Cathedral-in-the-Clouds is a digital art project (not a game —at all).
A cathedral in virtual reality forms the home of an ever expanding collection of virtual dioramas intended for contemplation. Many of these dioramas are inspired by religious imagery but the experience does not require faith. The dioramas are individually distributed, for free, via a variety of media.

The project is  explained in detail on the Kickstarter page.

Please back this project and/or spread the word!

you don't see movies that simulate being a trucker or anything like that.

That reminds me of Le Camion by Marguerite Duras, one of my favorite film makers (whose novels inspired our game Bientôt l'été).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nczd500mZAc

Anyway, I agree on the one hand that games about dragons and magic and soldiers are bizarre. But on the other there's not nearly enough diversity of content in games. So I'd be loathe to discourage the bizarre. But yeah, I like art.

we do need a Koyaanisqatsi of games, too.

Funny that you should say that. I just watched the 'qatsi trilogy in preparation of a new project…

Chris Crawford is always very quick to point out how storytelling in games is primitive because it's not dramatic. I'm a big admirer of Mr Crawford but I'm starting to doubt if this is the best approach. I usually enjoy the non-dramatic realtime existence in games the most. Just being in a virtual world not doing much of anything, and not much of anything happening, is by far my favourite thing in games. Maybe we should just reject drama, and story, and simply embrace realtimeness, Just deliver a scene, a situation, nothing more.

That the depiction of human life is dominant in a medium like cinema makes sense. Cameras are very good at capturing reality. It's the easiest thing to do with that technology! But in videogames, it seems rather strange to have the same focus. There is nothing in this technology that makes it particularly good at capturing reality. With the possible exception of motion capture (but even that's far from easy). The depiction of humans in games is one of the hardest things to do. Maybe we should not be so quick to default to it.

Acknowledging the progress already made is a good thing

Thank you for the reminder. In my impatience I too am guilty of forgetting this sometimes.

I'm interested in experiencing realistic sensations through games. But they don't need to be visual. Maybe we should think more of dance and architecture and less of film or even literature. More than any other medium, games are about feelings, visceral effects, presence, immersion. As such the closest analog might in fact be poetry. And then I agree: let's abandon the ubiquitous classic epic poem in favor of modernist colleague and experimentation with language.

Erik Svedang once made the analogy with an iceberg where videogames are the small visible part and notgames the huge unexplored part under the water surface. I think that together this iceberg is one medium, as yet unnamed. And games are just a small part of it. The rest of this medium still needs to be developed. Games are to this medium what action movies are to film, or heavy metal to music, or super hero comics to all of literature. Etc.

Abandoning the conventions of this "genre" called games is a simple way to stimulate creativity.

I for one will be taking another step in my future work and much more diligently avoid games. I personally think videogames are a creative  dead end. They're not going anywhere. And I want out.

I think our games can stand on their own perfectly well. And there is no need to play all of them. Just play one.

I'm just trying to imagine a different, more aesthetically convincing way of using this medium, specifically in terms of pictorial representation. I feel I'm still thinking too close to games, at least to videogames. I want to think closer to reality instead, or at least to figurative painting. But it's difficult to avoid thinking in terms of film, which I'm convinced is a dead end.

Still in a received medium like film, you feel like things are revealed to you, but never actively discovered.

Potentially inspiring distinction.

So there's a switching of roles: in a film the creator is active. But to feel discovery, the spectator needs to be active. Or feel active?

A pleasant aspect of videogames is discovering things. One could make a film of someone's exploration of a game. It's an entirely linear experience. But watching a film doesn't feel like a journey of discovery as much as moving the camera through the world yourself. I think this even applies to a completely linear game. The fact that you are moving the camera, even if there would be only one path that can be followed makes all the difference!

So what is that difference?
Is simply deciding on the pace sufficient? Would the feeling of discovery disappear if you couldn't pause? Or is it being able to look around that makes the difference? Would a fixed camera direction ruin it? Or does it not matter as long as there is some kind of control over something? And is this a universally human sentiment? Or am I the only one for whom this makes such a huge difference?

This has nothing to do with Sunset.
The thought was mainly triggered by ubiquitous conventions that are also used in Sunset.

I think the slugcat in Rain World animates wonderfully for being directly controlled by the player. It's a combination of hand-made animation and physics. They've got it easier since it's non-humanoid and 2D, though.

This is not what I meant. As far as I can tell, the avatar in Rain World is designed for the mechanics. I'm looking for the opposite. The avatar, the story, the content come first. Everything else follows.

It all sounds exciting and I hope you succeed.

But personally I'm not looking for "the same but better." I want a wholly different paradigm. I'm not entirely against requiring some learning, though I prefer my audience learn something nice (like read a story that will help them enjoy the game). But I feel design is the art of creating with what exists, working with how people are and not demand that they change.

I will abandon any interface that stands in the way of my content. If that means making screensavers then I'll make screensavers.