OH SHIT I DID NOT KNOW THIS WAS ON PC OH YAY
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Was Below a failure? I see that they have tweaked the difficulty because it was almost unaccessible
Itâs funny that for a game I was so incredibly hyped for Iâve never played it and keep forgetting it exists
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3 years too late (the received buzz in 2013 was, "what if Dark Souls but as a Western 2D game?) and it wasnât even the first indie roguelike to try to apply minimalism to the genre, which I fundamentally believe doesnât work. Itâs stunning, though.
745 Steam reviews, 72% positive (a low number) = <100k unit sales across all platforms
4.7% of players have beaten the first boss
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So, the problem with Below is that the formula does not work for the masses, or the gameplay doesnât really work?
I agree itâs stunning visually
The gameplay doesnât work. The structure of repeated levels and paths is in tension with the minimalism because the setup isnât changing enough. The design hopes that player absorption and introspection can carry the difference â similar to the playerâs thoughts when traversing the world in Shadow of the Colossus, and that obscured interface design can provide a replacement to the learning and discovery of new items in every run. Thatâs not true!
So the proper way to play Below is to approach it like a no-continue NES game and just be very, very careful, and accept that failure means repeating yourself.
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Yeah, itâs perfectly clear now. I agree that itâs a kind of loop that is hard to enjoy. Pity, for such a wasted potential.
Of course, a game that fundamentally doesnât work can still be valuable and good. And completely functional art is usually boring.
I love Below and I love it more as a sister-game to a project I worked on which failed in many of the same ways.
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Not the same kind of game, obviously, but another game that is non-functional art is âI have no mouth and I must screamâ, which I found half broken but memorable at the same time.
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Do Steam refunds negatively affect the developer?
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I gather they donât. One developer even encouraged people to use refunds as a demo: arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/prey-developer-go-ahead-use-steam-refunds-to-demo-our-game/
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Simon Carless wrote about the various fees involved in turning your gross into your assets, and doesnât bring up any fees in regards to refunds, just an expectation that about 9% will be refunded:
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BTW a truly wild thing that is true is that with App Store refunds, Apple keeps their 30% cut. It turns into a debit subtracted from the devâs non-refunded revenue. If a brigade of angry users got the idea, they might be able to drive a devâs revenue to zero for a month with it
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Alien: Isolation is $10 on Steam. I love Alien and I like the idea of the game but how tightly executed is it? Is there a lot of filler crap/tedium/repetition or is it a lean and mean (under 20 hours) survival horror experience? Cuz I find it harder and harder to stick with bloated games these days and even 10 bucks isnât something I can casually spend right now. DOOM 2016 is maybe the last AAA-type game Iâve completed and that was about the right balance in terms of length and âfillerâ.
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There are some filler levels but itâs still less than 20 hours. Maybe 15 or so for a first time through? Not counting any of the expansions/dlc.
edit-How Long to Beat has it as under 15 if you rush through with 20-25 played leisurely which seems to match with my experience when I played it back when.
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Itâs a long game but I never felt like it was bloated to be honest. It isnât a monotonous game so I was usually pretty pleased with the progression and the ways they provided variety as the game went on. But I think Iâm in the minority with that thinking, most I hear is people saying the game is too long and doesnât deserve its length⌠so idk.
I got ~20 hours on steam, with several aborted early attempts through the first hour or two and finally one full playthrough.
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Right O. I always seem to take about 10-20% longer than How Long To Beat estimates. If the game has a pretty good pace though, Iâll probably bite.
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I hope you like it. There havenât been many, but I think it is one of the best survival horror games in the past 10 years. Itâs one of my favorite games in general.
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I loved it. It is excellent of getting to walk around Alien style structures. You could also do the DLC in the Nostroma.
It is too long but like every long video game if you broke that up over time and didnât try to slam it all in a week youâll do fine.
I found it really intense and could only handle 40 minute sessions a day so that worked out.
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My main criticism in 2014 was that there was too much human-on-human combat when really just the alien and perhaps some of the androids would have been plenty in terms of physical conflict.
So the notion that itâs padded or filled out unnecessarily will hinge on how you feel about having to fight off groups of human characters on board the quarantined space station in addition to the alien. It has great horror elements that stand on their own just fine. Adding combat in the mix isnât needed but I assume that Sega didnât just want an Alien-themed Amnesia clone.
edit-Also it looks like there are some spoilers in that review if youâre sensitive to that.
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