According to my purchase history, I bought NieR:Automata on 9 Apr 2023. It is currently 4 May 2024, and I am still thinking about this game. I am still listening to its music.
This is the longest continuous time period I have ever had a game on my mind. This cannot continue, I would like to move on to other kinds of thoughts. So I’m setting an intention to exorciseit from my mind, by writing about it.
How has this game burrowed so deep into my head? On one level I am naturally curious about consciousness, artificial intelligence, cognition, and of all the media I have consumed none have come as close as NieR:Automata (and its prequel, NieR:Gestalt/Replicant1) to probing the questions I’ve been thinking about.
I don’t plan to write or record or make a review; I have binged enough of those on Youtube and read a few articles and I can see everyone attempting such a feat struggling to employ words adequate to the task. The unexplored direction I can probably take here is to see how it has influenced my ideas about teaching, since that is so closely tied to my interests and I haven’t seen anything go in that direction yet.
I’ll tag these posts with the exorcism and nier tags so you can check back later if you prefer to binge.
Which I have not played, merely watched longplays of.