Bulgarian designer, Alexander Nedelev, produced some captivating works entitled “It’s Not a Game Anymore” where he used retro game designs to depict messages about environmental degradation. Each black-and-white design features a stylized reproduction of a particular old school arcade game. A quote stating an environmental based statistic helps to support the message of the work.
The title of the series itself has certain letters in a gray tone, instead of black, which adds a second layer of meaning to the text which reads, “It’s not me.” Perhaps this is a commentary on the tendency of people to feel like they have no part in the world’s environmental degradation? Perhaps it’s a commentary about people feeling that these statistics don’t affect them and their lives? Nedelev designed this text to stand out, clearly set to become a thought-provoking aspect of the seemingly whimsical design due to the retro game callback.
The first design is based on Space Invaders. It replaces the rows of descending, invading aliens with rows of deer. The second design is based on Arkanoid. It replaces the rows of smashable bricks with whales. The third and final design is based on Pac-Man. We see an empty board except for a solitary tree (perhaps the power pellets were meant to represent seeds?). These are the only three designs on Alexander Nedelev’s Behance portfolio, but I do hope he makes additional works. There are plenty of well known retro game classics just waiting to be used as references in order to help spread the environmental awareness message.
Image Credit: [Behance]
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