that emphasize mechanics tend to end up being made as distractions from life rather than enhancements.

So much clicking with that many entries.

It's hard to judge trailers beyond saying that its potentially interesting.  Anyone have an experience with these ones?
The Burrow
Panoramical
Remembering
Leaving
Cradle

I've played these three before and think they're worth a look:
The Stanley Parable
Thirty Flights of Loving
Fract

And two more:
Against the Wall is puzzle-y and tedious, but there were a couple moments of exploration that made me think that there is an opportunity for building a fantastical world full of weird life.
A Slower Speed of Light broke upon loading, so I have no idea how it plays.  But light is weird and fascinating on its own.

Welcome! I like your blog and your pixel art.

Thanks

Hope it doesn't have a cheesy "message" like Flower.

That one was a bit hard to stomach.  But worse than that, I felt like the game never took off the training wheels - just constantly telling me how to solve the puzzles.

But I rather enjoyed Journey.  It was a tight package centered around the beautiful feeling of flying in a fantasy world.  There wasn't anything deeper there message-wise, but I appreciate it for nailing that experience.  Did that part of the experience fail for people?

Ceremony of Innocence is one of the best examples of the "games for grown-ups" that were made in the 1990s

This looks fascinatingly creepy.  I wish I didn't have to wait for a CD to arrive to play it.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were both mentioned.  I have the PS3 collection, but I'm ashamed that I haven't cracked it open yet.  In that vein, I'll throw Journey (http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/) into the discussion.  It's not the deepest, but the mechanics tell the story of learning to fly.  There's also something to be said about playing it while sitting back on a couch in the living room rather than at the desk.  I end up more comfortable and more open to be moved by an experience.

But in the PC realm,

The End of Us -
http://the-end-of-us.com/
A story of companionship told through scripted interactions.  I'm a big fan of not needing to separate the active experience of playing from the emotional connection.

Fract -
http://fractgame.com/
I played one of the levels of the demo and loved how I was thrown into this alien world of colors, shapes and patterns.  You just wonder around, interact and let the structure of the world reveal itself to you.

Thirty Flights of Loving/Handle with Care/Souvenir -
http://blendogames.com/thirtyflightsofloving/
http://www.radiator.debacle.us/01/
http://souvenirgame.com/
I'll loosely group these together because they all have some sense of environmental storytelling to them where it's up to you as a participant to figure out how much you want to know about the world.  Handle with Care added another layer for me in that you shape the story (it's about repression and relationships). There's no 'winning' ending to the game - there's just a rocky relationship.

Hi, I'm Mike.  Much of the time, I'm a PhD student trying to unravel the brain and stitch it back together through computational modeling.  The rest of the time, I work on interactive things - whatever they are called.

I have been getting frustrated with the abundance of distraction entertainment in the medium. It doesn't bother me that those things exist - to each his own - but it's so odd that everyone isn't demanding more.  I really value the couple friends I have who can see the potential of interactive experiences to convey something deeper, but it beginning to feel isolating to work on these types of games.  So googling around brought me here.

I've made a couple of smaller scale things in the past (http://mikewesthad.wordpress.com/), but now ideas are pulling me towards Blender and Unity.  There's one thing in particular that I'm chasing down - about what it might be like during stroke.  A bit of a memoir for a family member.

That's feels like a bit of a down note to end on, so what I should say is - I'm excited to peruse the forums and meet you all!