Life ain’t about stuff.

But here’s the thing—stuff can be pretty foundational to a life experience. It’s not about materialism; it’s about meaning. The objects we surround ourselves with—music, movies, photography, books, video games—they reflect who we are. You walk into my house, see what I’ve collected, and you don’t just see things. You see me.

Let me tell you about one of my “stuff”.

In 2015, things were getting very difficult for me. I had just dealt with a family death. My job was becoming more and more dicey. And things were about to get a whole lot worse. But before things got worse, my birthday arrived. And my wife got me something for my birthday. She wanted to get me a gaming PC. What she specifically got me was an HP Stream laptop.

It was blue. It had an 11-inch screen. It was definitely not a powerhouse. It ran on… some basic Intel chip, probably a Celeron. It had two gigabytes of RAM. 64 gigabytes of storage. And what’s more, the display maxed out at 720p.

You may be thinking, “That’s not a gaming PC.” And certainly, it’s not what most people imagine a gaming PC to be. But I’m telling you right now: this was a gaming PC. Because I gamed on it. And had a hell of a time. An amazing time.

Because the advantage of this laptop wasn’t just that it was cheap—though yeah, it was. It was light. It was small. The keyboard was tactile. It could take a beating. And the battery life was just amazing. I think the thing ran for about 12 hours without needing a charge. I could take that thing to a coffee shop, game for an hour or two, leave, hang out on a park bench, do some more gaming, then take the bus home, and while on the bus—do even more gaming.

The thing felt a lot like a Steam Deck before the Steam Deck existed. Now obviously it wasn’t, because form factors being what they are, a laptop is less playable on the go than a Steam Deck. But as far as laptops go, this was as convenient as they come. Though I acknowledge that triple-A gaming was simply not an option.

But what was an option—and a great one—were indie titles. And indies were exploding. Not only were they exploding, they were cheap. They were super cheap. And some of them were even free. No strings attached. Steam keys were being given away. And a few days after I got that HP Stream laptop, I discovered—on a website I forget—which particular indie game was being given away for free.

That game was called Enemy Mind.

I knew nothing about this game when it came out. I got it because it was free. And I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If something is free, I’m taking it. What I didn’t know was that this particular game—Enemy Mind—was going to be one of the greatest horizontal shoot-'em-ups I had ever played.

I’m not saying this lightly. I’ve played a lot of great shoot-'em-ups. It’s one of my favourite genres, actually. I must have spent hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, in arcades playing shoot-'em-ups. And what’s more, when I was a DOS and Genesis gamer, that’s the genre I often played. I could not get enough of shoot-'em-ups.

But this game, Enemy Mind, had one of the most compelling game mechanics I had ever encountered. Because the thing with shoot-'em-ups is: you’re almost always going to die, right? Like, okay, if you’re super skilled and you practice a lot, maybe you can be untouched and maybe you can finish the game. Personally, I’ve never finished a shoot-'em-up on one quarter. I’ve tried. But it ain’t happening. These games are designed for you to die.

But Enemy Mind took that whole premise and turned it on its head. Because in this game, you’re not playing a ship. You’re a being of pure psychic energy, okay? And what you do is—you take over ships. You take over enemy ships. When you see an enemy ship coming at you, you shoot it. Fine. But what you can also do is transfer your psychic energy to another ship. So if it looks like you’re doomed, if it looks like you are on the precipice of death, as a Hail Mary, you can shoot another ship with your psychic energy and take it over.

Which gives you survivability. And you can just keep going. And going. And going.

You will die in Enemy Mind. But almost always it’s your fault, because it’s on you to transfer that psychic energy before your ship dies—and therefore you die.

The mechanics of this—the mechanics of psychic energy transfer as a device for survivability—I have never seen that before in a shoot-'em-up. And I’ve never seen it since. And it’s a rare thing in any game genre. Although I do remember a game in the early 2000s called Geist, which was a Nintendo game that kind of had the same idea. But that was a first-person shooter—not a horizontal shoot-'em-up. So very different.

But what made Enemy Mind so compelling wasn’t just the game mechanic. It was the story. At first you’re being pursued by a bunch of pesky humans trying to do you in—because you’re a threat, and they need to neutralize you. While you’re just trying to survive.

But then, as the game goes on, you encounter a war between humans and aliens. And you realize there’s a greater war happening. The humans are battling the aliens. And now, you can also take control of the aliens. So it becomes this kind of three-part tug-of-war—a Mexican standoff, if you will—between humans, aliens, and you, the psychic being.

And in terms of story? That’s just absolutely amazing. The story is a compelling reason in and of itself to play this game.

Now, seeing how this was very much an indie game of the 2010s—it was released in 2014—it has a very neo-retro feel about it. Actually, by conventional standards, we’d just call this a retro game. Because what retro means is: something new that feels old.

See, people call NES or Genesis games “retro.” But that’s not right. Those games weren’t trying to look old—they were trying to look futuristic. They’re vintage now, sure. But Enemy Mind? That’s retro. Because retro means new media made to feel old. It’s aesthetic intent, not historical accident. And this game nails it. It’s what we remember DOS or Genesis games feeling like—even if those systems couldn’t quite do what this game does.

It feels like either a DOS game or a Genesis game—but not quite. Especially with the pixel art. Enemy Mind does things a lot of those platforms would’ve struggled with. Especially in terms of lighting. But if somebody was super skilled? If somebody was really skilled and working on a Pentium around 1995? Absolutely. They could’ve made it happen but it would have taken lots of effort.

I’ve seen older games with a similar art style. You get the sense playing this that it was designed to make you feel like you were back in the ’90s. But it also gives you this kind of “what if?” Because in the ’90s, there was no game with these mechanics. Nothing. These gameplay mechanics in Enemy Mind—they’re new. They’re novel. And I still haven’t seen very many games do what it does—where you take control of enemy ships and just cascade your way through.

Getting back to 2015—when I played Enemy Mind—it’s interesting. Because again, I played this on a cheap laptop. At bus stations. At coffee shops. Sometimes I’d be at a convention, carrying this thing around, playing it. And it was the perfect game for that laptop.

You could play it with a gamepad. Absolutely. But my god, it was also amazing on a laptop keyboard.

And though this game was designed to make me feel like I could’ve been playing it in the ’90s, when I think back on it, I think mid-2010s. And despite the fact I was going through a rough time—things were about to get rougher—when I had time for myself, when I had to emotionally decompress, cut out all distractions and just chill—Enemy Mind was there for me.

And the beautiful thing about PC gaming? I want you to think about this for a second. I’ve played this game on all kinds of hardware. All kinds of displays. I’ve played it on a TV. On a monitor. On a big desktop. On my Steam Deck.

Hell, I remember going to a cyber café in Richmond, BC. It was right after a night of karaoke with friends. I’d been belting out tunes for three hours and I was exhausted. I left the karaoke joint, walked into that cyber café, ordered a bowl of instant noodles and a Coke, logged into my Steam account, started up Enemy Mind—and I just let go.

Enemy Mind is a great game. Just absolutely phenomenal. One of my favourite shoot-'em-ups of all time.

But I also feel like this: it’s not about the game anymore. Because stuff is about life.

Enemy Mind is not just about the game. Though I’ve played the game, I love the game. It’s about my experience with the game. It happened because my wife wanted to get me a gaming PC. It wasn’t the perfect gaming PC. But goddamn, was it a gaming PC. And it came from her heart.

Then I got this game for free, on a lark, on a website—and that game ended up accompanying me everywhere.

And yeah, a whole lot of junk happened during that time. But I got some rest. I got some respite.

When I think about that game, I don’t just think about the mechanics. Or the graphics. Or the feel. I think about the moments.

It’s 9 PM. I’m sitting down for a break. At a local coffee shop. Exhausted. And for a few minutes, I launch Enemy Mind.

And for a moment… things feel like they’re going to be okay.