Say Anything About The Game You're Currently Playing...

[Legend]

Finished The Room Two. Big improvement over the first, I liked it a lot.

[SWORDF1SH]

Finished The Room Two. Big improvement over the first, I liked it a lot.

Here are my thoughts from when I played The Room games.

Played all 4 on The Room games and each felt unique. The first 2 were more about finding hidden switches and latches on containers (puzzle boxes) while the last 2 evolved into solving whole rooms rather than just boxes. It felt like each game improved with the series although you might be disappointed if you prefer the puzzle boxes but the dollhouse of the final game was the most rounded and most fun imo.

Also playing Gedonia because I felt like playing a simple old school RPG. Played a few hours and it's seems OK. Not played many RPGs so don't know how it compares but it's fun while also buggy.

I would say the first one is more "eye spy" while the following 3 are a mixture of both "eye spy" and logic.

[kitler53]

i've only play the room 1 but after playing it i bought the 2-4.   


i'm currently playing a monster's expedition.

i'm probably about half way though but this might be my favorite puzzle game since fez.  certainly a top 5 overall.   game seems soo simple at the surfce:
- push logs around
- cross to the next island

...but it's got a ton of depth.   
1. it's not linear.   i've definitely gotten blocked by an island i can't figure out but there is always an alternative path to follow
2. it's got a great balance of difficulties.   it's not just getting harder as you go.   some islands are really easy and others not so much.   this back-and-forth keeps the game refreshing.
3. unlike most puzzle games these days it doesn't just introduce a mechanic and play with it for 10 levels then abandon it.  things are introduced and explorered and then remixed with prior ideas.
4. there is a surprising amount of depth and nuance around pushing a lot.   the size, orientation, and interaction with other elements has a surprisingly large number of interactions and outcomes to consider

BUT,.. and this is the most important part for me:

5. it can be quite difficult to even know what puzzle you are even trying to solve.

this is soo critical to my enjoyment.   puzzle games really always loudly broadcast the goal and leave it to you to figure out how to do it.   that's not so true here.   yes the overall goal is obvious,.. get to the next island.   but most islands i look at i can devise at least 2-3 possible final outcomes that will get me there.   so then i find myself trying to solve for a solution they simply may not be possible.   some of the most joyful wins is when i though i had 2 possible outcomes to solve an island only to find there was a totally bonkers 3rd way i had no idea was even possible but became so obvious once i found it.


i'm soo obsessed with this game right now.   it's been a long time since a game had me this engaged with it.  

11/10

[Legend]

Here are my thoughts from when I played The Room games.

I finished The Room Three. I liked the second game better since it had better puzzles, but the third game was great at being more like a myst game. Pretty crazy how much the production value increases with each one.

The multiple endings were nice but most of the difficulty in the game was just from not seeing things. I got the third ending, then the first, and then spent ages until I noticed a tiny secret behind something that was already solved.

i'm soo obsessed with this game right now.   it's been a long time since a game had me this engaged with it.  

11/10

I don't think of myself as a fan of sokoban games but Monster's Expedition was great.

My only annoyances came from after I finished it and was going for 100% completion. I started to really hate the fog.

[Legend]

I'm playing zelda tears of the kingdom.

It kinda sucks compared to breath of the wild, but it's still pretty fun. Really feels like DLC or a fan mod since it's all over the place.

[SWORDF1SH]

It sucks that the developers of Islands of Insight have given up on it. It wasn't perfect but absolutely loved the concept, a concept which probably won't be done again by anybody and a slim to no chance the developers reverse their decision to right Islands of Insight off and develop this game into something special.

Did the developers right this game off to early?  They literally gave up on it a month into launch. A huge project that took years to make just abandoned. It's set up like a live service game so it's not like it's dead in the water. Live service game can take a while to build up users and with constant updates you can improve the game, bring in new player while keeping existing players engaged.  
This game had so much potential!
Still playing it. About 90 hours in and still stuff I want to do.

[Legend]

It sucks that the developers of Islands of Insight have given up on it. It wasn't perfect but absolutely loved the concept, a concept which probably won't be done again by anybody and a slim to no chance the developers reverse their decision to right Islands of Insight off and develop this game into something special.

Did the developers right this game off to early?  They literally gave up on it a month into launch. A huge project that took years to make just abandoned. It's set up like a live service game so it's not like it's dead in the water. Live service game can take a while to build up users and with constant updates you can improve the game, bring in new player while keeping existing players engaged.  
This game had so much potential!
Still playing it. About 90 hours in and still stuff I want to do.

Wow 90 hours? And this is a puzzle game?

[SWORDF1SH]

Wow 90 hours? And this is a puzzle game?

Yes, it's a decent sized open world and the puzzle types are repeated a lot. I'd say the main puzzle type is a grid based puzzle that you fill in with black and white square but the grid puzzles come in different variations with a variation of rules.
I'd say there are about 15 puzzle types, each repeated hundreds of times throughout the world a few having variations. There are logic puzzles like the grid based game, speed puzzles like glass mazes and visual/hidden objects puzzles.
Definitely not a game for everybody and definitely not perfect (especially the skill tree/upgrades) but it's a shame they are using this as a platform to build from. Also the name 'Islands of Insight' sucks  

[Legend]

Yes, it's a decent sized open world and the puzzle types are repeated a lot. I'd say the main puzzle type is a grid based puzzle that you fill in with black and white square but the grid puzzles come in different variations with a variation of rules.
I'd say there are about 15 puzzle types, each repeated hundreds of times throughout the world a few having variations. There are logic puzzles like the grid based game, speed puzzles like glass mazes and visual/hidden objects puzzles.
Definitely not a game for everybody and definitely not perfect (especially the skill tree/upgrades) but it's a shame they are using this as a platform to build from. Also the name 'Islands of Insight' sucks  

I don't mind the name. It's at least better than superland or whatever that game is.

[the-pi-guy]

I played an hour of Dark Souls. Wanted to see how well it would hold up for me.

It was awesome.
Which the first time I played, it took like 15 hours before I started really enjoying it.

But I was having more fun with DS1 than I was having with Elden Ring.

[Legend]

I played an hour of Dark Souls. Wanted to see how well it would hold up for me.

It was awesome.
Which the first time I played, it took like 15 hours before I started really enjoying it.

But I was having more fun with DS1 than I was having with Elden Ring.

Wow Elden Ring must stink!

[the-pi-guy]

Wow Elden Ring must stink!

Nah, it's definitely a great game.

It just doesn't offer a lot of what made the Souls games so fun.

To be honest, there are some silly reasons.

Like Uncharted 3, I felt a little bothered that they changed the pacing of the combat from 2.

It's kind of a similar thing with Elden Ring. There's lots of different weapons, but I haven't really found one that clicks with me. The game feels good, it doesn't feel great though.

It's all these little things, like how the character moves, and how quickly you can swing different swords. I haven't really found a sword in Elden Ring that really fits what I want (and I'm not sure there is one).

It's not necessarily enough for me, for a game to have the "right mechanics". There's also a feel aspect. 

And it bugs me a lot with Ghost of Tsushima. It has a number of similar combat mechanics to Dark Souls. I think one of the controller mapping even is the same as DS. But it's too loose.

[kitler53]

it's not that that eldin ring "stinks" it's just that the transition to open world made the game worse in every way.    this is kind of timely because i came here specifically to mention that i finally started playing spiderman and the executive summary is: open world game design still sucks.

spiderman (i'm on the first in case that wasn't clear).    reminds me a lot the batman arkham city.   overall the game is fine but the pacing of the main story line is not improved by the:
1. go here to start a mission
2. do a mission
3. now go here to start another mission   ...or if you prefer here is a check-list of 1,000 not very engaging activities you can grid!!

it might just be me sucking or whatever but the combat system isn't really clicking with me.   spiderman has soo many "assisted animations" that i find combat to be very hard to control.   not sure if that phrase means anything but to summarize spiderman has a lot of situational animations to pick a thing in the environment and interact with it.   it makes sense why insomiac is doing that because it would be waaaay to complicated to play the game without them and then the combat wouldn't feel very "spiderman like".   ...but it also makes things feel like i'm only half in control of the game.

...and then it has all of the flaws of open world games (such as eldin ring).

encounters all feel like a check-list.   enemies are always tethered to a location so if you ever lose control of the fight you just move outside of the aggro radius and the encounter is on pause.   perhaps i just shouldn't do it but the game makes it soo easy to cheese that i can't help but to do it.



has there ever been a truly open world game??   one where the use of open world is actually part of the design and thus justified??    not just a series of "linear game designed elements" with shaming pacing?

[Legend]

Open worlds when just used to select a mission suck. Modern ones are built like themeparks so you have plenty of activities/distractions along the way, but it's still just activity selection.

There have been true open world games. Rain World and Death Stranding both use traversal as gameplay for example. Minecraft like games would count too imo.

[kitler53]

rain world and death stranding are both backlog games for me.  maybe I should prioritize them. 

dragons dogma (from the trailers) appears to at least make better use of open world design to me.   makes me want to try it. 


...but I think you phrases it well.  most "open worlds" are just level selection hubs filled with dumb collectibles.  it is such a bad design and why I prefer linear games or "metroidvania" designs.