“I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100″*…
English-speakers might say “existential despair,” among a number of different terms. Germans refer to Weltschmerz. As is often the case, the French have the perfect term to represent a somewhat intellectualized world-weariness that positively cries out for a pack of Gitanes. The term is ennui, and it’s so useful that we’ve incorporated it into our language. Using a French term gives the depression that extra bit of useless panache.
A game designer named Josh Millard has created the perfect Nintendo-style game to match that mood—it is called Ennuigi, and in it you can “spend some time with a depressed, laconic Luigi as he chain smokes and wanders through a crumbling Mushroom Kingdom, ruminating on ontology, ethics, family, identity, and the mistakes he and his brother [Mario] have made.”
Did I mention you can play it? Yes. You can play it.
Here is the complete list of controls:
left/right: walk around
up: ruminate
down: smoke…
More at “‘Ennuigi’: Nintendo for pretentious Existentialists.”
* Woody Allen
###
As we wait for the man, we might recall that it was on this date in 2008 that Microsoft discontinued the Xbox home video game console. Introduced in 2002 to compete with Nintendo’s Mario-hosting Game Cube (along with Sony’s Playstation and Sega’s Dreamcast) , the Xbox had been the first U.S.- produced video game console since the Atari Jaguar disappeared in 1996, and had sold nearly 25 million units (on which, Halo and scores of other games were played) by the time it was replaced by the Xbox 360.
