The Game That Won’t Let You See All Of It

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country.

Visual Media Used: Before Your Eyes, Metal Gear Solid 4, Marvel’s Spider-Man, God of War 2, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Boyhood, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Up documentary series

Music used (chronologically): Main Menu (Before Your Eyes), Old Snake (Metal Gear Solid 4), Eight Years in the Making (Marvel’s Spider-Man), The Gates of Hell (Bayonetta), Painting Mom (Before Your Eyes), Prologue (Firewatch), Precinct 41 Major Crimes Unit (Disco Elysium), What Would I Do (The Monotones), In Your Hands (Gris), Deference for Darkness (Halo 3: ODST), 14.3 Billion Years (Outer Wilds), Finale (Before Your Eyes), Mesh (Ollie Lewin, Before Your Eyes)
Additional Music from Epidemic Sound

Description Credit: “Dogfish,” Mary Oliver

[burritosupreme]

I have Tourette's Syndrome and my primary tic is rapid blinking. Looking forward to my new position as world record holder for this game's speedrun.

[ollielewin]

This vid is amazing. All of us on the dev team are watching it on repeat.

[gwynbaty]

"new jacob geller video got me weeping on my lunch break, lads"

genuinely a moving response to what seems like a very moving piece of art. i worked in my university's archives in undergrad, and the amount of ephemera packed into a little box or a garbage bag that i would sit and sort through for utterly humbling. people's photos, of family and friends, often unlabeled. one artist whose personal documents i sorted had several drawings of his cat Gwendolyn, and christmas cards written "by her", and a little sketch of a tombstone with her name on it. i cried over the long-dead cat of a long-dead man i never met and yet knew so much about.

working to preserve the details of a person's life makes it all the more apparent how much will slip away. thanks for the window into the beauty and importance of that.

[ladyreverie]

An interesting thought: if each year is a smaller percentage of your past life, you can flip the script and see each remaining day of your life as making up a larger and larger percentage of the time you have left. Becoming more and more precious.

Part of why we don't remember as much from our lives as we get older is we get stuck in routines.

Most of us don't think that way because we think of ourselves as immortal, the concept of death is an abstract one, it usually only takes a terminal illness or some near death experience to force you to realise this.

[javierrodrigo]

"You know how everyone's always saying 'seize the moment'? I don't know, I'm kinda thinking it's the other way around. Like, the moment seizes us."

[bigwheelfromspidamahn]

Knew this was coming eventually. It’s a “Jacob Geller-y” game

[spacedoutorca]

With ADHD it also becomes even more easy to get lost in time. Staying “in the moment” is virtually impossible, or fleeting with ADHD. Even a few seconds of remaining “in the moment” have literally brought me to tears… they’re just moments of utter serenity. For me, life blazes by perhaps much faster than most people, and memories are even more tainted by randomness and interference. I love the idea of the few seconds a day of video, because it gives a snapshot of the past unfettered by time.

[kevinhughes]

I really love that moment when you finish the star map and it spells, "Stay Here". I love that because it reminds me of my own memory trips. For example, whenever I think about my wedding, it's so interesting to me. We got married in a beautiful aquarium, surrounded by beauty, and without a huge number of guests. Yet I cannot remember what the fish looked like, or what the water around us looked like, or what the tank looked like. I can only remember looking at my Sheryle, hearing her say our vows. I can only remember looking at her and thinking, "This is it, can I just stay here?" I remember wishing that I could make those seconds tick by just a little slower. And then I remember it being over, we were married. Whenever I look back on that, I always try to pause my memory in that moment before the musicians began to play again, that moment right when she had said, "I do" right when, for the first time, she was mine, all mine, and so beautiful, and I try in vain to make those seconds stop so that I can just stare at her.

[justinscherzer]

Played this last night, never before have a felt my body so physically connected to a game before. Then it hits you with that ending and leaves you completely floored. I dont think there's anything else that can even compare.

[WowItsErin]

"It does not contain any spoilers."

Jacob how the fuck--

[WhereIsMySock]

I remember sobbing so heavily at the end of the game that I couldn't help but swap scenes nearly every few seconds as I had to keep blinking away tears and rubbing my eyes. It was so hard to keep them open. I will absolutely be one of those few who holds this game close.

[tommy_j_jefferson]

Idk if I have ever cried so hard. My dad died while I was in high school by his own hand, and I didn’t even cry at the funeral despite him being my hero up till that point.

But this… this shit opened so repressed fucking feelings. I can’t stop crying even as I type this. I haven’t balled this hard and years if ever and man, have I got some rethinking to do. Seeing that “Stay Here” sign in the stars ripped open a scar I didn’t even know I had. I have spent so much time trying to appreciate the moment yet I’ve never been able to. This video just cements that ever growing sentiment of mine into stone — cherish everything and everyone while it’s here :(

[rydenc]

"It is tempting to linger in this moment, where every possibility still exists. But unless they are collapsed by an observer, they will never be more than possibilities. "
-Outer Wilds

Glad you liked Boyhood so much too. I always thought that movie was underrated, both from a story perspective and in its uniqueness of construction.

[EricJacobusOfficial]

I tried not to blink while I watched this but failed.

BTW your second-per-day video looks rad

[DaemonInWhite]

Jacob, I was feeling quite proud of myself, having finally made it through a video of yours without crying and then you hit me with "and then show me, so I can tell you you did a good job. Because you did!" in the ad and now I'm crying and there's something about the way you worded that - it will be a good job because I made it - is just hitting me really hard right now

[Iudicatio]

Thanks for this video! I have depression but I am recovering and this is something I think about a lot. Depression distorts your memory and when I started to recover my personality changed, my perception changed, but my memories changed as well. My memories and perception changed because I couldn't feel certain emotions while depressed and feeling those emotions again unlocked memories I had never thought about or rarely thought about. It's all so weird and leaves me wondering who I "really" am. It all shows how much we create our own worlds. I am so glad to see this video because it feels like finding someone who "gets it".

[Raymando]

This might be one of your best videos to date, Jacob. It's obviously one of the most personal ones, but the transitions feeling abrupt yet flowing seamlessly from one topic to another - yet feeling like one single whole and culminating to a very singular theme is soooo fucking well done. I don't care how many views this gets, I just wanted someone to let you know that people do notice when you put in the thought and the effort. Keep doing what you do.

[Warden_Saga]

Thrilled to see that one second of your compilation was devoted to the Moon Presence in Bloodborne, and no, I didn't even have to slow it down to catch it.

[MikkoKalavainen]

When I dig my way out of this financial hole, you’ll get some of my money. You’ve helped me dig my way out of my personal hole so very, VERY much. There is no one like you on the internet. And we appreciate it, massively. You make all of us better, I think.

[weest]

Still reeling from my playthrough of this. Excellent work, fellow Jacob 👍