Four games that inspired me.
The first two are a bit obscure, but were my first exposure to interactive fiction and 3D gaming. The number on the second one is not frames per second. It might be seconds per frame.
The second two were inspirations mostly in terms of what their world implied rather than how well they executed on the premise.
When I played the first (quite possibly the very first computer game I played ever), I'd had a sheltered, religious upbringing, with little exposure to pop culture. I didn't even know that 'rusty cross' was code for 'obviously, there are cartoon vampires nearby'.
I thought it meant 'you are at the mercy of a world created by someone who hates and wants to destroy religion, because otherwise why would it contain a religious symbol that has been deliberately abandoned and desecrated? '
At this point in my pre-teens, I knew/worried more about NASA, Three Mile Island, Karen Silkwood, acid rain, the Population Bomb, UFOs, the Philadelphia Experiment, Uri Gellar and The Nine, ouija boards, the CIA's MKUTRA, Communists, the Illuminati, and the coming Evil World Government of the Antichrist than I did about vampires, werewolves, Doctor Who and Star Trek.
Antichrist update: In retrospect, the Beast turning out to be the most conservative political leadership circle of the post-WW2 US Evangelical Christian community was kind of a Dan Brown level 'SECRET CLUE HERE' scrawled on the floor in red paint twist, wasn't it
My first exposure to Star Trek was a colouring book in a corner store. (what we in NZ call 'dairies'). Had no clue it was / had been a TV show. Thought it was something educational about astronomy or Apollo, but why were the crew wearing Navy rather than Air Force uniforms?
Then I met the David Ahl computer game (as a printout in a book), and then glimpsed reruns of it, all out of context, on TVs in electronics shop windows.
Doctor Who, I think I only ever knew from British computer magazines.
All of that to say:
Whoever you are, you should probably write more if you feel like it. Don't worry about "not being unique" or that you're "just copying something better". Write *especially* if you feel an outsider, intimidated by better writers, "not really plugged into the loop".
Your set of influences and interests is probably weird and varied enough that whatever comes out will be strange and new and uncopyable - even more so if you felt distant and on the fringe in some way.
@natecull how many × 10k words have you thoroughly workshopped on mastodon by now?
you could probably hone that stuff into a memoir or something like it, if you felt like it. not that it wouldn't be work, but you'd certainly have something to start with.
@natecull THIS THIS THIS THIS
Also I should take my own advice and write something, but, like, making stuff is hard.