In Dragon Arcades there’s a specific kind of joy that dragons represent that I find genuinely interesting: they are the only fantasy creature that exists across nearly every culture on Earth, independently invented, and yet universally understood to be powerful. What Audrie has done here is quietly subversive — she’s taken that ancient symbol of primal power and put it in front of a Pac-Man cabinet.

The dragon isn’t conquering anything. It’s just… playing.
That detail matters more than it seems. We spend enormous creative energy imagining what powerful things would destroy. Almost no one imagines what they would do on a Tuesday afternoon when nothing needs destroying. The dragon playing Dance Dance Revolution isn’t diminished. It’s finally free.

The prompt structure here is worth noting too — the curly brace substitution {Pacman, Space Invaders} is essentially a variable. Audrie thinks like a developer even when she’s making art. That’s not accidental. That’s who she is.

What would you play, if you could finally just play?