Loads of ppl saying stuff along the lines of this being recognisable dream-imagery and I wanna chip in to say that I think Mario 64 unconciously informed the way I construct dreams because I played at such a young age. Boomers have a similar thing with dreaming in black n white. https://twitter.com/elegiac_images/status/1276223978252701696

Then again, it was so impactful that I refuse to reduce it down to just that reading. A big part of the impact is down to its memorable, simple look. It also has this rly lonely atmosphere evoking the emptiness of dreams and the castle just feels well, abandoned.

And ofc, those are due to tech limits of the era but the idea of exploring a lonely castle full of paintings as portals to wonderworlds seems allegorical to the format of dreaming. The strewn level design, secret rooms, photo skyboxes etc all contribute to this surreality

These secret rooms are intriguing in many ways but I’m interested in their liminality. When I first discovered them, they made me double-take and question their reality. Sometimes I misremembered their location making me further doubt, supposing maybe they were just imagined.

Returning to the first image of this thread, it is uncanny. It brought doubt cuz it was so familiar and yet off. Was it a secret area of the castle or somewhere I ignored when playing? Discovering it was modded wasn't a let down for me as it became illustrative of dream logic.

-in the way that dreams are kind of mish-mashed experience with a lot of gaps and I find that fascinating. Anyway this concludes my analysis lol so thanks for reading! I also hope my art provokes similar thoughts n feelings but with videogames that don't exist