My Favourite Media Inspired By Gaming

Unsurprisingly, I love videogames, and after spending enough time within related circles, I've stumbled upon some really interesting pieces of media related to this hobby. There’s so much of this to be found, and I find many of these things to be sadly underrepresented.

Grandpa Carp is an album by the artist Karpfengold, which takes heavy inspiration from the SoundFonts of the ‘90s, more specifically, the Super Nintendo era of gaming. Grandpa Carp is an incredibly comfy, synth-heavy album which would fit wonderfully in a classic RPG of the time. Many of the songs match the energy I would expect from the water levels of the ‘90s, with a relaxing and slightly melancholic feel to many of the tracks, emulating a warm feeling. This was the thing that inspired me to write this piece, as the music had me incredibly nostalgic for a time that I never experienced, which inspired a deeper look at other things that reflected similar feelings. On the music pipeline, one of my favourite albums of all time, Fullmetal Kaiju by Kill Bill the Rapper, utilises a lot of samples from games, such as BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, and Sega Saturn-esque box art, including the physical disc, which is an incredible way to pay homage to that era.

Beyond music, artists often find a lot of inspiration from the realm of videogames. One of my favourites is Plastiboo, who does a lot of art inspired by dark fantasy media and has a very interesting duology of books known as Vermis. This series acts as a game guide, full of art, characters, and world design features inspired by classic dungeon crawlers. Despite being a guide, the game itself doesn’t exist, which makes it an incredibly odd but creative proof of concept. As I’ve mentioned in other articles — see my Itch.io series — I’m incredibly fond of the PlayStation aesthetic, and I’m not the only one, as seen by artists such as Lee Griffin (@its_lit_lee on Instagram) and Victor Estrella (@vicestrella.psd on Instagram). While the latter regularly creates more fantastical pieces, inserting his character and doing some incredibly unique things with his style, the former takes seemingly more inspiration from the real world. Vic Estrella regularly takes landmarks, or just mundane items from real life, and transforms them into low-poly pieces reminiscent of the early Silent Hill titles.

As far as more specific homages go, there’s a lot to be said. Across YouTube, I regularly stumble upon Silent Hill-inspired ambience, and there are some absolute gems that emulate the same feeling as the games do. My favourites of these more direct influences are the two Jet Set Radio-inspired albums Memories of Tokyo-To and Sounds of Tokyo-To Future, both produced by 2 Mello. These albums both manage to showcase the well-established sound of the Jet Set Radio soundtracks while also adding a more personal touch and style, keeping it distinct.

This is not even close to everything of this nature that’s out there, but I implore you to take a look at the creators and artists mentioned and share anything else you might find; in the current era, too much art goes underappreciated, and deserves more of a spotlight!