Holy fucking shit I've been looking for that guy forever since I remembered watching his Ocarina of Time review thanks man.
[QUOTE=Warriorx4;41902087]Like I said a gross simplification. I mean fuck I've been trying to write out all the factors that affect the success/backlash of Dear Esther for the last 12 minutes but I can't really do it coherently.[/QUOTE]
It was a way of providing a story typically found in a short story or maybe a short film in a different medium
it succeeded in what it did, but apparently that's not enough because it 'sucked' for whatever reason
p.s. if dear esther was a short film it'd get some crazy praise, which is funny how it shows that us as an industry just haven't matured enough to allow something like that to co-exist with things with actual -gameplay-
[QUOTE=Drewsko;41898108]Heh. This was possible with the age-old classic Myst, too:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAh8F6u_dPE[/media][/QUOTE]
Myst is slightly harder to do by accident though
At least in Riven they randomized all codes
For people who are saying this is like Dear Esther, it's not.
I personally hated Dear Esther because I found its writing style very unappealing, most of its elements seemed completely random (scribblings! glowing paint! weeee!) and it left that feeling of "Do I not get it? Or is there nothing 'to get'?"
Gone Home is completely different. It builds a story of an entire family through stuff lying around in their house.
If you're not interested in how games can actually build narrative/story/whateverthecorrecttermhere differently from other media, if you're not interested in things without challenge and fail-states, if you're not interested in stories about people, then don't play it. You won't like it.
And that's totally fine. But what's the point of calling it shit and garbage? What are you afraid of?
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;41902212]It was a way of providing a story typically found in a short story or maybe a short film in a different medium
it succeeded in what it did, but apparently that's not enough because it 'sucked' for whatever reason
p.s. if dear esther was a short film it'd get some crazy praise, which is funny how it shows that us as an industry just haven't matured enough to allow something like that to co-exist with things with actual -gameplay-[/QUOTE]
No, if Dear Esther was a film it would be yet another boring 2deep4u student film barely suitable for art house trash. Just like if Gone Home was a novel it would be the kind of young adult story you'd study in High School because they thought you might like the message of it.
At most this is an experiment in storytelling bordering a VN for interactivity, or maybe it's seeing how dull you can make an adventure/horror game if you take out all the puzzles and make the story about something mundane. Really though almost all of the people saying it sucked are the reaction to people who claim it's revolutionary and the embodiment of art when it gets a zero in an undeniably important aspect for the medium. The internet really likes cutting down those who get undeserved praise after all.
[QUOTE=Kljunas;41902060]So essentially the problem is that Dear Esther is called a game? And your criticism would vanish if it was called otherwise?
Dear Esther is basically a landscape and a story portrayed in a non-traditional art form. The things you can criticise about it are: the aesthetics, the writing and the choice of the medium (e.g. it would be better if it was a film).
If you complain about the lack of gameplay it's like if you look at a photograph and say it's shit because it doesn't move.[/QUOTE]
There's no reason you can't tell a story and still have well crafted gameplay, if you're going to discard or severely downplay the only unique aspect of the medium, why not just make a film instead? The gameplay doesn't have to be "kill enemies, get powerups", but it should still be something substantial. If you're using an interactive medium, the level of interactivity should be open to criticism.
How is this accidental at all? The player clearly knows where to go.
[QUOTE=Devodiere;41902368]Really though almost all of the people saying it sucked are the reaction to people who claim it's revolutionary and the embodiment of art[/QUOTE]
I really hope that's the case because it would be quite sad if the kneejerk reaction to anything that's different stays like this.
Dear Esther was beautiful. If you think it was pretentious you need to look up what that word means. It was just a monologue put into an interactive form and it did it really well.
[QUOTE=Fake-XM;41902466]I really hope that's the case because it would be quite sad if the kneejerk reaction to anything that's different stays like this.[/QUOTE]
People didn't care much for Dear Esther and let it pass because everyone understood it was niche and no-one cared much. There's been quite a few other indie games that have followed a similar pattern, even Anna with its convoluted puzzles is very similar, no-ones that worried about them. There was even Catherine which was damn good. The problems only start coming when the reviews give it high scores for no reason but hype, it's praised and recommended to people who obviously won't like it, and Tumblr social justice leaks everywhere with people thinking a female protagonist and a story about lesbians is inherently amazing.
Think of Skyrim or even Angry Birds, they have their charms and do some things well enough to get appeal, but start claiming they're the best thing ever and it just shows ignorance deserving of being put down. It's a natural part of any community, even well liked things like Dark Souls need to be taken down so they don't get a big head.
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;41902212]It was a way of providing a story typically found in a short story or maybe a short film in a different medium
it succeeded in what it did, but apparently that's not enough because it 'sucked' for whatever reason
p.s. if dear esther was a short film it'd get some crazy praise, which is funny how it shows that us as an industry just haven't matured enough to allow something like that to co-exist with things with actual -gameplay-[/QUOTE]
Why even make it a game if all you're going to do is listen to a narrative and look at pretty environments. At that point it's basically just become a film that inconveniences it's audience by requiring them to hold down the W key. If a game doesn't have any gameplay, it's not really much of a game is it? So what's the point? What does being a game [I]add[/I]?
[QUOTE=Memobot;41902467]Dear Esther was beautiful. If you think it was pretentious you need to look up what that word means. It was just a monologue put into an interactive form and it did it really well.[/QUOTE]
It was literally horrible. Have
you even played it?. The writing was fucking atrocious.
[QUOTE=Geikkamir;41902604]Why even make it a game if all you're going to do is listen to a narrative and look at pretty environments. At that point it's basically just become a film that inconveniences it's audience by requiring them to hold down the W key. If a game doesn't have any gameplay, it's not really much of a game is it? So what's the point? What does being a game [I]add[/I]?[/QUOTE]
It was a test to see if a medium like videogames could be used to present a story like that
People get way too worked up over "omg it has no gameplay" but it never ONCE advertised itself as such.
If you thought it would be in any form a game then you deserved to lose that money, because you very obviously did no research prior.
[QUOTE=Devodiere;41902556]Think of Skyrim or even Angry Birds, they have their charms and do some things well enough to get appeal, but start claiming they're the best thing ever and it just shows ignorance deserving of being put down.[/QUOTE]
Probably because they're the best thing in a specific aspect. So those who care about it declare it the best thing ever, the rest of the thing is filler. Those who care about the "filler" parts and would never consider the other aspect as important only see hyped mediocrity. Something like that?
So here we have a game that only focuses on its strongest aspect, no filler and because of that irritates people who look for tight feedback loops and reactionary interacticity. Those see the entire game as empty. "A game has...", "A game needs...", "It's not a game if..."
Review-sites are kinda weird. Imagine a music-site where they post about everything. The metalheads get fed the latest dirtydubstep mixes while the opera-fan weeps in the corner.
[QUOTE=Geikkamir;41902604]Why even make it a game if all you're going to do is listen to a narrative and look at pretty environments. At that point it's basically just become a film that inconveniences it's audience by requiring them to hold down the W key. If a game doesn't have any gameplay, it's not really much of a game is it? So what's the point? What does being a game [I]add[/I]?[/QUOTE]
Well that always depends on how well made it is. To The Moon has a very nice story, and while it works as a game, I feel like it would have been a better... thing as something more direct, like an animated movie or something.
I don't know if Dear Esther would have worked as a film, I doubt it. (I doubt it worked as a game, so eh)
Gone Home would never ever work as a movie, ever. And gameplay is a very very broad term. You can apply "gameplay" to Twitter or Facebook or Facepunch if you really want to...
The "gameplay" in Gone Home is to find stuff, look at it, decide its worth, understand what it is, link it to other stuff, and let it build the story in your head that way. The audio-journals are more direct, that might be where the comparisons to Dear Esther come from.
[QUOTE=Fake-XM;41902699]Probably because they're the best thing in a specific aspect. So those who care about it declare it the best thing ever, the rest of the thing is filler. Those who care about the "filler" parts and would never consider the other aspect as important only see hyped mediocrity. Something like that?
So here we have a game that only focuses on its strongest aspect, no filler and because of that irritates people who look for tight feedback loops and reactionary interacticity. Those see the entire game as empty. "A game has...", "A game needs...", "It's not a game if..."
Review-sites are kinda weird. Imagine a music-site where they post about everything. The metalheads get fed the latest dirtydubstep mixes while the opera-fan weeps in the corner.[/QUOTE]
Or some people like their games to have "interactivity" or "gameplay systems" in their games, weird huh.
Really though unless you go for fighting games or eSports, it's the complete package rather than just focussing on one aspect of the game. Spec Ops does a lot of things right but the gameplay doesn't live up to it and that's a perfectly valid flaw in it. In the same way Gone Home may have the overdone indie 2deep4u theme, but doesn't even manage the most basic interactivity.
I'd liken it more to a music site known for being a bit dubious but they really raved about one metal album, irregularly so given how they usually crap on them for menial things. You don't mine the genre so you try it out and find that they don't have percussion of any kind and every second song is just farting noises mixed with the artist's girlfriend's poetry readings. And then when you complain about it you are told it never advertised itself as being a proper album and you deserve to lose that money because you very obviously did no research prior
[QUOTE=Devodiere;41902914]Or some people like their games to have "interactivity" or "gameplay systems" in their games, weird huh.[/quote]
It seems you're rather having a problem with what the interactivity and "gameplay system" [B]is[/B] in this game. And because of that you declare it as nonexistant. Which I don't understand at all.
Let me outline again what you do in this game:
You navigate the house
looking for interesting things to inspect
you can interact with basically every object
upon interaction you value its importance and if it has any meaning
you figure out the meaning
you put the meaning in context
you try to link it to the slowly building story
you get a feeling for the characters, etcetc
A lot of that is in your head. Some people don't really go for that, so it's quite unlikely they'll like the game. But saying there is no interactivity when all you're doing is walking around interacting with stuff is a bit far fetched. You don't [I]re[/I]act to anything, nothing in this game prompts you to do anything. Seems like this gets mistaken for interactivity. "There's a gap. I have to jump over it!"
[QUOTE=Devodiere;41902914]
Really though unless you go for fighting games or eSports, it's the complete package rather than just focussing on one aspect of the game.[/quote]
Here the complete package reinforces the story, what I meant with "one aspect". And the gameplay, investigating, fits it perfectly. You build the story in your head.
[QUOTE=Devodiere;41902914]
In the same way Gone Home may have the overdone indie 2deep4u theme, but doesn't even manage the most basic interactivity.
[/QUOTE]
I have to admit I missed if you played the game, but "overdone indie 2deep4u theme"? All the story arcs are rather simple once you've pieced them together. And because they're well written they're nuanced and relatable, some more than others (also depending on the player).
And learning about the stories is achieved with "the most basic interactivity", choosing where to go and picking things up to inspect them.
[QUOTE=Devodiere;41902914]
I'd liken it more to a music site known for being a bit dubious but they really raved about one metal album, irregularly so given how they usually crap on them for menial things. You don't mine the genre so you try it out and find that they don't have percussion of any kind and every second song is just farting noises mixed with the artist's girlfriend's poetry readings. And then when you complain about it you are told it never advertised itself as being a proper album and you deserve to lose that money because you very obviously did no research prior[/QUOTE]
Sounds like Dear Esther and the majority of Twine games to me
[QUOTE=Tucan Sam;41899078]Wait so you are saying people people can't criticize "art"?[/QUOTE]
you have to at least have a minescule understanding of what the artist is hoping to accomplish and their methods before you do. beyond that the only "critique" presented so far is that it's "not a game" or that you "don't do anything" WHICH IS THE POINT OF THE GAME! That is a compliment! That is what they were going out to accomplish
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=JustGman;41899400]When I think of stupid pretentious art "games" I think of stuff like this, or that Trauma thing.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73l1VfzeRYY[/media]
There's nothing to do, there's no point, it's just empty.[/QUOTE]
this is a legitimately pretentious game but not for the reasons outlined here...
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Geikkamir;41899607]Generally a game needs to do more than just look pretty for me to enjoy it. I guess that's it though, that kind of game might just not be for me. Maybe for some people having a game that's literally just a glorified art gallery (That sounds way more aggressive than I mean it to) is enjoyable. I can't really blame someone for just wanting to enjoy pretty environments.
I dunno, I feel like you should be able to have a game that has artistic merit without having gameplay that's utterly uninteresting, or hell in the case of Dear Esther, practically non-existant. But I guess for the kind of person that games like these are intended for that doesn't really bother them.[/QUOTE]
i appreciate you realizing that it is not an objectively bad game. your trash is my treasure. i can appreciate something that you can not.
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Ray-The-Sun;41899987]Not having played this, it looks like it falls in the same space as Dear Esther and its ilk; and I have a real beef with games like that. I hate the narrative. They have stories which are just spoon-fed to you in bits as you walk in a pretty map, and they're not supported by any mechanics. And I'm not saying I hate a lack of gameplay, because adventure games have a horrible lack of gameplay but still manage to involve their mechanics in the narrative (the puzzle solving mechanics allow you to get a feel for how your characters [I]thinks[/I], and it can be used to great effect).
And the other problem I have- the one that most people describe as pretension- is that you can never shake the feeling that the game is [I]trying[/I] to be art. Now, I'm not here to argue what is and isn't art, but I think the best art is incidental. When you try to create art, it ends up feeling (at least in my opinion) false and manufactured, which completely halts any attempts at immersion.
Now, I've yet to play this (and for twenty dollars I doubt I ever will), but what I've been seeing about it definitely make it look like it's that kind of game.[/QUOTE]
this is absurd. paintings are "trying" to be art. that's what they are. all games are art, as well, these games are just a different type of game in that they are much more easier to compare to other forms of art.
play the game before you judge it, regardless
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=EcksDee;41902153][url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST25ur3JSMU]Here have a video that properly outlines my thoughts on Dear Esther and Journey in a more articulate way than I ever could. It's really good go subscribe to him.[/url][/QUOTE]
"i dont really have an opinion on this, im just mad, so here is someone else that explains why they are mad so i can say i feel mad for the same reasons they do, even though i truly do not know why i am mad."
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=EcksDee;41902622]It was literally horrible. Have
you even played it?. The writing was fucking atrocious.[/QUOTE]
it barely even has any writing, how can you even critique what little there is? there is no point of reference, nothing to compare it to. saying the "writing is atrocious" is complete bullshit because I KNOW you can not articulate why you think that other than "it's confusing" or something equally vague.
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
this "metal" album metaphor is absurd as well. it's like buying an ambient instrumental album and then complaining it has no lyrics or vocals. you didn't do the fucking research.
You studied art at some point in your life, didn't you?
I bought Gone Home without looking at any reviews, went through everything in 2 hours, and loved every minute of it. After the last monologue, I kind of just sat in front of my computer, not saying anything for a good 5 minutes. One of the best games I have played all year. Worth every penny.
What some people on Facepunch are not understanding is that nobody tried to label the game as Art or anything like that. It is just a point and click game that got very good reviews. Do the reviews call the game Art? The ones I read did not, at least.
Play it for what it is, and if you like those kinds of games, you will love it. If you do not like point and click games like this, then don't play it. It is that simple.
I bet the people complaining about Dear Esther never even played it. And those that did never even noticed all the ghosts.
[QUOTE=Mr Shadyface;41908845]You studied art at some point in your life, didn't you?[/QUOTE]
what?
so uh hey did you guys play The Walking Dead
because honestly if this counts as pretentious (or is guilty of being "an artsy game for the sake of being an artsy game instead of a game that is artistic" (what does that even mean?)), then tWD would fall under that exact same definition despite very clearly not being a bad game
and this is why pretentious is such a shitty word
It's great that such a variety of games can exist. Completely mechanic and gameplay-driven games can sit alongside story-driven 'interactive experiences' in the Steam store. And people can buy the games they like and enjoy them. People saying games like this are pretentious can go play games with scores and life-bars if they want, because there's plenty of them.
Any game can be broken. Score based games could be broken like this by using Cheat Engine and just changing the hex values. But it's all about the experience and enjoyment you get from playing them.
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;41902212]It was a way of providing a story typically found in a short story or maybe a short film in a different medium
it succeeded in what it did, but apparently that's not enough because it 'sucked' for whatever reason
p.s. if dear esther was a short film it'd get some crazy praise, which is funny how it shows that us as an industry just haven't matured enough to allow something like that to co-exist with things with actual -gameplay-[/QUOTE]
I'd prefer to read dear esther as a book, or watch it as a film, instead of holding down the W key and slowly walk through the story on my big bulky computer.
If I want to read a book I'll read a book, if I want to play a game, I'll play a game, but I don't want to play a book.
[QUOTE=Frugle;41902402]How is this accidental at all? The player clearly knows where to go.[/QUOTE]
Apparently the spot where you get the key was meant to be something you discover after piecing together all the clues and so forth, but - realistically - the devs didn't put anything to inhibit finding the secret wall even on a fresh new run of the game. The player seemed to of beaten it before and decided to test the wall, which is why he suddenly burst into laughter because he realized the game could be 'beaten', for all it means in a game like this that focuses more around piecing together the mystery rather than just going straight to the finish, so quickly.
A game can totally not really have gameplay and be nothing but quicktime events (or no events at all), as long as it has a good story, good visuals or sounds to make up for it.
But most artsy games I see are idiotic because they try to aim for something they're not, it's like reading a shitty book with crappy writing that reeks of "2deep4u", but since the "artsy games" industry has barely anything out, most fans of the genre will cling on to the opinion that if someone didn't like the game, they simply aren't smart enough to understand it, masking the fact that most of these games are full of pretentious bullshit.
It was too vague for it's own good - sure it kind of warns you on Steam with the families "struggles to deal with uncertainty, heartache, and change." but I expected something more like the Saloman family, a depressing story ending with a wealthy man becoming a hermit in his large home where everything stayed the same since the late 70's. This is why I bought the game. I didn't spoil it for myself even though I'd be 17 dollars richer if I did. Safe to say the story is not original and can be pieced together in the first 25 minutes of it's[B] TWO HOURS[/B] of gameplay.
Someone said Dear Esther would be better in a book format, same goes for this: It may be very different for games - a story like this in a game like this has never really been done before, but other sources of media are well populated with stories such as the ones told in the plot. Thats what I found disappointing, the familiarity.
[QUOTE=Cone;41909465]so uh hey did you guys play The Walking Dead
because honestly if this counts as pretentious (or is guilty of being "an artsy game for the sake of being an artsy game instead of a game that is artistic" (what does that even mean?)), then tWD would fall under that exact same definition despite very clearly not being a bad game
and this is why pretentious is such a shitty word[/QUOTE]
it's just "easy" and lazy, the way most people used it. there are still a fair amount of games that are legitimately "pretentious" in what they set out to do
[QUOTE=Vedicardi;41908570]
"i dont really have an opinion on this, im just mad, so here is someone else that explains why they are mad so i can say i feel mad for the same reasons they do, even though i truly do not know why i am mad."[/QUOTE]
What the fuck are you talking about, are you legitimately retarded?
I'm not fucking good with words so I gave you a video of someone who is able to represent 98% of what I think of the game in a coherent fashion.
There is literally nothing wrong with me doing that.
[editline]21st August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Cone;41909465]so uh hey did you guys play The Walking Dead
because honestly if this counts as pretentious (or is guilty of being "an artsy game for the sake of being an artsy game instead of a game that is artistic" (what does that even mean?)), then tWD would fall under that exact same definition despite very clearly not being a bad game
and this is why pretentious is such a shitty word[/QUOTE]
TWD is a game with a good story and proper gameplay elements.
That's why I posted the video, like I said, I'm not good with words.
What I mean is Gone Home and Dear Esther are games made to illicit some response from the gaming community that goes along the lines of "Oh dear this game is so artistic and beautiful". They're cashing in on the fact that shitty writing in a new interactive medium is not criticized as much as it would be in a book or movie.
A game that is artistic is journey which actually gets an emotional response from the player AND doesn't sacrifice gameplay in order to do it.
[editline]21st August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=duckmaster;41910498]I'd prefer to read dear esther as a book, or watch it as a film, instead of holding down the W key and slowly walk through the story on my big bulky computer.
If I want to read a book I'll read a book, if I want to play a game, I'll play a game, but I don't want to play a book.[/QUOTE]
Truth be told IMO there's nothing inherently wrong with what Dear Esther did with itself. Walking around and getting bombarded with words is just fine. The problem is that the writing sucks and you can't form an emotional connection with the characters as a result.
you're not good with words but hey here's a paragraph and a half response to someone else. who do you think you're fooling?
[editline]21st August 2013[/editline]
this game good... this game bad. and again, "the writing sucks" with no explaination. you can't even bother to paraphrase the video, just "this is good, this is bad."
-you
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