I pre-ordered this because it was only 12 USD. It’s clearly inspired by Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy, and I’m enjoying it so far. Apparently, it’s by the same guy as Mountain. I appreciated the concept of that one but only ever played it for about five minutes.
This game includes a lot of (optional) philosophical recordings of Alan Watts, which suit it pretty well.
The only thing I really knew going in was that animals move end-over-end. Movement in general is handled pretty well. When you’re a fence, for example, you move like a train. And of course, it’s always fun to swim or fly around a world.
One thing I realized today when I happened to revisit a place I had been yesterday is that the game saves the state you leave things in, at least to some degree.
there’s an Autoplay option with sliders that lets you decide how much growing/shrinking/dancing/singing you want to do and therefore this has become a hit with the stoned people i showed this to last night.
i started playing this after i started playing Nier Automata. besides the fact that it was quite the contrast, i think i realized how much i enjoy having these really chill but reflective ambient experiences in games
One thing I like about this game is that you can gather a flock/herd of anything, roam around, and produce offspring. For example, I had a group of vehicles in a city and a little truck was “born.”
For me, this has an appeal similar to the old DOS program Superscape.
this is extremely distracting and will probably always keep me from being able to take this game seriously
like watching the trailer with alan watts talking about how the self is an illusion and all of this serious orchestral music plays and then a herd of elephants roll by
idgi i guess
also there is a misused apostrophe on the web site
i want to like this i really do, but i guess that is why i am being so hard on it
Mixing philosophy with humor is the way to go. It brings it down to how people talk and punctures pretension. It opens people up so they can be emotionally affected by logical arguments – it helps them feel the beauty in elegant arguments for truth.
And it’s a lot easier to be a friendly professor than a Smart Guy.
Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Grant Morrison – huge influences on me and my work and they barefacedly approach Deep Thoughts but mixed with humor it’s much more potent.
i’m especially in love with playful cartoony urban environments in games in general so the low scale on city continents that’s just gum and trash and coins is great
also just generally fun to half build your own loose little cities in other environs with the buildings you’ve previously picked up
While I don’t think video games that successfully explore philosophical ideas are as rare as he suggests, I’m always happy to see more. Just recently we’ve had The Talos Principle and SOMA. And I still find myself thinking about Continue?9876543210 periodically.
to be honest I think he leads with those kind of disclaimers because he’s a fairly serious academic who specializes in videogames (easily my favorite of this group of people) and he’s so tired of having to defend them. his books are very generous and uncynical! see if you can find “no one asked for a toaster critic” for free.
I’ve been burned enough that I come into his columns with my hackles raised, prepared for any ill-suited metaphor to castigate technology from a position of grouchiness