Oh, hey, I'm familiar with Eric Koziol! That's the host of the Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, which I enjoy running every year. I am aware of the game-making but have never played any, since I thought they were only mobile. I'm quite interested in this.
The packaging around VIDEOGOAME looks like the start of a parody of NES-era games, between the capital words, the instruction manual that continues the joke, and extremely generic terms for everything. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't what I got when I loaded up the game proper.
VIDEGOAME is a very bleak game, with music that's mostly atmospheric and dissonant, greyscale colors, and a constant feed in the top-left of slightly-uncomfortable messages from someone who really does not seem to be taking a breakup very well. If your food meter runs out, the game gets increasingly distracting and obnoxious, starting with PARALLAX LAYERS and eventually just tilting and spinning the game view on you.
The entire time I was worried this was going to turn into straight-up horror or throw a jumpscare at me or something. Don't worry, nothing like that happens.
What bugs the crap out of me about these kind of games is that it's almost certainly trying to send a message about something, but I'm consistently too dense to ever get it. I mean, yes, there's looking for love with the constant ramblings of an obsessed ex in the background, but is there more to this I'm missing?
...Eric, you okay there, buddy?
Anyway, that's probably fine. I don't think anyone expected me to talk about anything but the superficial. So, let's not think about too hard, all right?
Rooms are self-contained challenges, sometimes being a little tedious to backtrack through. The parallax layers is funny, but the screen tilting can get so grossly extreme that it can render the game temporarily unplayable, particularly when the corners and sides go off my monitor's edge. There are hidden keys in each room, which I'm not sure I found all of nor do I really know what they do. The game seems tailored for speedrunning, and the on-screen clock and times recorded encourage this.
Worth a play? Yeah, I'd say so, and you'll probably find the stuff I'm missing. Both in gameplay and message.
I enjoyed it. VIDEOGOAME is a good game.