Mission Soleil immediately stands apart from its contemporaries (such as Night Café) through its central conceit; the majority of the gameplay occurs within paintings, rather than the art being an accessory. The intro cinematic makes it evident that this is not the world of van Gogh, but some dystopic strangereal where the sun has gone out, taking with it the colour of the artist’s paintings.

Our first interaction is with an on-the-fritz robot who gives us a magical star and makes it abundantly clear that despite his algorithmic attempts at restoring the paintings, he crucially has never been able to see the paintings up close. When we inspect the sprite of Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase, we are welcomed by a polygonal representation of the artist himself. Rather than be some depressed bastardisation of our posthumous reinterpretation of van Gogh, this avatar is almost chipper in his sun hat.

He invites us to use the magnifying glass button, and when we do we get an incredibly close-up look at the painting and the brushstrokes on the canvas. A 115MB title from twenty-five years ago renders this human aspect more concrete than the supposed technological marvels of our present day can. Furthermore, you can click another button to have van Gogh hold up the painting so you can understand its scale.

Walking through the exhibit space, not only are the walls a disgusting hue of dentist-office beige, but they are dirty and in disrepair. The paintings are grey-scale, and even the vases which should be abound with almond blossoms are little more than collections of gnarled branches. Clicking on these paintings transports the player into them, and here they are shown in colour. The subject matter is rendered in three-dimensions and the player can move their perspective to see beyond the confines of the frame. What is particularly endearing about this is how the dithered textures impart a quasi-Impressionist feel despite being a limitation of technology. Instead of hearing lilting violins, the soundscape is realistic. Roosters crow, the wind blows, leaves tumble to the ground. In each painting you need to find an object to restore the colour, and certain interactables help you proceed.

For Cottage with Decrepit Barn and Stooping Woman, one can actually enter the slanted building only for the interior to be the selfsame from The Potato Eaters, with the table embodying Still Life with an Earthen Bowl with Potatoes. Obviously some liberties have been taken in order to create these more singular, cohesive spaces, but it helps to demonstrate that these paintings were not created in a vacuum, and in fact were inspired by similar, if not identical, settings. These early works are of the same earthen hues in game as they are in reality, contrasted against a gorgeous blue sky.

Finding a potato for Still Life with an Earthen Bowl with Potatoes bestows upon us an educational tidbit of context, that still life paintings are historically flowing with finest dining ware and ostentatious displays of food, representing wealth and bounty. We swirl around Jan Davidszoon de Heem’s Still-Life with Fruit and Lobster before van Gogh tells us his desire to show the food of the poor and demonstrate this connection between dining ware from the earth, and tubers from the earth in a display of realist honesty. Restoring The Potato Eaters tells us that it is difficult to break with what you have been told to do.

Though this is obviously in response to academic traditions as taught to classically trained artists at École des Beaux-Arts, it resonates with me because of those immersive experiences. In a sense, those exhibits have broken with the expected, but they have also perpetuated that consumptive mode which snaps a picture and moves on, akin to an Instagram trap. In Mission Soleil, the tradition of the art gallery has been eschewed for a different maximal approach which at times demonstrates a falsehood about these works through the artistic liberties of an imagined 3D space, but by also teaching directly without shoving contexts onto a placard, a catalogue, or an art history education. Maybe this gamification of art is itself problematic too, but as an edutainment piece of software I am more forgiving.

When we venture into The Night Café, I am apprehensive because of my time with 2016’s The Night Café: A VR Tribute to Van Gogh. That grotesquerie attempted to bring multiple works into one space in a manner I would consider a failure, those other works detracting from the titular cafe. The scale of the people made it especially hard to immerse myself in, but thankfully Mission Soleil opted to remove those figures entirely. The geometries here are simpler and more angular, but it weirdly works. Instead of the yellow smears of smooth brushwork in A VR Tribute coming off the lamps, Mission Soleil‘s lamps take the actual brushwork of The Night Café and turn them into quasi-3D sprites. A VR Tribute is a strangely disconnected sensory experience. Mission Soleil inundates the player with the din of cafe culture, clocks ticking away incessantly, indistinct conversation washing over us.

The later part of van Gogh’s life is, understandably, much less depressing here than in reality. Stepping into the Hospital at Arles series, we can hear the anguished cries of the patients who are again not depicted, but the commentary avoids sounding overly downtrodden. Van Gogh himself speaks of the proliferation of Japanese art and Japonisme when we restore Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, rather than wallow in misery. Ward in the Hospital in Arles’ commentary touches on the unappreciative response to his art, but in an informative manner.

We see van Gogh not as a man defined by mental illness, but simply as a man who wished to paint. Though this is painting too simple of a portrait in many ways, it also helpfully avoids the pratfalls of the contemporary imagining of van Gogh.

Mission Soleil warms the cockles of my heart in a way I didn’t expect it to at all. It is simply a good piece of edutainment software which is informative in a way one might not expect of a children’s approach to art history. It is refreshing and truthfully immersive in rendering paintings as physical spaces, rather than as flat images on a wall. It evokes an honesty to the painted work that is astounding for 1998, and serves as a phenomenal alternative to AR experiences or digital catalogues. This is a work which expects wilful engagement, and rewards it handsomely. From what media coverage is available, it did well with its target audience of 8-13 year old children. Kid Screen, an Italian awards group organised by Associazione Digital Kids and Direzione Generale Cultura della Regione Lombardia, awarded its premiere first prize to Mission Soleil, claiming it fully realised one of the more important functions of interactive multimedia: to present the user in a place that is enjoyable to be in beyond the functions performed in the program.

Devoid of life as these spaces are, they feel real, lived in, and impressed upon. The journey is not accompanied by melodies imparting an emotion, or a narrative beyond the central idea of gathering sunflowers and restoring pigment, yet the throughline is compelling. From the humble beginnings in Nuenen, to his prolific time in Arles, to his final days in Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise, the painted surfaces become the text themselves. This is not teaching about painting, but teaching through it.

CW: Discussion of sexual assault, pedophilia

You can't turn back the clock, but you can reclaim the past. Classic World of WarCraft has never struck me as something which can give me back the joy of childhood. Rather, the revisited nostalgia serves better as a mirror for where I am now, not a lens into my past mindset. In Wrath, I was a lonely kid who didn't need to optimise to feel belonging. By Cataclysm, I had learned to sprint past the stories I once loved. In Mists, I learned the importance of slowing down. A decade later, I am again learning to savour the moment as a means of reclamation.

Sixteen years ago, I was a lonely child who had just moved to another country, leaving my home, friends, and pet cat behind. I found solace in World of WarCraft, starting shortly after the release of Ulduar in Wrath of the Lich King. I made some online friends, helped some of those friends through their troubles and divorces (as all children playing MMOs must), and relished the opportunity to be part of a beautiful, varied digital world resplendent with other people focused on similar goals to me. My naïveté and inability to optimise play did not matter to me. I was content to bumble about and draw my characters in my diary. The memory is one of a specific moment in time for myself, and for my experience with World of WarCraft.

Twelve years ago, I was a lonely teen. My brother had passed away a couple years prior, and though my grief was muted it still coloured everything I touched. I found myself drawn back to familiar spaces where things felt manageable and controllable. When I resubscribed to World of WarCraft, Siege of Orgrimmar had just released.

I switched from Unholy Death Knight to Restoration Druid and fell in love with the role. Perhaps I needed to heal rather than inflict further harm. As a know-it-all teen, I knew how to optimise my play, and blitzed towards Pandaria to indulge in new content. Though as a child I played on an RP server, this time I opted for PvP, as if I had something to prove. I did not care for WoW PvP, I was terrible at it, but I didn't want to come across as a Carebear.

I was being groomed actively by three people. One would threaten to tell my parents if I ever cut them out of my life. One made me stay on camera for him while he sent me pictures of his penis. I had just started seeing a therapist regularly as my depression and anxiety manifested. Puberty, though late, was finally hitting fully, bringing in its wake the first tinges of gender dysphoria. But only a year ago, I'd met my best friend and was really beginning to enjoy his company. He was a bright spot in the numb darkness.

The slow pace of questing on the continent demanded patience that was in short supply for me, but I came to appreciate the more methodical rhythms. Though players then (and now) lamented that this is where dailies became a problem, for someone who simply needed a distraction and constant while finishing high school, that suited me well. I convinced my best friend to finally play WoW with me, and I've fond memories of leisurely flying over the Valley of the Four Winds hunting down rares and tending my farm while we chatted and he levelled to catch up with me. With some assistance from him, I was able to cut the predators out of my life.

One threatened to rape me when I visited Montreal, claiming he knew where I would be. He told me he was glad my brother died as he harassed me across numerous sites and games with multiple accounts for having the audacity to tell him no.

It is perhaps silly, but the abundant phasing of Mists afforded me the opportunity to create space for myself. There is nothing another person can do to truly enact harm on another on Azeroth, but the temporal and digital distance carved out opportunities to set my own boundaries. When someone cannot witness me without an invitation, that becomes an avenue for consent.

I recall the arduous span during which SoO was current content, but never truly minding as I casually chipped away at clearing it on higher difficulties or tackling the backlog of content from previous patches and expansions. To call this a happy period of my life would be a miscategorisation, though it was certainly a calmer and quieter one.

Three years ago, I was unable to not optimise my play, unable to not research drop rates and stat priorities, unable to not level as quickly as possible with no regard for the stories I once loved. Knowing this incompatibility between me and the game itself, I refused to play WotLK Classic, not wanting to sully my memories of innocence. In a sense, the restraint taught me that some experiences need not be revisited, others need time first. Some wounds need to heal before they can bear the weight of return.

Today, I am playing Mists of Pandaria Classic. I'm trying out Mistweaver Monk. Though their blending of damage and healing could be read as a metaphor, it isn't that deep. I just wanted to try something new. I play on a PvE server now.

I am, generally speaking, a happy adult.

I've started coming to grips with my brother's death with the help of my family. I can look at photos of him without pain and say his name without my voice catching. I've written about sexual assault and rape in games, partly as a means of getting back at those who preyed on me as a minor, partly to carve out space for others who have been where I was. I am still in therapy and have made real strides. The memory of being groomed is no longer suppressed. It's scary, but I am ready to begin contending with those demons.

I am going through puberty again as I near three and a half years of medical transition. I still feel gender dysphoria from time to time, but nowhere near as much as I do euphoria. The changes now feel like I am coming home and coming into my own, not that my body is betraying me.

Last month I married my best friend, the same man who played Guardian Druid while I healed him twelve years ago is now my husband. He's learning Brewmaster Monk. There's no deeper meaning to that. We're both trying something new, and maintaining a decade-long tradition. I heal, he protects. This time, it is a choice.

As an adult, I know how to optimise my play, but I also know I don't have to. There's no rush. The eccentricities of playing Alliance after a lifetime of Horde loyalty has my husband and I slowing down to appreciate a new side to a game we've both been playing half our lives. Sure, we're still largely skipping quest text but the air feels different nonetheless. We look forward to getting to Pandaria and having MoP become our 'forever' game for a moment. Not as escape this time, but a choice. We're eagerly sharing anecdotes about Timeless Isle, not just about what was, but about what will be.

I cannot reclaim childlike wonder, but I can certainly return to that which I enjoyed as a more developed teenage mind. The memory of MoP is not sacrosanct. If anything it is ripe for reclamation.

My time on Pandaria does not need to be one where I primarily remember pain and patience. I can fly across golden vales with my heart full of love, my future looking bright, and a warmth in my being as I set forth on an alternate history. This time I am not erasing what was, but am layering new memories over the old like sediment, until the shape of the past changes under the weight of the present.