Between is a pixelated art game for two players by Jason Rohrer.
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You know exactly what you need to do -- you can see it shimmering
right there in front of you. You can see it while dreaming, too, and
the difference has become subtle. Dreams wake into dreams, and people
blend in and out: real characters and dream characters, all woven into
the same script. Finally, they fade completely, and you're alone in the
expanse with the construction. With time, you feel something growing,
a pinhole that eventually yawns into a deep ravine of longing. The
construction languishes, though the expanse seems indifferent.
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One night, in a dream, they appear: things that you clearly could not
have conjured on your own. Not snowflakes. Not the self-similar forms
of leaves. Not distant planets' erosion networks as viewed through
telescopes. Not those things that are beautifully external but lack
the signatures of consciousness. These things that appear are ugly and
non-procedural: indecipherable transmissions bubbling up through static,
faded messages floating in bottles, and charcoal handprints on cave
walls. Evidence has reached you through time of unknown duration and
distance of unknown magnitude, but stale evidence is still evidence.
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Somewhere, across whatever barriers stand between, is an "other".
