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Given the state of the plumbing in this place, I'd rather let my wounds fester on their own, too. Finding clean water and bandages in here would shatter my suspension of disbelief faster than having blood all over the main character. Mechanics talk: how many hits can you take before dying? Because so far in most escape sequences you're being whacked once or twice, which seems pretty harmless and in sharp contrast with the tone of the rest of the game. VVVV If it's that, and it seems to be, the game is pretty generous. I can see you dying if you get cornered, but at the speed the inmates move you can zip by them and probably heal before they come back. Fat Samurai fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 09:05
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If I had to make a guess, three hits is the magic number.
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Jun 27, 2014 09:15
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Fat Samurai posted:at the speed the inmates move you can zip by them and probably heal before they come back. In Penumbra: Black Plague, you can easily outrun most enemies, to the point of running rings around them without them being able to touch you. Same thing with the common enemies in Amnesia. The whole "don't look directly at the monsters, or you'll have a panic attack" mechanic is pretty good, but once you break the games, you break them hard.
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Jun 27, 2014 09:48
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Amnesia is extra silly because you can just hold a drawer in front of your face and the monsters won't be able to see you because you technically can't see them.
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Jun 27, 2014 10:04
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Cardiovorax posted:Amnesia is extra silly because you can just hold a drawer in front of your face and the monsters won't be able to see you because you technically can't see them. Even the water monster? BTW, that thing was brilliant. Even looking right at it you had no idea what it was, some kind of killer piranha or an invisible man or...who knows what. All we know is, it's noisy, hungry and can break down doors.
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Jun 27, 2014 11:18
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Speedball posted:Even the water monster? And yeah, the water monster section was so loving tense, best part of the game.
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Jun 27, 2014 11:28
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Fat Samurai posted:Given the state of the plumbing in this place, I'd rather let my wounds fester on their own, too. Finding clean water and bandages in here would shatter my suspension of disbelief faster than having blood all over the main character. Normal people take three hits. 'Main' stalkers, like Walker, execute Miles if you don't get away after one hit- I was very close to dying during the Walker segment. It's a lot more fun on the harder difficulties, but I wanted to give myself some room for error since my OCD means a death = rerecording the entire episode, and it's still easy enough to get cornered and killed. In the game's defense, it's still pretty challenging to survive when you don't know where to go/what to do. You are also slowed down when next to an enemy, when Miles raises his hands in fear. I died a few times my first go through the Trager segment, because they are also a lot faster than they seem when they want to be. DumbRodent fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 11:29
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DumbRodent posted:Normal people take three hits. 'Main' stalkers, like Walker, execute Miles if you don't get away after one hit- I was very close to dying during the Walker segment. It's a lot more fun on the harder difficulties, but I wanted to give myself some room for error since my OCD means a death = rerecording the entire episode, and it's still easy enough to get cornered and killed. This is what ups the ante in Whistleblower, as the amount of 'main' stalker characters is way upped.
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Jun 27, 2014 12:48
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Speedball posted:Even the water monster? Its actually possible to kill the water monster by just standing on a box and chucking enough poo poo at it. Amnesia relied heavily on the player playing in good faith essentially and not trying to peek behind the curtain, which is why you get the spiel at the beginning of the game about how its supposed to be more about immersion than winning and the developers did everything possible to keep you moving along. Once you get past the illusion, the game falls apart real fast. Outlast actually made me appreciate Amnesia's approach more. Trager's section is especially frustrating in that its hard to tell where you're supposed to go and the pushable cabinets can make it difficult to avoid him the first time around. Once you die a couple of times or just wander around lost for ten minutes while having to hide under a bed occasionally, the game stops being scary and just becomes irritating. There's no quicksaves so its not like you can just move along bit by bit.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:31
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1stGear posted:Its actually possible to kill the water monster by just standing on a box and chucking enough poo poo at it. Amnesia relied heavily on the player playing in good faith essentially and not trying to peek behind the curtain, which is why you get the spiel at the beginning of the game about how its supposed to be more about immersion than winning and the developers did everything possible to keep you moving along. Once you get past the illusion, the game falls apart real fast. Did Penumbra manage to avoid that? Penumbra seemed to have more 'mechanics' than Amnesia seems to (and since I play on consoles exclusively I've not played either game so I'm basing this on Let's Plays). Like you could technically kill enemies with a pick axe, but only the dogs since the alien mutant whatevers were...you couldn't, I guess, I dunno.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:21
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Did Penumbra manage to avoid that? Penumbra seemed to have more 'mechanics' than Amnesia seems to (and since I play on consoles exclusively I've not played either game so I'm basing this on Let's Plays). Like you could technically kill enemies with a pick axe, but only the dogs since the alien mutant whatevers were...you couldn't, I guess, I dunno. The first Penumbra episode, Overture, definitely had rough edges and the combat was a big part of the problem. The dog AI couldn't really attack vertically so it was trivially easy to sit on top of a box and beat them to death with a hammer. Indeed, that's what I always did first thing whenever I entered a new area because the alternative was tediously creeping around the maze-like environments. Instead, I got to sprint around the maze-like environments at top speed! Much better for immersion obviously.  There were also "gamey" elements like at one point having to run past a dog to escape into a loading screen (Outlast gameplay spoiler: Outlast also does this kinda: enemies can't reach you in the narrow opening Miles sidles through and those openings mark the start of several stalking sequences). The game also had a morse code puzzle and I don't remember it including a morse code guide so gently caress that noise.I was actually thinking about Overture when I made the post you quoted because while Overture had issues that dragged it down, it was still a good game and was the foundation for Penumbra: Black Plague which was a massive improvement (which was itself the foundation for Amnesia which I suspect will be the foundation for SOMA). Its a pretty good analogue to Outlast and hopefully Red Barrels will have a similar quality arc. 1stGear fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 17:01
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1stGear posted:The first Penumbra episode, Black Plague, definitely had rough edges and the combat was a big part of the problem. The dog AI couldn't really attack vertically so it was trivially easy to sit on top of a box and beat them to death with a hammer. Indeed, that's what I always did first thing whenever I entered a new area because the alternative was tediously creeping around the maze-like environments. Instead, I got to sprint around the maze-like environments at top speed! Much better for immersion obviously. Actually I've had Walker yank me out of a sidling space a few times...
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Jun 27, 2014 17:12
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1stGear posted:The first Penumbra episode, Black Plague It's the other way around. Overture is the first game with the wolves etc., and Black Plague is the sequel with the alien-looking dudes, the giant worm and so on.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:46
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DumbRodent posted:Actually I've had Walker yank me out of a sidling space a few times... Huh. I probably hadn't noticed that because I'm usually far enough ahead of them that I'm able to get through the whole space before they reach me. Well, they can't reach past them so the zone of safety still stands in a way. KozmoNaut posted:It's the other way around. Overture is the first game with the wolves etc., and Black Plague is the sequel with the alien-looking dudes, the giant worm and so on. Whoops, fixed.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:52
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I really liked the bit where you fled into a dead-end room to hide from Walker in the one closet that was in there, and he immediately found you. I think I literally said "oh come on, there's just one closet!", but videogame experience still made me expect he wouldn't check the closet.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:25
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davidspackage posted:I really liked the bit where you fled into a dead-end room to hide from Walker in the one closet that was in there, and he immediately found you. I think I literally said "oh come on, there's just one closet!", but videogame experience still made me expect he wouldn't check the closet. I was also impressed by that, until he just drops you to the floor and lets you run away while bellowing pointlessly. I mean, he's a trained soldier who apparently retains some semblance of a mind--enough to be issuing a containment order, after all. He had you on the floor, why didn't he stomp your brains in? You didn't even hurt him, so there's no excuse.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:45
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BottledBodhisvata posted:I was also impressed by that, until he just drops you to the floor and lets you run away while bellowing pointlessly. I mean, he's a trained soldier who apparently retains some semblance of a mind--enough to be issuing a containment order, after all. He had you on the floor, why didn't he stomp your brains in? You didn't even hurt him, so there's no excuse. Because dying from something like that on a first runthrough would be really frustrating, I guess. Also Miles' long staggering to his feet animation makes it extremely tense while actually playing. I'm willing to sacrifice a little 'realism' in my B-movie horror game for that experience. e: Also while poor Walker is certainly lucid enough to be mumbling something about a containment breach, he also considers 'containment' to be stuffing corpses into toilets and lining up the heads on shelves, and spends most of his time roaring. There's something about being towered over by him while stunned and cornered and having him bellow at the top of his lungs that does the situation justice a lot better than an abrupt game over. Miles being laid out in a corner for five seconds too long before staggering to his feet and barely skittering past the giant was actually a pretty cool moment, I thought... Just my two cents. DumbRodent fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 19:54
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To be fair Outlast only has one 'escape into a loading screen' and it's in the dlc.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:07
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Err, holy loving poo poo the first few seconds are just really loving uncomfortable to watch.
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Jun 28, 2014 00:45
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DumbRodent posted:Because dying from something like that on a first runthrough would be really frustrating, I guess. Fair enough, but I'd be a lot more terrified of a two minute sequence where I'm struggling to crawl away or get to my feet and a huge man is constantly stamping on my face until the vision splits and blood runs into your eyes and then it goes black and all your hear is CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH as your brain is mashed into goo.
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Jun 28, 2014 02:16
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Fair enough, but I'd be a lot more terrified of a two minute sequence where I'm struggling to crawl away or get to my feet and a huge man is constantly stamping on my face until the vision splits and blood runs into your eyes and then it goes black and all your hear is CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH as your brain is mashed into goo. You're a weird dude, you know that?
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Jun 28, 2014 22:41
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Crane Fist posted:You're a weird dude, you know that? I'm weird because I want my scary games to be scary?
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Jun 28, 2014 22:53
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You're just a little too... into it? Maybe?
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Jun 28, 2014 23:08
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Crane Fist posted:You're just a little too... into it? Maybe? Eh, maybe I'm just used to the viscerality of RE4 and Dead Space in that regard? Those games had chainsaw decapitations and Dead Space got plain surgical with its violent deaths. I mean, I'm also a big fan of the classic gore horror flicks too, so it's personal preference. But my point was more that I SHOULD feel into it--I should feel helpless and terrified, not mildly inconvenienced and easily able to escape. Since you have a first-person perspective, that should be worked with as an element of the terror. VVVV--I don't disagree, and I wasn't initially advocating MORE gore, but rather more viscerality and danger to the enemies. Make you have to do more to escape or have more horrible consequences to being caught, to reinforce the sense of helplessness that you face and to force you to have to play better to truly face your fears, yadda yadda. Something better than what we saw, at least. BottledBodhisvata fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 23:19
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There are no two minute long death scenes because it would be tedious as gently caress and not scary at all anymore by the third time you go through it. Gore is not the same as horror.
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Jun 28, 2014 23:22
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I would say that death scenes are an important element of survival horror. If a character you wish to see survive can die horribly with one mistake, it creates tension. It depends on how immersed the player is, though. The Last of Us was frightening to me primarily because of what happens if you blunder into a Bloater. With headphones on. The audio design of those death scenes was...  Outlast has its share of extremely unpleasant ways to die. Some are now sadly missing due to the QTE's being removed, though... shame because it does remove some of the tension I had from my first playthrough, but I'm sure Miles is grateful. 
DumbRodent fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 23:27
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DumbRodent posted:I would say that death scenes are an important element of survival horror. If a character you wish to see survive can die horribly with one mistake, it creates tension. It depends on how immersed the player is, though. He's probably grateful because that mouse wave QTE was finicky as gently caress.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:36
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Not really an update, but I felt like we could do with a small ~Intermission~. Just for fun. Actual update shouldn't take too long.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:46
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That was a rather interesting little showcase. I liked the dreamlike quality to a lot of the spooky stuff.
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Jun 30, 2014 20:25
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Interesting, aside from the kind of ghetto nature of the production budget on that one (I think this is due to it being early access) it seems more like my kind of game. I might have to check that one out!
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Jun 30, 2014 22:53
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DumbRodent posted:Not really an update, but I felt like we could do with a small ~Intermission~. Just for fun. I swear I saw something walking by one of the cubicles in the office. Long spindly legs. Creepy. But an atmospheric horror game with no flashlight? Nope nope nope.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:56
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RickVoid posted:But an atmospheric horror game with no flashlight? Nope nope nope. At least you had a bottle of Jack Daniel's. That has to count for something, right?
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Jul 1, 2014 01:12
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Eternal Darkness had a character with a hip flask full of liquid courage.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:16
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Just wanted to chime in and say I'm really digging your narration and presentation of the game so far. Also, Montas seems like an interesting psychological game. I hope it turns out well.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:28
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Kamoc/She sells she shells/Bob did a play through of montas. It would be a wonder if it ever stopped being awful.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:49
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Armadillo Tank posted:Kamoc/She sells she shells/Bob did a play through of montas. It would be a wonder if it ever stopped being awful. I seem to recall him also doing an amusing stream of Outlast and not liking it at all. I quite like both. Different strokes!
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Jul 1, 2014 04:16
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DumbRodent posted:I seem to recall him also doing an amusing stream of Outlast and not liking it at all. He did, and part of the problem was that in a group stream environment you can see the cracks in the experience much more starkly, because you're far less afraid and also have multiple sets of eyes with you. They acknowledge as much at one point. Outlast is...a mixed bag for me. It does very well at getting you tense and spooked when you're playing on your own, but the moment you stop being scared there's no real recovery mechanism. See: 1stGear posted:
It stops being scary and just starts getting dull and sort of sad. You can practically call the scares minutes in advance in some segments. I'll spoil this as it's an opinion of the greater plot, but the tone of the writing is utterly puerile as well, and doesn't trust you to put two and two together for anything. If you lose the atmosphere's grip on you - which the game can very easily do between 'look at this man loving the neck-hole of a decapitated corpse' or some other setpieces that are trying so hard that it just becomes funny - you realize that majority of what the game really has to back up its tone is a slightly scummy association between mental illness, psychotic violence, and gay rape with sprinkles of necrophilia. This gets wayyyy more apparent in the DLC. In less plot-related notes, the camera utterly hoovering batteries led to less of a feeling of powerlessness and more tedious annoyance and constantly flicking the camera on and off in an incredibly gamey fashion, and the level design is not conducive to running around avoiding dudes trying to murder you, which may be the point but gets extremely old once you figure out an infallible hiding spot and spend fifteen minutes creeping around wondering where the gently caress you're supposed to go. Just so this isn't relentless bitching, Outlast does do a remarkable job of making you feel hunted and terrified so long as you don't accidentally peek behind any curtains, the ability to see Miles's body and feel your general sense of existing as a whole, vulnerable entity is great, a lot of the issues with fear in a game are loving hard to address elegantly, and I really like people experimenting with ways to give you the illusion of power in a horror game only to make it prove futile. Many of the rough spots in the game could easily be sanded down and polished, and so I won't write off anything they do next. I just personally hope they don't pick up Max Edgemaster for the script again.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:31
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So, it sounds like this game has the same issues as Amnesia, but turned up to 11 in every way, from the suspension of disbelief to the failure state problems to the penises.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:42
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Discendo Vox posted:So, it sounds like this game has the same issues as Amnesia, but turned up to 11 in every way, from the suspension of disbelief to the failure state problems to the penises. It's almost like Amnesia in a funhouse mirror - the good parts are magnified, but boy howdy so are the ugly ones, and it's up to you to decide whether or not that wrecks it.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:48
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Well, I get scared very easily, and I'm honestly amazed and impressed that people can 'look behind the curtain' as you put it, Daeren. Mind you, I get easily immersed in my games- hell, I can't play any of the games in the FEAR series without keeping my eyes halfway shut, and I hear they're pretty low on the scary scale
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Jul 2, 2014 14:06
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