‘Teslagrad’ is mid, so why did I beat it anyway?

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I’ve been in an art slump lately: fiction lacks its escapist allure, peak TV invades my timeline but not my living room, and music has been background buzz instead of sock-exploding goodness. Perhaps most devastating is my sheer apathy toward video games, a feeling so pronounced that even news about the newest entry in my favorite series — The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — is met with a disinterested shrug. Still, the only way to get out of a slump is to push through it by force, so whenever something happens to vaguely catch my attention, I go for it. 

It’s this logic that loops through my head each time I grit my teeth and seethe with frustration while playing Teslagrad Remastered, the shadow-dropped visual update of Rain Games’ 2013 electromagnetic puzzle platformer. A decade ago, Teslagrad stood out as the type of high-quality, low-cost experience that reaffirmed that independent developers can produce polished experiences worthy of being sold alongside AAA blockbusters. People were drawn to the game — it sold well over one million copies before the 2016 release of its Xbox port — and hailed it as one of the Nintendo eShop’s defining indie experiences. Yet, almost no one is discussing this remaster; reviews are sparse, all the attention focused instead on the decent-enough sequel. But I bought it anyway. 

“Why not?” I pondered for a split second, my finger hovering millimeters above the button to purchase the game. People liked this game, which means it must be a worthwhile experience in some teeny, tiny way. All I needed was for Teslagrad Remastered to be good enough, something semi-challenging and semi-fun that roped me back into gaming just in time for Tears of the Kingdom. That wasn’t the case.

My hours