Mastodawn

The Outer Wilds - I get recommended this over and over, I know it’s a huge hit, a cult classic, and beloved to many people. I finally got it and gave it a real solid attempt, several times so far. I understand the gameplay loop I guess, the repeating, the weird ship flying. I mean, I appreciate it and love that people are experimenting with new ways to make games that break old molds. I really like the atmosphere and maybe if I were a lot younger it would feel fresh and interesting.

But I never really started having fun, never really connected with the characters or the world, I never got hooked. Everything felt like a janky obstacle instead of progression and reward.

Maybe I’ll try it again sometime, but maybe it’s possible some games just don’t rub me right.

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aliceblossom Mar 7

I agree, but I would go beyond just “a game I don’t like” to a much more controversial “this game is actually terribly designed”.

Because of the way it’s designed it’s possible to randomly end up with a completely awful experience that ruins its “one time” playability for forever. I know this because it’s what happened to me. See, in my very first time out I ended up at like a 70% progression point to the final answer. Not because I’m “smart” or “good” mind you, I just got “lucky”. But it’s not actually lucky, because it now means 70% of the game is useless to me. It won’t help me get closer to the answer and it will (very frustratingly) take me back to where I’ve already been.

I think most people would counter saying the world itself is interesting/worth exploring on its own. But in one run I didn’t at all become engaged with the world itself (which is very reasonable). Certainly not enough to give a fuck about trying to go out and learn about it for its own sake. If it had taken me more runs to actually make progress then maybe I would’ve become engaged tangentially while working towards my goals. But alas. And FWIW, I did more than one run. I think overall I played the game for 3ish hours before getting fed up with going in circles.

If random chance can render most of your game not worth exploring, that’s bad design. Flat out.

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tatterdemalion Mar 7

I’m really curious how that happened if you don’t mind sharing in a spoiler.

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aliceblossom Mar 7

Sorry, it’s been years and I don’t really remember any details. I just picked somewhere that looked interesting found out some info. Then in subsequent runs I opted to head in different directions and they kept revealing information that pointed me back to where I had been the first time.

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TalkingFlower

Am I understanding that you mean certain important locations are not fenced off until you find the clues that lead to such locations? This game is pretty wide open. I certainly went to some “useless” location, but if I remember right, there is one very important location that you may just find “accidentally”.