one jug of urine is probably enough for me
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Well, I figured out what to do with all the beacons lit. Not sure where itâs going to lead, but Iâm interested again.
Broco> Iâve seen it too, thatâs the frog fractiony thing I was talking about
I mean, keep in mind that I for one missed those audio logs entirely and the core experience of playing the game is very good â intensely smart and thorough puzzle design and a really nice environment to explore.
I agree that âfreshman philosophyâ writing is a big problem in games like this that are trying to be smart. blow didnât help himself when he tried namedropping gravityâs rainbow in an interview recently (particularly after it was clear that wasnât a joke, because it wouldâve been a pretty good joke), because gravityâs rainbow is actually funny and clever and does not take itself too seriously, and itâs also an issue with tom jubertâs work in my experience, though the swapper similarly succeeded on straightforward design and aesthetics even if the obvious references to dennett made me wince. as I said, I honestly donât think the witness wouldâve been harmed by being more narratively forthcoming. but braid was a pretty straightforward game that told a weird/dumb story about stalking a woman, and the comparative volume of work that went into this one is far from wasted just because of a narrative thatâs (arguably) alternately overbearing and vague.
(not to undercut braidâs success at teaching puzzles mechanics satisfying and succinctly, or hellmanâs art!)
Iâm actually sympathetic to the idea of dropping in a bunch of quotes and clips of smart people monologuing on the themes you want to convey â âonly connectâ and all of that â and calling it a story. but, again, blow does himself few favours.
I also want to float the possibility that weâre basically accusing a person who may be on the autism spectrum of being somewhat gauche and passing that off as criticism, which may not be the best possible approach
But he did do the legwork. That makes them a mildly irritating wart more than a game-sinking weakness.
Also, the quotes are not really from Important People. Theyâre carefully selected lines (carefully selected to be on-the-nose, that is) from people who mostly barely qualify for their own Wikipedia article. Theyâre irritating, but at least none of them is from Einstein.
Heh, one of them is literally Einstein.
I ignored whatever narrative was in this game, much like I ignored whatever narrative was in Braid.
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âŚ
I shouldâve known.
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I donât think he said that.
Just like how people shouldnât have dismissed the puzzles as âjust being mazesâ, you should preferably hear all the audio logs before passing judgement on them. Iâm not saying itâs earth shattering but thereâs a tiny bit more to them narratively than meets the eye (the ear?).
My score is up to 518+132+4 and Iâve got both achievements. The game offered me two very different takes on climactic moments one after the other and I like it all the more for it. one puzzle seemed kinda like trolling at first but itâs some of the finest trolling youâll ever experience and it pays tribute to something I like a lot and aspire to game design-wise.
Now I must hunt for the last crumbs Iâm missing. Those are on the mountain obelisk, one that kinda looks like an open door with the circle at its feet, with its placement suggesting itâs in the tetramino area. The other two are on the town obelisk. One looks a bit like a ruined house topâs silhouette that should be in town, and the other is a line from left to right with a square indentation that should be around the starting area. I think there must be something more because right now I know something I canât account for. So itâs a puzzle drought again but having come this far, how could I bring myself to look them up?
Once all is said and done weâre gonna have to resurrect the Icebergvania topic, thereâs some serious food for thought in this game.
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that is not at all what I was saying. I was trying to point out that the linked criticism youâre enthusiastically endorsing without having played the game or engaging with the discussion already here seems to only address the tone (and one facet of it at that), which in the context of this game is not that significant, and does so by pointing out something that blow is consistently, stereotypically bad at.
we have a whole other vocabulary to perhaps articulate why he succeeds in this medium but seems poorly suited to others. I think weâre laying it on a little thick in cases like these. Iâm not saying we need to treat him with a beautiful mind-style kid gloves, but the paste magazine piece seems willfully obtuse.
Since you mentioned Frog Fractions, it reminds me of Frog Fractionsâ creatorâs GDC talk on how to create a sense of mystery in your game: Video: Frog Fractions creator finds value in keeping secrets . Key points are âexclusion [i.e. accepting some large proportion of players will miss content] is a strengthâ and have âfalse ceilingsâ.
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I think Iâve found what is the final challenge in the game. Itâs uhhh really fucking hard. I tried for like two hours on it. Iâm making progress, so I donât think itâs unbeatable, but shit man. I think I know exactly how it works, itâs just a matter of actually doing it. @Chevluh, youâve beaten this? Holy fuck.
Holy shit this fucking astronaut monologue doesnât fucking end. It is literally ten minutes long.
I just found two tapes. I hope I will never find any more. This shit is terrible.
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Well, I kind of liked the one in the shipwreck. Itâs the only one whose tone isnât either reverent or didactic. Itâs also less obvious how exactly it thematically connects to the rest of the game.
oh yeah, I did find that one! totally forgot. That one and Richard Feynman talking about wine, which my wife thought was hilariously insufferable
Yeah by the end of the astronaut one, both my wife and I were punctuating each momentary pause with our best impression of Julianne Moore in Magnolia saying âshutthefuckupâ over and over.