Just completed - The Bear and Badger

acemuzzy

I'm sure he'd love Gone Home and Tacoma too

stonechalice

Firewatch was just alright. The ending was terrible.

JonB

I keep thinking I should try Edith Finch, but my feelings towards the genre in the past have been similar to Paul's. I just don't think it's going to change my mind.

Moot_Geeza

Good as it is I don't think Finch is anywhere near as good as it could get. It's a genre I have unreasonably high hopes for, VR might clinch it in the right hands. Disclaimer: I really enjoyed Rapture, Gone Home, Finch & Firewatch. I don't really look at them as 'games' though, by my definition, which is probably why I give the wobblier bits of the genre a pass.

AndCallMeCharlie

Yeah don't get why these stories feel the need to be told as games, Edith Finch is a joy in comparison to Virgina though

Tempy

They don’t have to be told as games, but they are. Same reason stories in films, books, comics, tv, theatre, songs , poems are told that way - because that’s how the creator wanted to tell their story.

hylian_elf

Tempy wrote:

They don’t have to be told as games, but they are. Same reason stories in films, books, comics, tv, theatre, songs , poems are told that way - because that’s how the creator wanted to tell their story.

*like*
*follow*

Cos

JonB wrote:

I keep thinking I should try Edith Finch, but my feelings towards the genre in the past have been similar to Paul's. I just don't think it's going to change my mind.

FWIW I bounced off Firewatch, finished Gone Home thinking it was ok and really loved Edith Finch. Hard to put my finger on exactly what clicked with that one for me but certainly a combination of the story and the way it was told. The more fantastical elements gave it a bit more freedom too.

AndCallMeCharlie

Tempy wrote:

They don’t have to be told as games, but they are. Same reason stories in films, books, comics, tv, theatre, songs , poems are told that way - because that’s how the creator wanted to tell their story.

Seems odd to me to select a medium (gaming) then not utilise it's distinctive feature (interactivity)

Tempy

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Tempy wrote:

They don’t have to be told as games, but they are. Same reason stories in films, books, comics, tv, theatre, songs , poems are told that way - because that’s how the creator wanted to tell their story.

Seems odd to me to select a medium (gaming) then not utilise it's distinctive feature (interactivity)

But they are interactive.

EvilRedEye

The Kingdom Hearts series of action games has novelisations for all of the games. Yakuza's been a book, film, I think a stage production as well? Visual novels have barely more interactivity and visuals than a choose-your-own-adventure book yet 428 Shibuya Scramble got a coveted 40/40 from Famitsu.

Games are interactive but I think devs should be free to tap into that as much or as little as they want, and we should just take at face value that they chose to render their narrative as a video game because there's very few gaming stories that are literally impossible to render in a different medium.

AndCallMeCharlie

Kind of feels like a 90 minute film with a voice over and two still images on screen
I get that I am fucking nobody to tell them which medium to use but their decision puzzles me

Tempy

It's incredibly reductive though. Films can vaugely do the sort of stuff that Edith Finch did, but they can't have a bit where you literally play the wandering thoughts of a person in a fish canning factory. They can do editing stuff, they can do flashbacks, voiceovers, "it was all a dream" style roll backs but at the end of the day you've then written something for Film/TV, but not for game.

You think the interactivity is non existent, but it isn't. It's there. Literally being in a world is different to observing it via TV or Film. There's no reason for any story to be told in any specific medium, beyond using the things that medium can do to tell it, and being interested in that. Finch could be a film, but it wouldn't be Finch then. It'd be the same narrative structure, bearing the same name. But it wouldn't be Finch. The medium is the message.

Paul the sparky

The interactivity in Finch is sometimes so poor it takes away from the overall experience, that's what I found anyway.

In the same way that the absolute bobbins "story" in something like Halo just gets in the way of you playing the game.

Tempy

I also think those are formal issues too, and can be levelled at any medium.

If you do the thought experiment and imagine Finch as a book, or a film... you're assuming it doesn't fuck the landing, and that it just gets rid of the bits you didn't like.

But what if the main actress is shite, or the music is piss, or the editing is wonky, or the script is bad, or the performances are clunkers, or the set looks naff and cheap?

Maybe as a book the writing is so flowery and purple as to make you put it down and never pick it back up.

For any formal failings, they are still games. Assuming those faults will be elided by them being something else is ultimately naive I think. They are conceived of as games, and thus they are games.

I watched Lindeloff's Watchmen recently. It was 10/10 TV that I never once wished was anything other than what it was. It was conceived of as a TV show at some point, and it was executed thusly. It might have sang a different tune as a comic, or a film, maybe even an amazing episodic game with choices and stuff! But it wouldn't have been the TV show, thus it wouldn't have been the 10/10 Watchmen I enjoyed. At that point the shift in medium renders the difference too large to countenance.

Tempy

For the record, if you don't like them or find them frustrating, that's fine. I just don't think the issue is solved by them being in another medium, partly because the are conceived of as a game, they have been decided to be told as a game. I doubt what's happened is someone has an idea of a story that that force into a game for stuff like Finch, it's part and parcel of how they're conjured up.

That said, if any publisher were going to make films of them, it would probably be Annapurna.

AndCallMeCharlie

Tempy wrote:

The medium is the message.

huh?

Tempy

Marshall McLuhan.

The idea that the medium itself, not the message or story contained, should be one of the main focuses of study on any given piece of media. Basically Messages and stories are not agnostic to the form they take, the form they take is part of and in many cases defines it.

So in this case, as i've argued, making Finch into a film just isn't a thing. Finch is a game, you pull the medium and the message apart and you no longer have Finch, you have something different. This is why people chose to make these stories as games rather than films.

AndCallMeCharlie

Gotcha
I only know him from his cameo in Anne Hall

Tempy

Haha, it's an all timer cameo for sure!

Silke

BELOW (PC)

Too insubstantial - both mechanically and thematically - to truly leave a lasting impression. But it's certainly a fine mood piece with some great moments when scenery and sound accurately matches the rhythm of the roguelike struggling descent into the unknown.

LivDiv

Sea of Solitude

Gorgeous visuals throughout.
A really mature, deep an broad exploration through typical mental health problems.

I definitely gained from playing this. If I have consumed a main stream media product that handles metal health better I cant remember it

Moot_Geeza

Silke wrote:

BELOW (PC)

Too insubstantial - both mechanically and thematically - to truly leave a lasting impression. But it's certainly a fine mood piece with some great moments when scenery and sound accurately matches the rhythm of the roguelike struggling descent into the unknown.

Did you play the original mode or the one that was patched in?

Silke

The original mode. But it didn't add much of substance, just made me keep up the pace at all times. To others I would probably recommend the non-nourishment Explorer mode. Which is practically identical besides the eating part.

Moot_Geeza

There's no way I'd be up for the original mode but I'm often tempted to buy it for the explorer tweaks.

JonB

LivDiv wrote:

Sea of Solitude Gorgeous visuals throughout. A really mature, deep an broad exploration through typical mental health problems. I definitely gained from playing this. If I have consumed a main stream media product that handles metal health better I cant remember it

I really liked aspects of it - the way the sea changes and shifts especially - but found it all a bit too on the nose. The main character talked too much, really, spelling out things that could've been left more abstract.

LivDiv

Yeah it wasn't exactly subtle but I was ok with that.
If it was longer or more challenging requiring restarts I think that would maybe start to bother me.

Cos

A Short Hike. What a wonderful game. It was exactly what I didn't know I needed. Had a great time just exploring but the inclusion of the other characters and little quests were brilliant. All the interactions are really well written and always put a smile on my face.

It looks bloody gorgeous too. The whole map is so well designed that the gradual increase in your ability to reach new areas works perfectly. I think I'd be happy just climbing and gliding around for hours. Might have been partly the mood I was in at the time but the end at the peak even got me a little misty eyed.

I'll definitely be going back and playing again, I'm sure there are still a few things I missed but even if not I'll be happy just exploring.

AndCallMeCharlie

Yeah I was sure it’s exactly the type of game I would hate but thoroughly enjoyed it

hylian_elf

Yeah A Short Hike is amazing.

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