almost 1CC’d Ninja Saviors but died on the last boss
This comparison can be applied all throughout games, but I think it’s clearest to see this distinction in 3D level design. To contrast spaces that are spatially coherent, adapted into play spaces, next to spaces that are abstract, functional tunnels, dressed to look like they have purpose.
Every game bends its spaces towards function but the extent to which it does is highly revealing of how tightly it wants to control the player’s experience. It’s Thief next to Splinter Cell. It’s Hitman next to Last of Us. It’s Far Cry next to Call of Duty.
There’s a common thread and language adopted between Disney park designers and game level design and I think that theme park heritage directly shapes into propulsive, dressed spaces.
I started up Valkyria Chronicles 4 and it is immediately less compelling with characters/story. But, the sweet gameplay!
*I’m actually probably gonna backburner it, If I can get Growlanser to save without freezing.
It’s worth noting that a lot of Hollow Knight can be completed in any order and in fact some encounters with NPCs can be entirely missed depending on how you tackle things. This happened to me! There’s apparently a beloved NPC I have never seen and for some reason I don’t mind it. My journey was lonelier.
So I want to encourage you to think less about making wrong turns even if you aren’t constantly progressing, at least.
This reminds me of when I played Shadow of The Colossus. thought I was just exploring around only to find out----I’d mostly explored many of the arenas where you fight colossi.
yes!!! this also confirms why i had such a viscerally negative reaction to resident evil 7, because it’s such a theme park style of design. obviously that game explicitly simulates the semi-on-rails chased-through-a-series-of-tightly-scripted-pathways haunted house thing, but it’s a sensation that extends to all sorts of genres and styles. it’s ironic that yu suzuki loves theme parks so much but the shenmue games have so little of that dna (at least on the spatial design level). on the other hand, i don’t think “corridors” are necessarily inherently the problem. like, i feel like splinter cell/the last of us/call of duty rarely get accused of “linearity” the way less “propulsive” games do, because the objection is mostly over the impression of loss of agency which the theme park style carefully suppresses or sublimates. but the agency is equally illusory in an “emergent” open world game with lots of decisions-with-consequences…
wish I had a screenshot of where I killed him and got hit at the same time and can confirm that, no, the tie is not in your favor
genuinely curious, what do adventure games do for you, then?
i just… for me it’s hard to find value in a game that doesn’t allow me to forget where/who i am in reality. i guess action titles can do this through instilling a sheer single-minded goal focus (though i’m not sure you would call it immersion if i am hardly taking in any surroundings, not even virtual); but otherwise, worlds are why i come to games
sorry this is quite a tangent
the physical setting is not the only thing that causes “immersion”
if I’m slappin virgil in DMC3 I am invested in the characters and the stakes as well as getting a sweet smokin sick style
if boss dies, all is well
if you also die, story is bad end
played 100% Orange Juice last night with @HOBO and lemme tell you
you know a board game is good when the “basics” section of your “how to play” is 43 pages
every few years my aunt thinks it would be a good idea for us to play one of these board games at Christmas and it always ends in screaming and tears
also if anybody else wants to get on this Moe Culdcept train, I would love to have a four player match
i don’t have much of a capacity for escapism to begin with, and i’m not great with goal-oriented motivation either. this is why i didn’t play videogames for most of my childhood and teen years, and why the vast majority still don’t appeal to me, because their industrial production is overwhelmingly focused on satisfying one of those two needs. they really stressed me out! but those i love, i love for similar reasons that i love other artworks. i find them beautiful and interesting to play, watch and think about. it can be wonderful when art shakes your sense of self, or allows for embodied connection, or offers space to focus, think and feel outside of the demands of ordinary reality, but i think that’s distinct from “immersion” in the way it’s usually meant for videogames. maybe this sounds cold or clinical but i really don’t mean it that way, i have strong emotional attachments to the games i love!
like adorno says: “the bourgeois want art voluptuous and life ascetic; the reverse would be better.”
I guess it depends upon how you define “immersion”.
For me, if I essentially forget about the extraneous thoughts in my head and/or the world/space/noise/etc around me, that’s immersion.
Jesus christ there is a ton of bickering, complaining, and trashing eachother in the Valkyria Chronicles 4 script.
I love the gameplay-----when you actually get to a battle. But there’s a ton of time wasted on this soap opera BS. VC1 was more about actual story. And a lot of it was actually pretty compelling.
I tried to play a peasant farmer that narced on their sister in that AI text adventure deal
it wasn’t quite seamless
eventually a man appeared with a gun so I was like “take gun from man” and the ensuing description was “you take the gun and immediately shoot him in the head” then someone congratulated me on my awesome kill so I guess
it’s a good microcosm of videogames
Move over Outer Wilds, this is the real game of the year