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What slow-burn game is worth the time?
The game didn’t grip you immediately, but eventually it did.
What changed your mind? What made it good? Why should people stick it out if they try it out?
The game didn’t grip you immediately, but eventually it did.
What changed your mind? What made it good? Why should people stick it out if they try it out?
Not quite a slow burn, but a game that might not hook you in right away that I absolutely love is Outer Wilds.
This game is not talked about a lot, despite the generally very positive feedback of the game, because telling you too much about the game would ruin your enjoyment of it. But I can confidently say that the game is incredibly unique and not like most games out there.
In short, you play as a young astronaut who gets to explore the solar system. The game is primarily about exploration, learning, and puzzles. It tells a great story that I would not want to spoil for you in any way.
If you like space, single player exploration, great stories, and puzzles, check it out. It also has an amazing soundtrack.
Here is a link to one of the trailers which is spoiler-free.
https://youtu.be/KYlpUxFbgTM
I've talked about this game on Tildes before and had a few people come back later and thank me for the recommendation.
This game is unlike anything else out there right now. It's beautiful, heart-wrenching, challenging, and fun. But you can only experience it once.
The single thing blocking your progress is knowledge. You could technically beat the game in about 10 minutes, but only if you know how. And you definitely won't stumble across the answer until you've figured everything else out.
You play for 15+ hours, then you know the answer and it's over. You can never experience it again. Luckily, the Halloween DLC is absolutely incredible and also pretty spooky. So I did get to scratch that itch one more time.
As others have said, play with a controller and check the clues board in the ship when you get stuck. I'll add to that - if you're stuck, go somewhere, anywhere. You won't accidentally find anything you shouldn't, and if you do, it won't make sense anyway until it's supposed to. Try anything, even if it seems like a stretch. Use every tool they give you in creative ways. The devs thought of everything you might try and everywhere you might look. Some of things you think you're cheesing end up being achievements.
Use the autopilot for speed and accuracy but also have fun with the physics.
If you must google something, add "no spoilers" to the end of your search. Be so careful because this is the easiest game to spoil.
I am so envious of people who get to play this for the first time. I'd wipe it from my brain and play it again if I could.
The music alone makes me cry. And don't look it up if you haven't played. I would legitimately call it a spoiler
So it's this generation's Myst then?
I played Myst as a 10 yr old, never beat it, then played it again and finished about 10 yrs ago.
Yes. It is this generation's Myst. Honestly, I was somewhat underwhelmed because of the comments I saw saying it was the greatest most unique game ever and everyone should play it. If they had said "it's a a puzzle game you can only play once, and it has great ambiance" that would have been fine, but I built it up to be more than that in my head.
Its good. Great even. Really fun space and physics based puzzle game. But when I finished it I was like "oh, yeah. So... current gen Myst."
I think that's a fair comparison. Except these puzzles are mostly 3d physics puzzles in a mini solar system that you can fly around freely. And Myst had a bit of a crazy, surreal vibe while this one is much warmer and cozier.
I love Myst, by the way!
I thought Myst was amazing when it came out, but it really does its best to break every rule of good puzzle game design.
Riven is even worse.
I haven't finished it yet, so no spoilers, but I will say a major thing blocking my acquisition of said knowledge is how shit I am at platforming. The sheer number of times I've taken a quick trip to White Hole Station... But my gaming background started with point-and-click adventure games, so I'm absolutely loving the investigation aspect. And the music is lovely.
My wife (who's already played it and is doing a commendable job of not spoiling anything) teamed up with me to do the flying for me bc I was both bad at and mysteriously anxious about it. Apparently I have a phobia of drifting/flying off into the vacuum of space? which only this game and Kerbal Space Program have ever triggered. Guess I'm glad I live too early for that to be an irl risk for me, but I wish the autopilot on the ship was more reliable so I could play when she's not home.
The flying gets easier with practice - I promise!
The autopilot is really good for getting you very, very close to planets. Without it, a lot of new players smash full speed into the ground upon arrival.
Honestly, this game is nice because there is no real penalty for drifting off. Just die a few times and get used to it if possible. Although I guess phobias aren't so simple to overcome? Anyway, enjoy this game. It's really a unique experience. Come back and let me know what you think? Also, do the DLC! Drifting off into space isn't a concern in the DLC but there are...other concerns. It was a Halloween release so...
It's also really good at getting you straight into the Sun
I stg the time that happened was so hilarious for me. I was like "hm we're getting kind close to the --” and then BAM. So glad they let me chew out the guy who designed the thing.
I already had the autopilot drive me into the sun once, lost all trust for it lol. But yeah I heard the DLC is spooky. But luckily I can handle normal spooky better than drifting off into space for some reason.
And play it with a controller.
I still prefer mouse and keyboard, though. But luckily I had a controller lying around, because the keyboard just didn't have the necessary control to pass a certain foggy and dangerous area .
For anyone who doesn't have (or like using) a controller, it's still possible to beat the game without one.
HUGE spoilers below, if you haven't played the game yet don't even think about revealing this:
How I did it
All the entrances conserve momentum, and they deposit you in the exact same coordinates every time. So by lining up and accelerating into the entrance, then **taking your hands off the keyboard**, you can drift to safety before moving again.I would like to add that this game is driven by player's need to know more. It doesn't tell you what to do, you must be curious to onow and do by yourself.
It is wonderful game, I loved playng it so much!
The only tip I would give someone is:
if you’re stuck, do this before googling:
Check the board computerI guess I will put here a counter opinion in that for me this was a game that gripped me immediately and then it didn't.
It is possible than it was at least partly because I was using kb+m but in that case I still count it against the game since if it supports a control scheme it should be usable.
Mainly i truly disliked the platforming sequences, especially since the cost of failure has a very high chance to be the same 10+ minute sequence. Why they felt they needed them I have no idea since this is supposed to be an exploration puzzle game.
I also genuinely hated the unskippable cinematic sequence.
Is it truly that hard to respect the players time?
Interesting! Totally respect your right not to like it. Two things about the cutscene though (without spoiling).
The cutscene is 15-30 seconds long depending on...things. When I played back on PS4 I just assumed it was a necessary loading screen and it wasn't different from any other PS4 games. But I can see how it's frustrating from a PC perspective when you don't have loading screens usually. Plus they give you something entertaining to watch that's always different!
The game was as a continuation of a college project by a super small team of friends. I am pretty blown away by what they accomplished and I have overlooked far worse things in far worse games.
I can't recall any difficult sequences in terms of execution - it's possible that you were attempting something in a different way than expected.
It definitely is a game about enjoying the journey, and if it didn't click with you I can understand the frustration. I played with kb+m and didn't find any issues personally.
I think I know the platforming sequence referred to here...
two possibilities
Getting to the Sunless City, or (less likely) getting to the Hanging City.
Sunless City was also incredibly frustrating for me to get to, but the satisfaction came from finding other paths out which then become shortcuts back in.
Also, I didn't realize this until decently far into my run, but...
jetpack tip
holding Space while boosting upwards (Shift) adds afterburn to the jetpack, and this makes the Sunless City run way easier. I say this because I don't know if it's ever mentioned anywhere in-game, and I know I struggled on Ember Twin before I realized it. I only finally realized while trying to fight gravity on Giant's Deep.
It's also just possible they just aren't as good or experienced at platforming as you. I've been struggling with both of the platforming sections @3d12 mentioned (no spoilers pls I haven't finished the game yet), because I come from a story/puzzle gaming background and have played very few games with any first person platforming at all. I struggled with jumping across gaps and onto platforms when I played Portal, for instance.
Luckily I have my wife on hand to help with those sections when they become too frustrating, but the game definitely expects the player to have played other first-person games in the past and to thus have a higher baseline skill for the platforming than I have. Which is probably a fair assumption for a lot of gamers, but inevitably is going to make it a different experience for people whose experiences fall outside that norm.
Yeah that’s fair. Now that I think about it again I had my fair share of falling into a certain planet.
I promise that no matter what frustrates you or gives you trouble, the pay off at the end is totally worth it. Good luck!
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Some people really disliked the opening. I was not one of them, but it's true that the real game only opens up after several hours during the first playthrough, after a completely closed off intro area and then a few intro missions after which you get a horse that makes transportation dramatically faster. Some of the systems also feel mildly janky, which takes some time to get used to.
What follows is in my opinion one of the best open world RPGs ever. Beautiful realistic world, unique setting, very little stereotypical "open world bullshit" from mainstream gaming, nice story, amazing music, systems that are just complex enough to be interesting... It's not a perfect game, but it's one of those games where you can see the genuine effort to make something good and unique in every corner, the opposite of soulless design by committee high-budget shovelware.
I played KC:D when it first came out and had a lot of fun with it, but I was absolutely terrible with the sword combat so that made playing the main storyline a bit tougher since it seems to expect you to at least somewhat be able to wield a sword.
I had downloaded a mod that increased arrow speed though, because it felt too slow for me. Apparently the damage from arrows is physics-based though, because that also dramatically magnified the damage that arrows do, making them basically a one-hit kill. And so the adventures of Henry, the stealth-archer sneak-thief began!
One thing the game doesn't make very clear is that you need to return to the guy who trains you in order to improve. Eventually you learn how to parry and it makes combat much easier.
I think it's mentioned on a loading screen tip or something, but I don't recall anything else telling you that's even an option.
I really wanted to like this game, but it has possibly the worst introduction to a combat system in any [competently made] game ever. The combat tutorial and the "quest" to collect that fucker's debt made me hate KC:D with a raw, seething passion. I know it's got an avid cult following so I try to refrain from getting hyperbolic, but truly, the combat is so user hostile–at least in the beginning–that I'm completely unwilling to be charitable toward the rest of the experience.
I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from trying the game out because there are some conceptual things going on with it that are innovative and interesting, and as I say, there is a passionate following, but I don't want anyone to think the game is universally beloved. It is not. It WILL rub some people the wrong way, as it did me.
I think what that fight with the village drunk is missing - desperately - is a way to retry without savescumming. He beat you up? Alright, run back to daddy. Mommy patches you up, daddy tells you to figure something out. Quest log entry to -secretly- meet the swordsman for a practice session. Then unlimited practice sessions until you can beat the drunk.
It's got a very very good combat system, but it takes a bit of getting into, and the game isn't making that easy for the player.
My issue with the combat goes beyond just that mission. Unless I'm misremembering, sword combat involves angling your slashes using mouse control, which is a mechanic that game devs trot out every once in a while that never makes for fun or engaging combat. Couple that with the stamina and damage mechanic that means that once you get at a disadvantage there's not much you can do to turn things around, and the rest of the game could be steak and blowjobs with ice cream on top and I'd never know.
It's been a while, so correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there several options to beat that quest? Either beat him up yourself, which is very, very difficult but doable, or lose and then bring your friends to help you or rob him, which was both relatively easy.
The only time I've had a real problem with the combat was when I took a "clear bandit camp" sidequest in the very beginning, I had to return to that a bit later and do it in the middle of the night to catch them unprepared. But within quests it seemed relatively sanely scaled.
I loved the opening section. It feels both contained, but vast; running around the village and getting familiar with the people who live there, doing quests, it feels surprisingly large and then suddenly, you have this entire world to explore.
I absolutely love that game. I finished the main story and I go back occasionally to do a little more here and there, upgrade my own town when I can.
Ehh, except you don't, because you're only really supposed to get exploring after completing a few more quests, some of which seem like you should earn some experience in the open world before attempting them. But no, actually, the real progression is in beating up the captain of the guard in practice sessions. And you're locked out of that for at least part of the extended tutorial. After Sassau, I think, is when you can actually reasonably explore the world, IMO. Before then, a crucial element is missing and the player doesn't really know it.
I've picked it up a couple times, put a lot of hours in, then fell off shortly after the counterfeit money scheme is discovered. No clue why really, I've usually trivialized the combat at that point so it isn't the typical hang up. Last time I managed to more or less control the entire region's economy through theft and mercantile lol.
My favorite part about it is the historical accuracy though. The amount of research that went into it, the bustling codex pages that are essentially a mini encyclopedia of that area in that era. And that you're just Henry, even as you progress, you don't become king or anything absurd. Just real top notch, it'd be cool to see that in other games. Like a small, detailed, well researched Meiji era game would be cool, but there's just so much other history that could be explored like KC:D as well.
I was once driving near the region where KC:D takes place so I decided to do a detour and take a walk around Sasau and Rattay (Skalitz was partly closed off due to road repairs but it's also probably less interesting), with a drive through Talmberg. Seeing that all the places are immediately recognizable, that some of the buildings in the game still stand, and that the area is quite beautiful in real life (despite some ugly commie architecture especially in Sasau) was a great experience.
I'm happy to see kingdom come deliverance mentioned here. Of all the titles I've dabbled with in the last few years, this is the one I most want to get back into. Certainly the opening hours burn slowly... So much so that it's easy to think you've done something wrong. And the first few combat encounters did little to relieve that feeling. Really though the multi hour intro is just there to give you a feeling for exactly how unprepared Henry is to deal with the world around him, and how much the player will need ot learn if they're going to even become competent with the games' systems.
Another commenter said that the systems are just complex enough to be interesting, but I'd say they go waaaaaaay past that. The sword combat is vexing to say the least, and that's coming from someone who loved Lies of P and beat both of the Cal Kestis star wars souls like games with ease. This shiz is hard. I trained for several literal real world hours with the fella, Bernard, when that finally becomes available after the tutorial and I was still getting my butt kicked regularly.
Sadly after a few weeks away from the game it was very hard to get back into it, because the real life skills that are necessary take quite a while to re-sharpen.
But with the sequel around the corner, KC:D is towards the top of my "go back and finish" list.
The "problem" with the swordfights, which may be an upside for you, is that you pretty much don't need anything but master strikes. You can master strike anything to death and it doesn't take much skill. When your stats are high enough, clinching also helps a ton. That's basically it. The difficult part is to beat Bernard in the previous learning steps in order to get to master strikes. For heavy armor get a blunt weapon and the headcracker perk, also very OP.
I think I got the master strike (I swear the dude called em "master strokes" at least once which made me giggle like a child), skill from Bernard after enough attempts, but I still never quite got the timing well enough to do them consistently in combat. At least 2/3 of the time doing real combat out in the world I'd be distracted or struggling with camera controls and miss the window. Against Bernard in the training sessions I think I got to where I'd correctly nail the master strike about half of the times I tried. Definitely a skill issue, and I remember thinking that if I could only find a few more hours to practice the combat that I'd be getting it... But with kids, chores, and work it's tough to find that time without long gaps between where the skill basically dulls to nothing. Not a game fault, but maybe just a sign that I don't have the sorta free time needed for this game at this time.
For as much as I struggled with it, I still really liked the combat. One day I'll have a few hours per day to put in without spilled milk, grading, or poopy diapers calling me away. And finally my Henry will be a tough buff bastard. For now he'll just have to stay a whiny wimp waiting for me to boot the game back up.
One thing I disliked when I originally played it (and I got to that fight in the ruined village in the woods) was the balancing. Either I happened to get stuck in ever bigger trouble when exploring the farther I got, but with enemies scaling with you, and quite agressively so, I never had the feeling of getting stronger. I'd practice some to improve skills (both character and player skills) and go back into the woods to find a bandit or two to bonk. Maybe invest some of my hard-earned cash into better armor. And whoops, that rag-tag group of bandits is wearing full plate armor and hits like a truck.
Has that changes since? It's been a few years. I've gone back a month or two back, but for reasons that have little or nothing to do with KC:D, I haven't stayed with the game long enough to find out.
I don't know if that's changed or not, but imo the "getting stronger" steps are getting good plate armor yourself, learning master strikes, getting the headcracker perk to beat up heavily armored opponents using blunt weapons and getting high enough strength (I think?) so that you usually win when clinching. After that you can beat anyone one on one with relative ease. Groups are another matter.
I'm actually replaying it for the umpteenth time... played it for about 300 hours two years back, then got all the DLC but was burnt out (did a hardcore run with some other inconvenient options). So I'm back again, and while it was a bit slow at first, I haven't ever found it anything but awesome.
Death Stranding. Act 1 is basically a tutorial, 2 is an introductory chapter, and most people who call it "Amazon Simulator" I would wager haven't gotten to chapter 3, which exposes the rest of the world. After act 2 you cross a small mountain range into the rest of the world map where the full game and depth of mechanics are revealed. It becomes this impressive action stealth game with stunning environments and cinematics, and a really heart-wrenching story. I know it's a huge game, but I feel like it only reached a fraction of the people who would really enjoy it because of its reputation and early stages.
What people don't point out enough imo is that the first few hours of the game are mostly cutscenes interspersed with a bit of gameplay. You really have to set your expectations towards watching a movie when you first start up the game.
It says "Hideo Kojima" right there.
This is why I've bounced off the game a couple of times now. I have it in my library, and I'll get around to playing it some time I swear, but it feels like the kind of game that you need to be able to commit at least a couple/few hours to at a time and I don't expect that I'll be able to find that kind of time any time soon. I mean, I could play it on my Steam Deck, but I feel like it's one of those games that'll be worth getting the best possible visual experience with on my PC.
Thanks for this and @knocklessmonster. I haven't been able to get into the first quest, let alone anywhere near the end of the act.
I'll reframe my thoughts going into it next time I try.
Oh god, this thread is giving me traumatic Metal Gear Solid 4 flashbacks.
Don't get it twisted, I loved MGS4, and this thread is actually convincing me to pick Death Stranding back up. I think the first time through, I got to the first boss. I beat him and never picked the game back up.
Sounds like that's the drop off we're talking about, so I'll give it another go. That said, I'm going to have to start a new game since its been so long, so I'll have to slog through those cut scenes.
I seem to recall there being something about other players wearing down paths and making your game easier/different
Now that the game has been out for so long, is that still a game element?
Also if I play entirely offline, will I not have as good an experience as if I was connected to steam?
I would assume the features are still there, and all the data still exists. I feel like Death Stranding shutting down would be big news.
The paths are just worn spots in grass. Helpful for finding a common route, but not "easier."
The mechanic leads to structures being in llace that others put up, which helps a bit, but is not necessarily easier. Sometimes zipline towers appear in the wrong spot between syncs, for example, requiring some problem solving.
If you don't connect to the Internet you just have a different challenge of laying your own navigation stuff the first time, which can be its own fun, I imagine.
My wife has played it both ways and seems to have really appreciated the experience both times (and I don't remember her expressing any major qualms with either).
I just bought it yesterday, importing my save from the game pass version. The paths are still there and the buildings, although some are marked unknown owner I assume it was copied from the last login on game pass (as the game could not lookup user on other platform). The signs are clearly different from the last time I played. I did a supply request for an achievement and it did get fulfilled today.
Chants of Sennaar is a linguistic puzzle game in which you unlock new areas to explore by learning about the culture and language.
The mechanics of learning the language are very robust and much more satisfying than, say, No Man's Sky's language learning system.
The in-game tools you're given to record what you've learned are comprehensive and very easy to use, and the game is quite good at assuming your intent when you record your interpretation of a word.
It uses real anthropology/linguistic techniques to teach the language, such as a linguistic might use to learn a language in context. For example, you play a card game near the beginning of the game where, as you observe your opponent and make your own moves, you realize how their caste system is structured along with the names of castes.
Observing artwork might shed insight into cultural values but not necessarily language, but knowing those values places unfamiliar words in a context through which you can deduce meaning.
Another example is watching cultural rituals (some forbidden for outsiders to observe, you immoral little anthropologist!).
Related words are easier to decipher. Once you know the free morpheme, the root word with a bound morpheme is much easier to infer, as are words with opposite meanings. As such, once you learn the morpheme that makes something past tense or future, etc, you can start to guess the nature of an instruction or conversation even if you know only one of the words in the whole exchange.
It's a very well thought-out puzzle game that requires the same kind of curiosity mixed with intentionality that Outer Wilds required. Half the time you don't know what's going on, but then that aha moment will propel you forward though several layers of mystery and give you new tools to tackle the next few layers.
See, Chants of Senaar gripped me immediately - I knew I was going to enjoy it it a couple minutes in. It's a well-paced, well-polished game, full of charisma and style. I did dislike the implementation of the glyph confirmation mechanic however.
I don't remember past and future tenses. Maybe it's been a while?
Probably not news to anyone, but Psychonauts is a good example. The first one third of the game is tutorial levels. But stick with it and suddenly you're a kaijuu destroying a city of fish, being targeted by a conspiracy of girl scouts or dodging a raging bull in the streets of a black velvet painting. The stakes are high and everything gets progressively weirder in a unique way.
Inscryption is not at all what it seems at first. It seems to be a card tactics game, but it's actually a long puzzle with plot twists.
It's been a while sense I replayed the first game, but Psychonauts is one of the only games I've played more than once. It didn't feel like a slow burn to me, but it's quite narrative driven and I love the weird little story that developed.
Their second game is also exceptional if you enjoyed the first game. It is a faithful sequel without sacrifice or cut corners which really surprised me. If you haven't picked it up I highly recommend it!
Yes, I was a backer!
It's a silly regret I had no control over, but I will always feel sad I wasn't aware of the Kickstarter to have been able to back it. But you can bet I bought the game on release day and was finished before the end of the following week. Glad to have found another fan around here.
It was harder to find because it was on Fig, not Kickstarter. Fig was great. It was a crowdfunding platform where the idea was all projects were preapproved and some people (accredited american investors?) could choose to invest in a game instead of backing it, which would mean no rewards but a stake in the profits. It was founded by a former Double Fine employee with an advisory board consisting in Tim Schafer and other execs from inXile, Obsidian, Harmonix and Gearbox. I backed 6 projects there, including Outer Wilds. Unfortunately their project quality started slipping as they began to offer early access and such, before they finally sold out to another company; their website is gone along with information on past projects.
I'm not american but I'm told Microsoft bought out all the Psychonauts 2 investors after acquiring Double Fine and prior to the release of the game (for a premium).
Backer rewards were incredibly spread out through time but they did deliver on everything. The art book only arrived this year! The earliest reward, the t-shirt, arrived in 2017... I've participated in a number of kickstarters that while delivering the main product were a bit less than careful with their promises to backers, though, so that's not too bad.
It took me a while to into Wasteland 3 but I'm glad that I kept at it. There's some grind but a lot of funny moments.
The Long Dark is a more serious game that is a league of its own.
Another plus one for The Long Dark. It's one of the few games I've put 1000+ hours into.
I'll give you a vote just because it's you, not because TLD was a slow burn at all for me. :D
I'm guessing you're from the discord ;)
How does Wasteland 3 compare to Wasteland 2?
I haven't played Wasteland 2 actually, but maybe I'll start it and see how it goes--or maybe I should try Fallout Tactics again? The gameplay of Tactics was decent but I lost interest after the first few missions. It seems like Wasteland 2 is more story-driven which is what I'm interested in
Inscryption
Honestly, I don't want to say anything about it but I'd highly recommend it.
I loved this one, totally different from anything else, until the point that comes (I’m assuming) pretty late and the whole thing completely changes, could not crack that nut.
I usually know before purchase that I'm already into what the game's putting down, so I don't know that this exactly applies, since I never changed my mind. But as kfwyre knows, I'll vouch for The Witness. :)
It is a slow burn, in that it encourages you to slow down and be deliberate. It gradually unfolds to show you (or more accurately, you gradually become more aware) of how brilliant it is and just how much it's worth your time.
Well, if you go in without assumptions, at least.
It gets riffed on for being incredibly pretentious and for being literally just a serious of line puzzles, which are both true, but the game 100% belongs in the upper echelons of the gaming pantheon for it's influence vis-a-vis it's "oh shit" moment and the ability to recontextualize the game halfway through.
I have a somewhat complicated and divided opinion of The Witness.
Not really any spoilers here, but collapsing so people who want to go in to the game with an open mind can do so
I agree that the core design is fantastic for the type of game it is, but it is tattered and tainted by some aspects of its implementation. In particular,
is a key component of the negative aspects of my opinion.
As one who has a bit of a completionist side, there are parts of the game that absolutely does not respect your time, and honestly seem actively designed in a hostile fashion to mock and frustrate you as a player for wanting to discover all that the game has.
I also think it applies to a lesser extent to some parts of the more mainline sections of the game. You've demonstrated clearly that you've "become aware" of something and then it requires you to do it over and over and over again before letting you progress.
Yes, parts of the journey, were memorable and highly enjoyable, and how much to the things I mentioned matter (or even if one would agree with my assessment) is of course subjective, but it was enough to in the end leave me with a sour taste.
I mean... that sounds entirely like those pesky assumptions I mentioned.
It's my lived experience from having played through the game. I put the opinion behind a collapsed section with a warning, letting readers make a more active choice whether to read more about the game or not.
Am I not allowed to offer an opposing opinion? Is my opinion being different than yours necessarily based on (implicitly incorrect) assumptions on my part?
You can have absolutely any opinion you like; it just sounded familiar, that's all. You mentioned your completionist tendency and ascribed some measure of malice to the game design. Both things echo many opinions I've seen from players who maybe missed, misinterpreted, or didn't seriously engage with the core themes of the game. Now, it's their right to do so - there are various layers on which you can engage with The Witness and get a satisfactory experience, and Blow himself touches on the criticism here - but I'm personally yet to encounter someone who understood the game's ambitions and still thought it wasted their time, even if they didn't like or disagree with its methods. I've followed enough discussion of the game since playing it that I've come to recognize its most common complaints stem from players holding certain assumptions that get in the way of appreciating what they overlook. Maybe you're the first I'm coming across that doesn't fall in that camp, but given what you stated as your gripes, I doubt it. No escaping subjectivity, I guess.
For context, I just looked up the wait times on the puzzles people are complaining about:
I don’t have strong opinions on wasting/respecting player time, in The Witness or otherwise, but Jon’s linked response is wholly unsatisfying. The two defenses seem to be 1. It’s a small part of a larger game, so don’t pick at it and 2. Making the player wait is, like, meditative or something, man.
Your response comes across as very dismissive to me.
I talk about the appearance of malice. Given that he has actively done similar things at least twice in different games, I will assume it is at least done with intent and consideration. I will leave the door open for more positive explanations, but I have yet to see an adequate explanation of the value of that. This includes the response you linked, where I agree with DrStone that it's a wholly unsatisfying explanation.
The rest in an expandable section again, just for good measure
As for the "core themes", if you're talking about what is built up by the narrative parts, that fell flat to me. Does that mean I did not "seriously engage with it", or that it wasn't engaging to me and it may not be engaging to some others? If it is the previous, are you not more or less tautologically stating "those that appreciate the game, appreciate the game"?
What I did find engaging was the actual gameplay. The process of exploration, and discovery, and deduction. The way it dealt with perception, perspective, and presumptions. The moments of enlightenment where you reach understanding and see the world of the game expand as your knowledge of it grows. How it can change not only how you perceive the game world, but the physical world around you as well.
Given that context, "that section" was not the only part where I felt that my time was not being respected. Honestly, it was several years since I played the game so I can't recall all of the details, but two things still stick out in my mind: a frustratingly slow-moving platform, and the folding tree-top walkways where solving the puzzles became rote chores long before reaching my destination. I know those were not the only things that bothered me while playing, but it is those I remember right now.
I don't mean to come off as dismissive. I apologize.
I understand why you and @DrStone could be underwhelmed by the vid I linked. However, it's a very difficult task to explain to various people's satisfactions without spoiling the experience. To get the most out of it, The Witness does require a paradigm shift in many if not most "gamers," but by offering reasons to justify that change in perspective, you can easily build up expectations and risk greater disappointment. The irony is that the greatness of the game is easiest found when there are no expectations. It's a subtle, very delicate thing, and I suspect much (good) art is like that.
This is a game that is brimming with ideas, many of which are integrated into the puzzles but even more that are explicitly separate from the gameplay, and they are IMO equally as essential to what the game is aiming for. You self-described as leaning towards completionism - did you try to find, consider, and experience every single idea in the game? That is a deeply unfamiliar concept for most games as well as most players. It's something Blow alludes to in the video; the impatience of "I just want to solve this puzzle and get this score piece" can distract from more interesting ideas.
That takes on more significance because rich, meaningful, nuanced ideas (and meta-ideas) like those explored in the game simply need time to marinate and gestate to be properly understood. Some concepts are done a tremendous disservice by even being put into words. Blow said he made the game as he did because that was the best way to express the idea... if it could have been done as a novel, he would have written a book. I believe that. It's one thing to know something intellectually, but to really grok it internally might require some other level of investment. This example is a bit extreme, but from the standpoint of someone who doesn't have kids, raising children is not fundamentally different from training pets. You might be able to see theoretically how a parent's love can complicate their decision-making, but can you really understand how fundamentally life changes once your own child is in your arms for the first time if you haven't spent nine whole months waiting, feeling, experiencing your own spawnling develop? Probably not. What if I told you that The Witness can offer a similar type of lifelong perspective change? Might an hour-long "wait" (a totally optional action, I might add) be a fair exchange for valuable food for thought? Could the encouragement or even enforcement of a more meditative approach in a 100-hour game be fair value for the type of insight that can shape the rest of your life?
One criticism I think is fair is that it is likely you will miss out on the best of what his game has to offer if you don't come to the game with the right frame of reference. There are hints here and there but they are easy to dismiss or undervalue. I recognize that my awareness of certain philosophical concepts beforehand served me perfectly, but could/should there be a few more breadcrumbs for the rest of us? Perhaps. I had a somewhat similar experience to yours with Blow's previous game, Braid. I played it and thought it was a good, clever puzzle game, but found some of the praise hyperbolic. However, my education in physics stopped at high school. When I later on learned how various elements of the game and its levels related to quantum mechanics, I understood there had been a whole conversation happening that I had missed out on because I didn't know the language, and my appreciation deepened. It's a difficult thing to balance.
Both games are still enjoyable on multiple levels though. Re: the core themes of The Witness, I offered three possibilities on how you may (or not) have related to them, so I'm not sure why you fixated on one. I would hope you aren't assuming malice on my part there. Obviously, there's no one thing that everyone will find engaging, so those who don't find The Witness's themes resonate with them will likely not seriously engage with them. There's no judgment there. However, you're not in a good position to critique something if you don't at least understand what it's about. A lot of initial reviews of the game upon release had the same criticism - clever line puzzles, but it could have easily been a $5 2D mobile game... plainly not understanding what the game was about. Your initial comment gave me a certain impression because it's one I've encountered many times before, from people who did not fully understand what the game is about. The kind of neat explanation you'd like isn't satisfying either. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
With that said, for anyone disappointed in any way by the game, I would ask 2 questions.
Thank you for the extensive reply. I find it hard to write a coherent response because there seem to be many implicit assumptions you make or opinions you have that I either do not understand or do not agree with.
If a game requires a paradigm shift for most gamers, is it still something to unreservedly recommend as a game? Is it fair to dismiss any critique of it as a game by saying the player must not have been in the right frame of mind?
Did you offer me three ways to how I related to the themes of the game? I don't think stating I may have "missed, misinterpreted, or didn't seriously engaged with" really counts as how one relates to a theme. That's more an answer to why someone might not have perceived or pondered the information the game might present with respect to the theme. If I fully grok what the author was trying to convey on a specific theme, how I relate to that theme would be whether or not I agree with the author on it, what viewpoints I have on it, what nuances I see, etc.
Of course one can critique the game even if one doesn't know what the author intended with it. The game is what it is and the author might be dead. Sure, intent can be used to guide an interpretation of the game, but it does not change what the game fundamentally is. One could at the very least critique the way it tries to communicate the information; it could be haphazard, meandering, floundering, inconsistent, unclear, etc. I am not saying that I think all of these critiques apply to The Witness, but to dismiss critique of the game because someone doesn't understand what the author wanted seems strikingly pretentious. We all have our own experiences, and critique is inherently subjective. Even critique of an objective fact is subjective because people will experience the impact of that fact in different ways.
To try to answer some of your questions:
I did not seek out every idea in the game. As I said the narrative parts fell flat to me; they were not engaging to me, at least as they were presented. Having a completionist side does not mean I slavishly fully expend the content of every game I play, it simply means I have an additional inherent source of motivation to do so.
Of course, I haven't argued against that. Some may find it interesting. As it was presented I did not, and thus (if it wasn't clear) I did not spend all that time to go through with that section. Maybe the point of the puzzle part of it is to try to make people experience the futility of trying to complete it, but if the experience is frustrating and the author defends it by saying it was meant to be, I think it's more than fair if someone wants to tell him to sod off.
I assume you would answer "no" for me. What I do know is what the experience I had of playing the game was, and it's an experience I've seen several others claim to share. It is a valid experience of the game, and it is a valid basis for critiquing the game. Critiquing the game does not mean it is universally bad, it means that there are aspects of the game which some players have subjectively experienced as negative or lacking. Even if that is the purpose of the author, it is a valid base for criticism.
Everyone has assumptions all the time. We are all shaped by our lives, our experiences, and this affects how we perceive and interpret the world. The most relevant thing I can say is that before I started the game, the only thing I had seen of it was a blurry version of whatever the first image of it was on the Steam store page. I was told it was best to experience it with as little information as possible going in, and as a fan of mystery I bought the game glasses off so I couldn't even read the text on the page. With respect to the gameplay, I agree with the recommendation.
Edit:
No, I just wanted to clarify. Unless, maybe, if you made the game.
I'm only going to briefly reply to this, rather than posting another lengthy reply that will take me forever to type without knowing that you even have any real interest in pursuing an alternative viewpoint. I'm not trying to change your opinion per se, but I am challenging it as there is much more of value in the game than what you seem to have considered, and addressing that can go a long way to recontextualizing the frustration you expressed.
1)
Sure. I did say in my previous post:
The paradigm shift would likely be necessary for those trying to TOTALLY understand it. Most people simply won't fall in that category because they may not even realize the possibility of any value beyond fun, because it's "just a video game." However, in each of my last two posts I said that The Witness is enjoyable on multiple levels, and if someone just engages with it as a line-puzzle game, they're still getting a hell of a line-puzzle game.
2)
I'm not dismissing critique of it as a game wholesale. What I did was rebut a specific critique, of intentionally wasting players' time. I've seen it mentioned many times by people who seem to share (very common) assumptions that I think limit their capacity to enjoy the game.
I even offered my own critique:
3)
Re: authorial intent and criticism - anyone can critique something, but that doesn't make all criticism equally valuable. Let's say I take a sheet of paper and draw you a map of a route to my house. You can criticize the directions and say there's a better route; no problem there. You can even criticize the style of map I made, show me ones that are more detailed, ask for better visibility for landmarks, etc., and we could discuss that. However, if you don't know what a map is, have never seen one before, or know how to read one, your critique of my drawing as abstract art or whatever you conceive it to be doesn't hold anywhere near the same weight. You gotta be at least in the same zip code of knowing what the actual purpose of the work is. That's what I meant by understanding what the game is about, and it's a pervasive issue for The Witness - much of the criticism you find is from people who are looking at a map . They don't actually grok it. Sometimes they think they get it, but it's obvious from their frustrations, and the things they don't mention, that they don't get it. I assume good faith on their part and offer that they maybe missed, misinterpreted, or (for whatever reason) did not seriously engage with the themes. Going back to my own criticism, if they aren't coming to the game with the already-established frame of reference, it's understandable that they wouldn't grok it.
4)
The ideas I'm referring to aren't just the narrative pieces you refer to, btw. There is incredible depth in The Witness. It is a masterclass in design and has an astonishing amount of thought put into it.
5)
Rather than assume what I would answer for you, the important thing is what do you think? You haven't actually said.
I'll stop here... turned out to not be that brief after all. If you are satisfied with your own opinion as is, there's no real point in going any further. However, if you are curious, I can at least point you down the road of what's shaping my viewpoint that you don't understand/agree with. That comes with some light homework though (like I said, the neat explanation won't be satisfying). There are previous threads you may find interesting if you haven't seen them before. I'd encourage you to watch all the videos fully, and read my comments. Obviously, spoilers ahead.
https://tildes.net/~games/r44/the_witness_a_great_game_that_you_shouldnt_play
https://tildes.net/~games/r60/the_unbearable_now_an_interpretation_of_the_witness_spoiler_heavy
I mean, obviously don't spend more time on this conversation than you think it might be worth to you.
Thank you for linking the other discussions and the videos (one of which I had seen before). I want to read and watch through these before making any more substantive reply, but odds are I won't have the time for at least a couple of days.
No problem. As long as we're both genuine and open, I value the convo.
To preface this, remember that I played the game 5+ years ago, and it did not leave as clear an impact on me as it seems to have done on you. I can only speak with respect to what I recall from back then; at this point it's mostly just vague memories and impressions, and even so memory is neither perfect nor complete.
Genuine, absolutely. I see no point in wasting my time by being disingenuous on the Internet, discussing a topic which only comes to my mind when I notice other people mentioning it.
Open? On some parts, not on others. My experience with the game when I played it was what it was. Mixed in with the fantastic parts was sufficient frustration that it left me reluctant to recommend it without caveats, and enough so to generally post a dissenting view when I see it strongly recommended. This also means that even if you show me that there is so much more to the game - that it is in fact a good tool to facilitate a paradigm shift or a worthwhile change of mental state in the player - I think I would still remain likely to post a dissenting view to general, open, glowing recommendations, because that experience is still something a new player seems somewhat likely to have. Given the discussion so far, I think this is a point where we will fundamentally disagree regardless of where the discussion goes.
What I am open about is trying to understand your point of view on this. I doesn't mean I will necessarily agree with you, but I find the act of fostering understanding of others is valuable on its own.
To revise the map analogy: we're talking about a map I saw half a decade ago. We both saw it and think it was a pretty good map of the surrounding area. Or rather, I would agree with that but I recall distortions and additional markings on it that were more of a distraction to me than anything, and that those actually made me annoyed with the map the more I used it. But you say those markings are great - so important that if you don't understand them you can't really critique the map - because they hold the key to a hidden treasure. The interesting topic then, to me, isn't what I think I recall seeing in those markings, but rather what you see in it.
This, then, is why I don't think it's worthwhile for me to try to articulate what I think the game is trying to do in its entirety.
If you don't think my general sentiment above is reasonable, then I would not recommend putting more time into any detailed responses and I'll thank you for the conversation so far.
In case you do want to continue, below you'll find some of my thoughts on the two videos and the discussions you linked. Maybe it'll give some understanding of where I'm at with respect to this, but honestly it's perfectly fine if you don't respond to any of it and just focus on further explaining your point of view.
Spoiler territory below
You know, just in case someone else happens to read this 10+ comments in.
I have watched The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn't Play in full once before. It was some time after putting down the game myself; enough time so that it wasn't fully fresh in my mind. I remember that I didn't agree with everything in it - far from it - but it did give me some catharsis regarding my frustration. Regardless, I watched it through again now.
It does point out some things I experienced as frustrating (which I mentioned in an earlier reply), but I think part of the feeling of catharsis wasn't just that it mentions things I specifically found frustrating, but that it talked about these things at all. I don't exactly read much about games generally - I experience them for myself - but having left the game with a sense of frustration I did look around for some viewpoints shortly after putting down the game, and as far as I can recall nearly everything I saw at that point was completely dismissive of any negative opinion, acting as if someone who thought that could barely have played the game at all! I should probably ascribe that more to Internet grandstanding, but it did make fertile ground for the later catharsis.
While maybe little weight should be put to it, the point about the description of the game on the Steam store page - which I hadn't even read when I first saw the video - is to me extremely valid. I think it is an outright falsehood to say that every puzzle brings its own new idea into the mix, unless possibly if the bar for what counts as a "new idea" is laughably low. At least to me it's easy to see how someone can have had the experience of e.g. the treetop walkway puzzles, see that description, and feel the burden of proof shift from a presumption of good intent to a presumption of at least some form of malice or general fuckery.
And of course, the mention of the near hour-long environmental "puzzle" which I still have not seen a to me good explanation of why it is included in the game. I assume that there is a reasoning which isn't pure malice, but I also assume that I'm not going to find the actual intent persuasive as to why it has been included, to the point that it may as well have been malice. I would love to be wrong on this; if you can articulate further in a way I understand why it is to you, on its own or as part of the larger whole, important, necessary, and purposeful, that would probably shift me away from the feeling of potential malice on the designer's part.
Reading the discussion on this in the linked threads, I think this stood out to me:
Sure, but every game is a designed experience, and to make the choice to actively work against fully completing the game makes more a statement of the designer than the player.
To give an analogy: I'm visiting a friend at his house and I get thirsty. I ask if I can have some water. He has the means to do so. The tap is working; he has clean cups and glasses I could use. "No", he replies. "I don't owe you that. I mean sure you can have some water but go grab a cup from your house if you want to drink here". My reaction isn't exactly going to be "You're right, silly me, next time I'll have it with me", as much as "Okay, I guess I can't rely on this person to do anything other than at most what we've explicitly agreed upon, and honestly I don't really know even that". And just like I would drop that "friendship", I stopped playing the game, and neither would be amicable separations.
As I said, I'm not a slave to being a completionist, but seeing something finished and whole - especially when it is so by my own merit - can be beautiful in itself. If the above is the meaning the game wants to convey, it to me seemingly mistakes appreciation and obsession, and so takes the notion of that beautry, says it's not only wrong but if you try to pursue it I will make it excruciating. But you're free to do it, teehee.
Both when making a game, and when living life in the wider world, you can make choices on how you want to contribute. If you choose to make something painful in order to teach a lesson, don't complain if people say it's painful, and don't be surprised if when your lesson fails to hit home people think you're just being a dick. Particularly if the lesson fundamentally misunderstands the people you're trying to teach.
I had not watched The Unbearable Now: An Interpretation of The Witness. I watched it now, and my general impression is that I, with respect to myself and my experience with the game, disagree with most of the assertions in the opening 5 minutes or so, meaning little of the rest of the video makes sense to me, at least for now. I can give some scattered reactions, but given that I seem to fundamentally disagree with a lot of what is asserted in it, I'm not sure if any further commentary on it from me is reasonable.
This rings hollow to me. I see puzzles as a goal unto themselves. There's a beauty and pleasure in grokking how they work. I don't do it for a greater purpose, I don't do it just for what the game does when it's all done. I do it, mostly, for what it is.
That said, an ending can absolutely be a nice sentimental capstone and might have a larger than average influence on how fondly I appreciate a work experienced over time.
No? If there's anything they must be, it's puzzles. To be good puzzles, they must be intriguing, challenging, varied. If it becomes rote or trivial, it's a chore, or at best an exercise.
When is a puzzle not a puzzle? When it's not puzzling.
Yes and no. As above, the prize to me isn't what the game gives me at the end of it, it is what I take from having gone through it in total. From having been on the journey and seen it to its end, and everything that went into that. Go climb a real mountain with no one else present and the only prize you will find at the top is the fact that you are there. There's no fanfare. No fireworks. No angels singing your praises. There is only what you bring yourself.
As above, I didn't await any "enlightenment" at the end of the game from solving the puzzles.
Huh? Why would I think a puzzle game is about the destination, not the journey? Capping it off with a trip through the landscape where the puzzles were solved would be a nice retrospective on that journey. Seeing the puzzles unsolve themselves if it was a pleasant journey isn't a message of "oh woe, all your work is undone" as much as "this journey is available again".
But that's the thing, it doesn't have to be a desperate search. The realization of the fact that there's more to the game than the line puzzles is an expansion of perception; a very real moment of realizing that there's more to the game than the panels, just as there may be wider context we're missing when we're hyperfocusing on something in real life. You step out from your panel-induced attentional blindness. It's a fantastic moment. But I'm not about to desperately search for every circle and line, I wanted to enjoy the exploration and discovery of all of them. The game could have made a choice to facilitate that, but seemingly chose instead to make it painful to dissuade me from it?
I don't feel hit by this. Admittedly there's not much space for tranquility in my weekday life, but what I do to survive isn't what I strive for. I don't really use social media, unless one counts forums then sure I browse Tildes from time to time. I filter with intent which notifications come through to my phone and even then generally keep it on don't-even-vibrate. When the weather is nice on the weekends I usually try to get away. Alone, on a bike or by foot, out in nature. I'm going out after finishing writing this. The exercise becomes meditative, and while I manage to do it less than I'd want, those times when I have the time and energy to get myself to just sitting in a clearing in the woods just soaking in the sounds and the sun is glorious.
Sure, I enjoy liveliness and revelry as well, we're all complex and multi-faceted, but that state of relaxation, of just being, has been some part of my life since I've been born.
I think I am in deep disagreement with the commentary here, or at least the examples it uses. To me, you don't celebrate pause and reflection by forcing people to wait. You celebrate it by fostering an environment where pause and reflection is inherently rewarding and giving the opportunity for people to make the choice to do so.
The presence of the things you can only see from various perspectives but otherwise don't contribute to the progression of the game is something the game does well in this regard. You can notice something, stop and appreciate it, spend some time to observe it from different angles and see the care that went into making it. This is fantastic! But the examples used in the commentary are to me if anything detrimental to reach this goal.
If I consider the saying "I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it", the perspective designs is what shows you the door; the slow moving machines and shutters and lasers and so on are a blindfold and a forceful push to try to make you step through.
Whoops. I thought I posted this reply yesterday.
That's a shame, as it essentially renders pointless most of what I'd share with you. Even though I can present an alternative viewpoint to challenge your conclusions, I won't attempt to convince you of anything.
I will say, with the map analogy, I had a typo that maybe muddied the point I tried to make.
That should have been, "much of the criticism you find is from people who don't know they are looking at a map. They don't actually grok it." And that, my friend, is the category it seems you fell into. You were looking at it as a drawing, not knowing the "extra" stuff was on there because it's a map. As you mentioned, you thought the ideas as presented weren't interesting to you, so you didn't bother with them. That's dismissing a significant amount of context from the game. Which is fine, I suppose, as long as you acknowledge how that limits your understanding. Imagine if your grandpa wanted to be a film critic, but he watches movies on mute because he prefers silent films. It'd compromise his opinions, unless he acknowledges the limitations he chose and doesn't simply assume most people share his preference.
In any case, I originally linked the other threads not just for the videos, but also so you could see the posts I made there. Hopefully those offer some insight.
Are you sincerely saying that when weighing the balance between trying to invalidate the experience I had back when I played the game, and trying to build an understanding for what the game is to you, the former weighs so much heavier than the latter that the conversation is "essentially pointless"?
Not quite. There is no invalidating your experience, and if we aren't on the same page about that by now, the rest probably won't come across properly. Sorry to disappoint.
No, I guess it won't, because frankly it's difficult to see how given this exchange your position could be described as open with respect to a general discussion.
Whether or not it is what you'd like to communicate, it comes across as "it's not enough that you're open to trying to understand me, if you're not open to changing your behaviour on recommendations this is not worth discussing".
Well, that depends on how you look at it. Which is what the game is about, ironically.
Sure, if
I guess I could also look at it as you not engaging in good faith discussion. Thank you for the suggestion.
Peace, out.
I know I'm not alone in recognizing those "draw line to end" patterns IRL after playing The Witness...
Snowrunner if you're into trucks hauling their cargo through deep mud and difficult terrain. Missions can easily take up to an hour to fulfill and the maps are huge. There is progression in the form of vehicles more suited for the rougher terrain as well as upgrades that make things easier. Fun with friends too!
What stood out to me is that there is no hard pull to keep going, it's all at your own leisure. Just you and your vehicles, it calmed me to a point of enjoyment while still having a sense of fulfillment be it still a videogame but I digress.
Snowrunner/Mudrunner/Spintires are especially fun with friends. Just a couple dudes drinking beer and getting stuck in difficult terrain after their kids went to sleep. There are some bugs here and there, but since the stakes are not that high (it's mostly just about having fun with the process), it's not a big issue.
134 hours into Snowrunner and I'm maybe like 60-70% of the way through Alaska after completing Michigan fully. I know I should be jumping around and unlocking other trucks and whatnot, but I just love really hammering away at an area and getting it squared away before moving on to the next.
Try giving Hardmode a try :)) it'll really up that realism factor ten fold. It might suck to do Michigan again but it scales much better with unlocks. As soon as you're done with Alaska and you have a shitload of good trucks, the game's difficulty just slowly drifts away and won't come back.
Oh that's a no thank you from me. I've been playing Spintires since it's inception and I did play most of the games like that, but these days, the just a recipe for frustration for me.
I like the idea of forcing myself to use different trucks for recovery and the like, but I just don't think it would be much fun with my limited gaming time these days.
Return of the Obra Dinn
It feels weird calling a game that only lasted me 3-4 hours a "slow" burn, but there was such a satisfying transition from confusion to predictability to astonishment that I will recommend this game to anyone who likes logic puzzles, old-timey sailboats, or murder mysteries in general.
Also Commodore/Apple-esque graphics. So very throw-back on many levels. But yeah, what won me was I created my own logic puzzle to keep track. I loved those things as a kid!
I dunno, I got hooked immediately, but I was a huge Lucas Pope fan after Papers, Please. Nostalgia-type gaming, and with a piratey murder mystery. It took me a bit to get used to it, and the replayability isn't there... but I'm waiting another year or two to do it again and maybe get all the achievements.
Papers, Please is an incredible game too. Very different experience though, but I guess you could call it a bit of a slow burn, because you have to be pretty invested by the time really interesting things start to happen.
He also did some browser-based game about sending letters that I thought was very thought-provoking. Can't remember the name of it off the top of my head. But yeah, both that game and Papers, Please evoke this weird feeling of overwhelming hopelessness under an overbearing regime. It's like if soul-crushing depression was its own sub-genre of horror.
Wow that’s fast! I checked my time: about 10 hours which is in line with howlongtobeat. And I thought I was okay at puzzle games :).
That said, it’s also one of my most memorable video game experiences.
As soon as I got to chapter VI I went and made coffee, like "yep, this game will be replacing sleep tonight"
I felt bad too, because I started it with my wife then finished it after she went to bed. I got to experience her playthrough later though, including the discovery of my absolute favorite identity...
big big spoilers
The helmsman! I groaned out loud when I realized I needed no clues to figure this one out, it's like the logic puzzle equivalent of a dad joke
Monster Hunter: World, my first Monster Hunter game. Technically I'd played a bit of MH: Tri before on the Wii, but didn't know what I was doing. World was when I learned what a Monster Hunter game really is.
I found the game very frustrating at first. It's mechanically dense, and throws dozens of tutorial prompts at you. The original PC release had a lot of problems, especially with controls (the mouse inputs were virtualized joysticks, which felt awful). I found myself taking lots of breaks, since I was bouncing off the game pretty hard.
But I did stick with it. I began to learn each monster's movements, and how all the game's systems and mechanics worked. I eventually finished the story, all quests, and then everything else I could think of. I worked hard perfecting my build(s), and beating the toughest monsters like Extreme Behemoth.
Eventually Iceborne came out and resolved a lot of pain points I'd had with the base game. Yes the clutch claw was annoying, but so many little issues had been fixed that more than made up for it. I completed this content as well, finished all research, collected all crowns. By the time I put the game down, I'd played for almost 900 hours.
I'm really looking forward to MH: Wilds releasing next year.
Rogue Legacy is a roguelike with permanent progression ("roguelite" if you want to be persnickety). The game starts off slow, and the characters you play as are very weak. As a result it's difficult to make any progress at all. The game requires you to earn some gold, die, and then spend the gold to collect permanent upgrades.
Once you start making some headway with upgrades, the game begins to click a little more. You see a goal, and know how to achieve it. Rather than feeling frustrated at not "winning", you start to see every death as progress. Each death just means you get to be a little bit stronger for your next run.
I've finished both Rogue Legacies 1 and 2, but have definitely played a lot more of the sequel. By the time the game released out of early access, I sat somewhere around New Game+7 with the upgrades essentially maxed out. Once you get used to the combat and systems, I think the game becomes a great podcast companion.
I really appreciate RL2's new game plus mechanics.
It's not just more health for enemies, it's a bunch of choices you make similar to Hades' Pact of Punishment system. Boost various enemy stats, more enemies, bigger map, more and new map hazards, harder boss fights, and more story. I'm on NG+6 and I still haven't seen the final form of the last boss or gotten the 'true ending'.
Final Fantasy XIV (Steam Link) is a definite slow burn for me, particularly the main story of the base game. It's very slow to start off with, with the main story really picking up around levels 30-40. This does mean for the first perhaps 30 hours the story feels like it's spinning its wheels. However, I think pretty much everyone who didn't get filtered out by the base game then praises the story of the expansions for very good reason.
I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV since 2018, and it's simply the best MMORPG on the market, balancing engaging story with fun gameplay mechanics and encouraged socialization. It feels like an MMORPG should: a virtual world players coexist in, not a set of rails through a rushed level grind to a set of raids.
The main story is just a straight up Final Fantasy game that stands well on its own, and it's packaged up with a ton of social features and an incredible amount of side content and crafting stuff. Some people spend the majority of their game time gathering materials and crafting items, either for their own use or to sell on the market board.
Oh man, it's a breath of fresh air to see FFXIV still spoken of with such high (deserving) praise when the flavor of the month opinion (if you follow high profile raiders or content creators) is that the new Dawntrail expansion will be a death knell. I agree with some takes, disagree with others (I love the MSQ, side content, and raiding) but at the end of the day I know there just isn't really an MMORPG of similar scale that doesn't feel like a chore nagging me to play at least X minutes a day.
I started mid-2020 after pandemic lockdowns. I swore off MMORPGs because many popular ones seem to either demand a ridiculous amount of grinding to "keep up", or are free to play and subsidized by P2W ingame transactions to entice whales. I only continued FFXIV because I was really impressed by the NoClip documentary that touches on the rocky development of the game, from its initial 1.0 release to the now-celebrated 2.0 rerelease. I remember the producer saying in an interview that he didn't want to design the game in a way that forces you to log in and play every single day. Which is just... such a nice attitude to see reflected in a game. Any time some of my friends say they need to do their dailies in their MMO/mobile game of choice, I'm reminded of how nice it is to be freed of that.
I think Yoshi-P made it pretty clear back when Endwalker was released that we're basically completing a cycle: the story they spent a decade hyping up was coming to a close, and we were going to reset to something lower stakes (like ARR) and start building the foundation for the next big story arc.
Where we're at right now, we know very little about what to expect, other than a new continent and the premise to get the Scions there...and some small hints at the end of the raids. (We also know that the Ascians are not all gone and may still be antagonists.) So there's not as much of a story hook to look forward to this time, but I'm confident it will be great when the dust settles...and it's a necessary move to avoid the sort of fatigue you get with shounen anime constantly escalating stakes.
This is the first I'm hearing of people talking it down, but I can't say I'm surprised. There was a bit of that happening with Endwalker too, mainly from the WoW crowd that showed up, skipped the MSQ and then complained about a "lack of content." (In-game, even.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, you are preaching to the choir here (me). I was surprised to see the amount of people blast the story from 6.1+, especially when you compare to the story wrap-up that traditionally happened on the x.3 patch, because... they told us this already! They said they wanted the story of Endwalker to wrap up with 6.0, so of course the pacing wouldn't be like the previous expansions. You can't just compare the Endwalker post-patch story to 3.3, 4.3, or 5.3... but some people will!
I think you'd need to specifically be in following certain personalities on Twitter or dwell on specific subreddits to see the negativity. I don't use Twitter and I noped out of all FFXIV related subreddits years ago, but my friend group happens to mostly be raidlogger types so I unfortunately get to be a captive audience when they rant about how job design is getting worse. (To be clear, I don't disagree with them, but there's just so much more to a satisfying encounter than just job rotation... so I'm holding my opinions until the raids come out.)
I for one am glad that I (and some friends!) are still happy to experience the story, wherever they decide to take it. :)
Yeah, I dropped Reddit entirely last year and haven't looked back. I do still use Twitter for some J-Pop and anime stuff (Japan won't give it up as the most used social networking platform until it's basically unusable) but don't really look at FFXIV stuff on there. My Free Company reposts news in their Discord channels and that's where I find it.
I'm excited about the Black Mage changes for sure, since it's my main job.
Not sure how much I agree, there are still a ton of dailies like the roulette, beast missions, FC stuff etc. At least I felt too compelled to do those and that sucked a lot of the joy out of it for me.. They aren’t as crucial as in other games, true, but I wish games moved away from them completely.
I think the compulsion to complete FFXIV dailies are much more internal compared to externally induced though. Even back when I was newer and had plenty of content to do that consisted of slow progression with dailies (like leveling up my jobs with roulettes), I was never really gated from anything by not doing all my roulettes everyday, nor is there a meaningful difference between me and someone who does their roulettes everyday. My previous experience with how other games handle dailies is that if I don't do my dailies for seven days, I'm measurably behind another dedicated player by seven days.
I don't have enough of a game designer brain to comment on games ditching dailies entirely. It's true that a lot of games use them as a simple way of keeping players in the treadmill, but the alternative is to allow players to simply sit down and grind out from 0 to completion in several hours instead of having those several hours spaced out over 4 weeks. Now there's a measurable difference between a player who has the physical time to grind things out quickly in one sitting, and a player who might only want to play an hour or so a day.
I really wanted to play Divinity :Original Sin (enhanced edition). I had determination, I wanted to play it. When I started, I was overwhelmed by everything. I kinda didn't want to play at this point, but I forced myself to do it. And I spent another 60 hours playing this great game!
I played through this game twice, I liked it that much. However, I have started Original Sin 2 several different times and never made it more than a few hours in.
Factorio Your first few hours will be setting up basic automation, after which it feels much like any of the other factory games it inspired. Until you unlock bots and learn how to use trains. Now, all of the sudden, your no longer placing individual machines, but blocks of machines, optimizing your blueprints to make things easier to assemble, etc. You unlock an entirely new level of abstraction, which makes mega basing much more possible.
I tried to play factorio for a few hours but it seemed more like a crafting game than a logic game to me and I don’t care for crafting. Also I got discouraged by the micromanagement, I guess I didn’t play long enough to unlock the things you mentioned. Finally, I also didn’t like it when the critters attacked (I didn’t want time pressure) but I know you can turn that off.
Factorio definitely isn't for everyone, so maybe it just isn't for you.
I would say try starting a new game with biters turned off and see what you think. The "crafting game" part of it is trying to force you into the "logic game" part of Factorio. It is really easy to fall into the "just hand craft it" trap. I fall into that trap many times when I play. Try to force yourself to not hand craft anything. Your first step is to hand craft what you need for "Automation 1", which unlocks the assembler. From there, everything you need (except for a few one-offs) should be built by a an assembler. Just start with some inserters, chests, and assemblers to begin with. Once you get tired of putting stuff into those chests, build some belts to automatically feed your machines. This is where the meat of the game begins. Once you have automatic factories, you start to find the logistics issues that are the game's bread and butter.
Let me know if you want any more tips! I am definitely not experienced compared to some factorio players, but I have played quite a bit.
Have you tried Mindustry? I actually so wanted to like Factorio but it was non-intuitive and honestly, it didn't seem fun. I somehow found Mindustry just after (and it was free on Linux, FDroid, and I eventually bought it on Steam), and it fixed everything that just didn't click with Factorio.
The only downside is that you're supposed to take over a planet and thus, fights are a part of the game. But I got enough into the automation that for the most part, I was able to hold the bits I'd captured while still enjoying building and coding on new spaces I'd conquer.
Lots of excellent suggestions, one I didn't see listed yet is Noita.
I originally picked it up and only put a few hours in, until I kept seeing it mentioned enthusiastically in threads like these.
It's a brutally difficult action rogue-like with a fully destructible physics-driven environment. There's very little up-front explanation of the mechanics or the plot or even the goal, and the world is absolutely rife with secrets. But if you persevere (or more likely look up some tips or tutorials) then it can be incredibly rewarding when things click. I've got well over a hundred hours and I'm only barely scratching the surface of what is there.
I watched a video that spoiled some of the big "twists" of Noita (bc tbqh I may never play it and the video looked cool) and holy shit I didn't expect it to go half as deep as it did. My mind was blown just having it shown to me in a video, I can't even imagine how insane discovering that stuff would be over hours of playtime.
I just finished Control, and I had to start over 3 times for it to finally click. I persevered only because I'm a sucker for this kind of lore and atmosphere, but I initially bounced back because the game is seriously hard and frustrating at the beginning. Then you understand that your magic gun is actually just a back-up weapon, and nothing tops a good old printer thrown into an enemy's face.
Bitburner
It's fantastic. It drained half a year of my life. I recommend it 100% and will say nothing more in support of it.
And you can actually learn programming in the meantime!
For me this describes Raft, a unique survival game. You're placed in a vast, open ocean, starting with nothing more than a small wooden raft and a hook. The primary goal is to survive by scavenging garbage from the ocean and gradually expanding and enhancing the raft, while managing hunger and thirst, and fending off a hungry, hungry shark.
In time you discover big and small islands and other sites, as well as scattered notes and environmental storytelling pieces. The slow pace encourages careful planning of your explorations and strategizing raft construction. By the end of the game you're swimming (ha) in options, though. Plus there's co-op.
What gripped me in particular? Hard to tell, honestly. At some point I just found myself practically addicted, and waiting for the next chapter to release.
The Trails series (unrelated to "Tales of") is notable to have the very first game as the prologue. During development of several games in the series they realize that the story was longer than they have time to develop, so instead they had to create a second game and add a filler opening where the plot stop moving.
The first game - Trails in the Sky FC - starts with a tutorial where Estelle & Joshua are getting their training to become Junior Bracer. The tutorial chapter last like an hour or two (mostly dialogue - this series is notorious for its script length). Then the main story start where their dad's airliner went missing and they go to each town to solve the town's mysterious problems. At the end it is starting to show that there's bigger problem in here (and dad is still nowhere to be found). The game ends with a cliffhanger that even upped the stakes. Some people would say that the entire FC is like 40 hours prologue to the main story in SC.
The problem though is the writing peaked at the 5th game - Trails to Azure, but that game also include sexual harassment joke where a female, on-duty police officer get anime style groping while her police friends just watch. And then the fanservice get worse and worse, plus a romance system that require the protagonists to be dense harem protagonists. In Trails of Cold Steel IV that I could feel the writers are saying we're forced to write anime fanservice that we don't want to. At least the main story is somewhat interesting until the main antagonist is revealed. In the latest installment - Trails into Reverie - the main antagonist is literally a deus ex machina. At least they make the fanservice optional scenes this time (and double down with VR support that only works on those scenes).
What I love though, is that all this worldbuilding and flawed setup make it ripe for fanfictions. There's a popular one where a trope reader get reincarnated as one of the side character. She then get recognized as divine as the NPCs are mentally blocked from recognizing JRPG/Anime tropes and acting on it.
The next game is a new arc of the series, releasing in English next month. I hope they go back to what make the first 5 games great.
Seasons: A Letter to the Future got to me. It's very slow, methodical and exploratory, but there are parts of the story that really got to me causing tears. From the perspective of our own dying world right now and the recognition of constant change and renewal, it's a powerful game.
A game that probably fits more than my first pick (although, again, I knew how invested I was beforehand) is Starseed Pilgrim, a... gardening puzzle platformer? It's a tough sell to most people though. The game features the most minimal of instructions, so it's very easy to try it for 10 minutes, get frustrated by its opacity, and abandon it forever.
However, for those with a bit more patience, you have the potential to be rewarded with one of the best and most satisfying experiences in gaming, IMO. This little gem is all about discovery, and for that reason explaining anything beyond its basic premise - you are a spaceman, growing a symphonic garden - without spoiling what makes it so good is quite difficult.
The Five Stages of Starseed Pilgrim is hilariously accurate for those who have beaten it, and probably confusing as hell to those yet to pick it up. An apt review quote on its Steam page says, "It’s OK to feel lost, it seems to suggest, because it’s the only way to feel the intoxicating effect of discovery. I became so angry with Starseed Pilgrim because it purposely allows you, encourages you even, to feel lost." It's not a game for everyone, but if you enjoy puzzle games, or have any interest in game design, I wholeheartedly recommend it.
I just finished playing Mech Engineer which is pretty much bang on "game that needs some hours to become rewarding".
It's a really niche game. There's no tutorial and there's a manual ingame you basically have to read.
The UI is intentionally (confirmed by the dev) one of the challenges of the game of navigate and understand.
It's so obscure you'll be finding out buttons on the UI that you didn't know existed 3 play through in.
And you die a lot trying to learn.
But when you get it and you understand how all the systems click together... It's very rewarding to shred aliens and thrive.
I've never played it (and probably never will), but I greatly enjoyed Hbomberguy's analysis of the first game in the series.
Nebula
YouTube