🎮 Save State: Using Retro Games—and other Media—as Portals to Memory

What if the games you played—or could have played—as a kid could help you better understand who you are now?

Save State is a reflective writing project built around a simple but powerful idea:

Start with a year. Choose a game released in that year. Then write about what was happening in your life at the time.

It’s a method that blends serendipity with memory—sometimes I pick a game I knew well, other times I choose one I missed completely. Either way, the goal is the same: to use the media of that moment as a lens for reflection.

🗺️ The Method

Each entry begins with a randomly selected year and then I find a retro home video game released in that year. Playing it becomes a way of entering memory sideways, with curiosity and care.

From there, the writing unfolds in four parts:

  1. The Game – what it’s like to play now
  2. The Year – what life looked and felt like at that time
  3. The Connection – how the game mirrors or contrasts with the year
  4. The Reflection – what remains from that time; what’s changed

It’s less about nostalgia, and more about personal archaeology—excavating meaning from pixels and memory.

🎧 Expanding Beyond Games

The same method works beautifully with other media:

  • An album or song from a certain year
  • A film you saw—or avoided
  • A book or comic that lived on your shelf
  • Even a piece of tech you were just starting to use

Each artifact becomes a portal. Not just to a cultural moment, but to who you were inside of it.

🔄 Try It Yourself

Start with a year. Find a game (or album, film, or book) released during that time. Ask yourself:
Where was I then? What did I want, fear, or believe? How do I see it differently now?
Then write—not just about the artifact, but about the self it helps you remember.

If you’ve ever played an old game and thought, “This reminds me of how it felt to be 12,”—you already know what this project is about.

Create a Save State of your own now

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