Anodyne 2 sent me back to the Saturn Dimension! (Analgesic Thread)

[AutomaticTiger]

I um…won their twitter contest and got a copy. >.>;

Anyway, have some random late night thoughts after playing for almost two hours apparently:

This game absolutely nails the feeling I’m looking for in 3d world exploration. I was a little worried when I saw the dungeon areas were all 2d, but more on those later…what I’m trying to get at is the sensation of being in a coherent extant place.
You don’t get that just by having a lot of interaction and open world mechanics, although that can sometimes help, but by having a consistent set of rules a game is built around that reward you for exploiting them.

Now in my case, when I say ‘reward’ I don’t mean item pickups although that can be OK. I mean stuff like optional areas, fragments of world that exist off the beaten path.

When I realized that I could get up to a weird creature by a clock by making jumps on precarious and strange platforms, I got really excited, because those platforms seemed totally decorative? Like nine out of ten games with a structure like I was seeing just have that kinda thing as set dressing, this game wanted me to treat them like solid objects and…god something about that is just the best to me. Letting me do stupid bullshit consistent with the internal game mechanical logic is delightful.

So after my initial disappointment in the trailers that despite the cool 3d overworld, the innerspaces of the game would be 2d, it didn’t last that long after actually getting my hands on the game.

The vacuum, which is the next logical step from the first game’s broom, ends up working a little bit like the magnet gloves from one of the Capcom Zeldas. (Can’t remember which game had them, but it doesn’t really matter?)

And just like the first game’s exploration of the Roc’s Feather, this game is already going some amazing places with the vacuum’s mechanics. It’s not just for killing stuff, it’s also for manipulating, altering, and controlling elements in the environment to solve puzzles. It’s such a fantastic idea.

The manipulation is combining delightfully with the game’s re-contextualization of the purpose for enemies in the game. Setting enemies on fire, and putting them out was excellent. Having to keep some enemies alive was excellent. Lining enemies up to be taken out by tongues was excellent.

And the world…with it’s whimsical but dark art direction and writing. It fits perfectly with the game’s structure and…wow yeah it’s already scratching the same itch the first one did and I’m expecting it to go way farther.

Gah! I’m worried this is all going to be an incoherent mess to folks less tired than I am writing this, but I’m trying to remember the last time I immediately clicked with a new game like this.

[AutomaticTiger]

Vibe kinda makes me think of Crusade of Centy too, now that I think about it. Closer to that in some ways than Link’s Awakening, even if Awakening and Earthbound are their clearest influences.

Although Crusade of Centy kind of does feel like the midpoint between those two even on their own so…yeah I dunno. Might be coincidental.

[OneSecondBefore]

This game just made a very pointed joke about UX being used to make unethical or self-harming actions more palatable, and even more compulsive. This game GETS IT.

[AutomaticTiger]

I got through Dustown and I’m impressed by how fast I fell in love with several of it’s occupants, only to be horrified by my own character’s actions. Honestly if it was genocide or even a murder, it wouldn’t land as hard as just Nova being shitty.

And now that the game introduced a capitalist collectathon element I feel guilty and gross every time I collect a coin.

And before all that, I was surprised by the elegance of storytelling meeting NPCs in the Cente and finding out that two of them were refugees from a disaster and one wanted me to deliver a package to a dead person.

This is probably going to be my game of the year. It just keeps being incredible.

[AutomaticTiger]

Ok just wrapped this game up and it’s absolutely stunning and exactly the right length even if you collect all the optional cards. Fantastic writing, fantastic aethetics, incredible music, every single one of you who’s able and even vaguely likes action adventure games should be giving it a shot.

Just…wow. I was expecting it to be good, I wasn’t expecting it to be this good.

Two people made this. Two. This is what I wanted Indie games to mean once upon a time before it just meant ‘the size of a regular game studio in the 90s’ like it does now.

[daphaknee]

the first one was on consoles so im waiting patiently for my chance at this

[tt_zop]

I haven’t beaten it yet but the shit with the Desert NPC was extremely well done. Having the option to skip part of the sequence just made it creepier in a way, definitely added some dread. Really cool game and keeps surprising me. I bounced off Anodyne 1 pretty quick but the music and atmosphere in this one is something else. Bring on more weird dreamy polywave(?) games please.

[AutomaticTiger]

Oh yeah when the game introduced a fourth completely distinct graphical style really messed with me. And to drop it in part of the game with absolutely no explanation that fits into the rest of the game? Extra cool.

[GherkinForce]

seconding this because I know if I get this on PC I will play 30 mins and then forget I own it

[Rudie]

Someone had to not like this game and it turned out to be me. I am two hours in. The prophecy is fulfilled.

Turning into a car is very good.

[BustedAstromech]

Oh no! I like almost everything about this but once again I hate much of the writing!

Sometimes it’s quite good but it’s so often so thudding, and the Itoi-mimicking villager dialogue just lands like a thud so often. I think it’s way too close to the energy I hate in my own writing and I’m just in a critical tailspin here.

[BustedAstromech]

also I wish people would tune the default Unity 3D character controller to have a pinch more life in it before they use it. or just, Unity could fix the animation snapping bugs on cardinal directions because my hands and eyes notice these things immediately and it’s probably not fair when the craftsmanship of the models and art concepts is lovely to get this annoyed about technical craftsmanship but I’ve spent years knocking it out of others so I can’t not want to say something

[Felix]

I would recommend you at least play to the narrative sequence in the mid-game, in which they reveal they actually have something to say and it’s not all stylistic, it’s pretty hard not to be impressed by

[BustedAstromech]

Assuming that’s <4 hours away, I think I’ll make it – I like the direction they’re going towards, I’d just give it an editing pass. If I enjoyed drinking that’s the kind of thing I’d do to quieten my fractious artistic self-loathing as I resume.

[AutomaticTiger]

I…cannot believe I’m agreeing with Felix 100%

But

I am

The second half really kicks the writing up a notch. Also there’s some sequences that aren’t necessarily the most meaningful in the world that are really clever/cute

[Felix]

eventually everyone realizes I actually have the best opinions

[anothersphere]

I was mildly interested in the first Anodyne then read two reviews back to back that carried different tones of “ah what endearing looking dreck”. Think I played most of Hylics instead shortly after.

But OSB and thread have made me curious, I’ve skimmed and will probably cheggit sometime soon.

[Rudie]

I just beat it. The writing was often wordsalad and whimsy. It does have something to say, but I’d rather someone else explain. It maybe did not grate me as much as it would have because of the praise here.

[BustedAstromech]

The mid-scene was very well done; not exactly revelatory but handled appropriately. Somebody paid attention to Mother 3. I love how loose and messy their sprite tilework gets; it’s lovely stuff.

I’m curious how people feel about the ‘meta’ tags. The signposts read as…insufferably self-indulgent to me, and the old environment folder is something I’d curate down to maybe 5 of the more interesting bits rather than every last version of these files. I love meta play but this doesn’t sit right with me; it feels patronizing instead of playful or revelatory.

[BustedAstromech]

Something else I’d like to gauge opinions on.

There’s a running thread of sheltering comfort that the game presents, asking if you’re ok to do a light task (the game is notably easy) and reassuring you. For example, a scene with ‘desert NPC’ begins building tension and then asks if you want to skip the experience; there’s a horror scene upcoming, but the player doesn’t know. And the prompt to skip it stuck in my head and undercut the horror scene.

There’s a similar throughline in the (lovely) manual – a strong reassurance that things are ok, that you’re ‘not dumb’ for having trouble with a puzzle. It ends with a page of discussion questions that are pitched at a 5th grade level:

Personally, this reminds me of the dark days of Nintendo’s patronizing tutorials, though it’s more effecting, as the aforementioned scene warning directly undercut an otherwise emotionally engaging and tense scene. Now, we can talk about the execution (I think content warnings are useful and appropriate but I don’t think they should occur to set up a scene, they should be about a work or quote itself and thus exist outside the piece), but I really want to get into this voice of reassurance.

Games exist as spaces enclose by rules in which it’s safe to experiment and test bounds. That the game exerts only a mild punishment and more than anything wants the player to keep playing makes the computer and endless, non-judging play partner. Even inside this game, there’s a scenario where a character runs simulations of social situations, a virtual space used in the same way.

So the encouragement reads as overbearing and redundant.

However, my experience is not universal and I may be out of step with people who are afraid of single-player spaces. Certainly I have watched players express a fear of failure but that’s always under the eyes of others – the expert who made the game, judgmental men (it’s very often a woman who performs the social role, “oh, I’m not good at games” and apologizes when I’m gaining the most from watching them play).

How do others feel?