They definitely have a look, although I like the sleek, almost solar punk look of modern sails.

We went from bedsheets that get blown around to clean and optimized vertical wings.

Turns out manufacturing individual, low-power-draw, micron-sized lights is not easy. Even if it's conceptually not as cool, it requires much better manufacturing processes and materials.

I miss the satisfying act of slapping a cassette into a tape deck, then snapping it shut.

And the technology has evolved that I can actually record and re-record to these plastic discs using lasers and it all fits inside a 1cm-tall drive that sits on my desk. And if the manufacturer uses high-quality materials, the disc will last hundreds of years.

Also some discs I can then either ink-print or laser-print on the top of it? Simply amazing.

Also:

FUCKING LASERS DUDE! Lasers will never NOT be cool.

Literally play any indie game.

Not a fan of indie games are you?

Baba is you, is a pretty original puzzle game. I'm not really into factorio, but it made tower defense cool again. There's lots more that are weird and interesting like brigadore, airships conquer the skies, cruelty squad, superliminal.

As far as I remember, portal was a mod or indie game that valve picked up because they thought the idea was really good. It was really good.

You're talking about the AAA space. Fuck those games. Play indies. There are so many creators carrying out the legacy of game development you're talking about. Don't buy the games directed by suits. Currently I'm playing Factorio: Space Age, which is great. I recently played Lorelie and the Laser Eyes, which is a really cool puzzle game where you're actually going to want to write notes on paper, which feels very classic. There are so many out there, but you actually have to look because the don't have the marketing budget of Ubisoft or EA.

Along with the others I'd also mention Outer Wilds and Viewfinder

What is the formula you're talking about? Games are so diverse it's pretty hard to see what single formula there could be that covers them all.

The imagination came from the limitations of the hardware.

Computers today are too powerful for gaming. Its resulted all the famous studios racing to the bottom with graphics their primary and generally only concern, and everything else coming a distant second.

But at least it left the door open for indie devs, whose lack of resources and experience are still capable of keeping that ember of imagination and innovation burning.

If you're only talking about AAA games, sure.

Alan Wake 2 and Control are fantastic!

.... We (as in humanity) made a lot of cool shit before we realised it was slowly killing us.