I played the lost videogame sequel to 1984, and came away more nostalgic than ever for gaming's awkward adolescence in 1999

The year is 1984. The game, also, is 1984. The book it's based on? 1984. The year it came out? 1999, but it might actually be easier to run had it come out 15 years earlier.

I am playing—attempting to play—Big Brother, the recently unearthed demo of a doomed, never-released videogame sequel to George Orwell's 1984 and a videogame technology pioneer in that it seems to actively resist being played.

It comes from that post-Myst heyday when devs were convinced that games were the future...