For some reason, I felt free only when I was playing video games.
Is it really okay to just keep playing games even as an adult?
I love creating things, but what if no one ever appreciates my work?
Work, relationships, creativity, the future.
As I go through life, one unanswerable question after another keeps popping up.
But in the first place, do “worries” really have to be solved?
When you talk to someone about it, they might give you advice like, “You should do this,” or “You should think of it this way.”
Of course, that can sometimes make things a little easier.
But sometimes, before jumping to a conclusion, maybe it’s okay to just take a moment to look at that worry a little more closely.
Why do I feel this way?
Is it really a “problem”?
If you look at it from a different perspective, might it appear completely different?
Here at Game*Spark, together with Baiyon—who has been active across genres such as music, art, and games—we’re preparing a new serialized series titled “Our Inner Worlds and This Difficult World to Live In” (commonly known as “Bokunai”), where we’ll use games as a starting point to reflect on such life worries and questions.
Let’s take this opportunity to introduce Baiyon a bit more.
Baiyon is a multimedia artist who has long been active in the worlds of music, graphics, art, and games. He has contributed to the art and sound of titles such as *PixelJunk Eden*, and in recent years, he has continued to work across a wide range of fields—from direction to art, sound, and storytelling—in *Dreams of Another*, demonstrating a career that defies categorization into a single discipline.
However, the reason I find Baiyon so fascinating isn’t just the breadth of his background.
For example, I previously interviewed Baiyon on Game*Spark about “Gamedisc Beauty,” a project where he collects only the “disc surfaces” of games to admire their designs.Also, in an interview for *Dreams of Another*, I caught a glimpse of his unique way of thinking—he creates songs using sounds he can’t even hear himself or incorporates the electrical hum from a massage machine into his beats. He approaches things that people would normally overlook or take for granted with surprising depth, offering a fresh perspective.
From music to games, from art to collectibles. Baiyon’s work tends to disregard genre boundaries, taking small sparks of curiosity—like “Isn’t this interesting?”—and nurturing them directly into projects and forms of expression. In my own conversations with Baiyon, I’ve often found this way of thinking fascinating.
So, what if we created a project on Game*Spark that lets readers casually experience the very “inner workings” of Baiyon’s mind…? “Boku-nai” is the result of that idea, and preparations are currently underway.
Things that come naturally in games can sometimes be strangely difficult in real life.
Conversely, there are times when you start out thinking about games, only to find yourself, before you know it, talking about yourself or society.
Games and reality.
The inner self and the outside world.
If you get too close or too far away, something feels off.
As I move back and forth between these two, I search for my own personal distance.
I’d like to create a space where we can think about these things together.
So, I’m inviting you all to share your thoughts!
“Life just feels a little hard lately,”
“What makes work fulfilling?”
“What’s the point of continuing to create the things I love?”
“I’ve let my game collection pile up. What should I do?”
“I don’t enjoy games as much as I used to.”
“How can I live without worrying about what others think?”
“A fetish that others don’t understand.”
“I like being alone, but I don’t want to be alone forever”…
and so on.
Whether it’s a serious concern, a vague unease you can’t quite put into words yet, or even a strange question like, “Is it okay to ask about something like this?”—we welcome it all.
In the form, we’ll ask for your name (a screen name is fine), the issue you’d like to discuss and its background, as well as your favorite games or things you’ve been into lately.
If you can tell me just a little bit about yourself, I’d like to think through your situation with you, taking your background into account.
for the
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These days, if you’re looking for game walkthroughs, you can usually find them with a quick search.
But in life, there’s no strategy Wiki, and there’s no “save and load” function.
And even if there were a “walkthrough” for life, would knowing it truly fulfill you?
Even if you knew the shortest path, the way to avoid failure, or the most efficient choice, would that truly lead to “the life you want to live”?
Is life even something meant to be “mastered” in the first place?
That’s why, every now and then, I’d like us to take a break from searching for answers or “optimal solutions” and think together about what’s troubling us—and what we’re truly seeking beyond those worries.
Using games as a starting point, let’s take a look at this world and ourselves from a slightly different angle.
And I hope we can explore together the points of connection between games and life, between our inner selves and the outside world.
I look forward to hearing about your worries, questions, and feelings of confusion.
Baiyon’s Comment
“Life counseling” might sound a bit pretentious, but I certainly don’t claim to know all the answers to life myself.
In fact, I’ve arrived at this point after my own share of struggles and uncertainties.
So, if you have any worries, I hope you’ll think of this not as a place to find definitive answers, but rather as a place where you might discover a different perspective.
I get excited when I encounter something I don’t understand.
You don’t have to force yourself to interpret something you don’t understand by squeezing it into your own frame of reference. In fact, when you simply observe it without trying to figure it out, you might just see something else emerge from it.
This applies not only to those seeking advice but to me as well. I’m not exactly a sure thing myself.
It doesn’t matter if it’s about games, work, or even something that seems trivial. In fact, personally, I actually prefer the trivial stuff (laughs).
So, I hope we can enjoy the serendipity of meeting here together, shift our perspectives a little, and take some unexpected detours along the way.
