This Game is Rigged from the Start

[Llywylln]

On my first playthrough I had to learn the way things worked and buy the tools but on the second I was kicking butt based upon my methods of reading it... if you added up all of my + markers, I should be + all around the board but it seems that the minuses can outweigh the pluses when it serves the game plot. I had more than 8 positive economy bonuses and then on a day when I got 1 negative it was suddenly negative. I watched as a fully + ridden snow globe was still turning red with chaos and doom... then I got hit with humans who I've never seen before who were nice and sweet people who, for some odd reason, toss out minuses across the board if you let them live. The Shell Game isn't fun for the player, it's just fun for the guy taking your money.

[Nathan Pascal]

Originally posted by Oakwarrior:

Chasing numbers is not what we wanted the game to be about. We wanted the game to let people explore their values about mortality and morality, not to reach for the nearest excel sheet to see how they can min-max the world.

I wish you had never included the Snowglobe for the first playthrough. In New Game+? Great. But the moment I realised how the Globe worked (and the Illuminator made it even worse) I couldn't see anything else but the numbers and all considerations of morality were gone. I mean, it IS an interesting experience to see your morality vanish in the blazing glory of numbers to optimize, but well... maybe I'm just obsessive or something, but once you look beyond the curtain of a game's mechanics, it is very hard to go back. Yeah, shut the Illuminator down, bury the Globe in your drawer, ignore it... but it is still there! Maddening. Could have been a lecture, how paper work drains your soul and makes you a monster, when you decide about a humans life based on his/her perceived value in society, but this wasn't how the game approached it, I suppose. Okay, the voice in the mirror told me to feel bad, but the numbers said I was right. The End justifies the Means, seems to be the morality here, the Snowglobe just killed any ambiguity for me... Or was this, what you aimed for? Then... well, very well done.

Anyway, after this... weird discussion I just wanted to say, you made a good game. Loved it. Just would have loved it more, were the game mechanics more obscure. Because I could read them too easily. Got Utopia-Takeover at my very first run (and the second... just can't de-optimize my numbers on purpose, even when I try), so... very much not rigged, I suppose. A bit too easy even, in my experience, if you just try to min-max it. Which isn't the point but... the Snowglobe made me do it.


Just wanted to give another experience on this topic.
And I still have nightmares about the poor rubber toy.

[Oak]

Originally posted by Nathan Pascal:

Originally posted by Oakwarrior:

Chasing numbers is not what we wanted the game to be about. We wanted the game to let people explore their values about mortality and morality, not to reach for the nearest excel sheet to see how they can min-max the world.

I wish you had never included the Snowglobe for the first playthrough. In New Game+? Great. But the moment I realised how the Globe worked (and the Illuminator made it even worse) I couldn't see anything else but the numbers and all considerations of morality were gone. I mean, it IS an interesting experience to see your morality vanish in the blazing glory of numbers to optimize, but well... maybe I'm just obsessive or something, but once you look beyond the curtain of a game's mechanics, it is very hard to go back. Yeah, shut the Illuminator down, bury the Globe in your drawer, ignore it... but it is still there! Maddening. Could have been a lecture, how paper work drains your soul and makes you a monster, when you decide about a humans life based on his/her perceived value in society, but this wasn't how the game approached it, I suppose. Okay, the voice in the mirror told me to feel bad, but the numbers said I was right. The End justifies the Means, seems to be the morality here, the Snowglobe just killed any ambiguity for me... Or was this, what you aimed for? Then... well, very well done.

Anyway, after this... weird discussion I just wanted to say, you made a good game. Loved it. Just would have loved it more, were the game mechanics more obscure. Because I could read them too easily. Got Utopia-Takeover at my very first run (and the second... just can't de-optimize my numbers on purpose, even when I try), so... very much not rigged, I suppose. A bit too easy even, in my experience, if you just try to min-max it. Which isn't the point but... the Snowglobe made me do it.


Just wanted to give another experience on this topic.
And I still have nightmares about the poor rubber toy.

Interesting take! I do think that you are quite aware of how information affects your morality. That's also part of the game, and it was a conscious decision... it's there for both true and false comfort. The number one request we've had from each and every playtest could be concluded into a singular phrase: more feedback. This was the most we felt we could give without devolving into an excel sheet. The temptation is definitely there and it's always interesting to see how it starts affecting people.

And thank you for the kind words and your feedback, too :)

[Llywylln]

As I see it, the game is designed to be lost, over and over and over in the guise of winning... during this onslaught of frustration you are supposed to take comfort in the fact that you feel something. Eventually after being beaten into submission many times over, if you haven't been smart enough to escape the abuse, you might be able to win by using all of that experience to trick the game once. I'm not a fan of the design model.

I am a fan of the GOOD OMENS / DISCORLD style of Death Character and that is what brought me to this game. My disappointment is only partially due to that and for that part of it, it is my own fault. I have already cast this off into my game attic...

[Oak]

Originally posted by Llywylln:

As I see it, the game is designed to be lost, over and over and over in the guise of winning... during this onslaught of frustration you are supposed to take comfort in the fact that you feel something. Eventually after being beaten into submission many times over, if you haven't been smart enough to escape the abuse, you might be able to win by using all of that experience to trick the game once. I'm not a fan of the design model.

I am a fan of the GOOD OMENS / DISCORLD style of Death Character and that is what brought me to this game. My disappointment is only partially due to that and for that part of it, it is my own fault. I have already cast this off into my game attic...

Fair enough.

Well, at least we had an animated discussion about the game, which I do appreciate. And it does signal that you care about the game, even if you dislike it - otherwise I doubt you would have stuck around to talk about it ^_^

[Llywylln]

Yes, I do care. If I hadn't had such hopes for the way it would play out, they wouldn't have been dashed. I still think about what I would have done differently if I had been making the design choices for this game as I had envisioned it...

[Oak]

We've had our own fair share of thoughts about that. One thing that we would have done differently if we were on a less tight schedule would have been to focus on the gameplay aspect more and have a more wide variety of interactions other than just those at your desk and in the dialogues. I still want to have that bar at ground level open for visitors but we'll have to see how that goes >_>

[Llywylln]

One change that immediately comes to mind is the value of a person if they die. As 'Death' it seems to me that the immediate change based upon the death of a human should be known to Death but not necessarily the value of letting them live on. also, there ought to be a 'log book for both the history of the current game as well as the historical data and it shouldn't require passing a profile under the lamp to see it. Furthermore, you ought to be able to leave your desk during the work day and not be forced to finish the job and send off the profiles before you can 'move'.

[Romulus]

Meh. Tedious interface with no real learning curve because there is nothing to learn from. No matter what you do, randomness ensues. To make it more fun, an annoyingly vague voice in the mirror nags at you pointlessly, dragging everything you do. Seems like the target audience is sadists who love futility and doom.

[Llywylln]

Don't you mean masochists?

[Romulus]

Originally posted by Llywylln:

Don't you mean masochists?

Them too.

[Romulus]

Here's a headscratcher. In my ending, Fate admits that it was he who orchestrated the end of humanity. Yet, I still get fired. Huh? What a jerk boss he turns out to be.

[Llywylln]

Fate always seems to admit it was him... you can help him, pretend to help him and set him up, or work against him and pretend you don't know he's trying to destroy the world. Overall, it doesn't matter. The world always ends and all you can do it try to earn acheivements for 'How' it ended.

[LimeyPolo]

Life is rigged, we're all destined to die. :(

[Llywylln]

You can assume that, but you cannot prove it. :)

[Romulus]

The whole point of this game seems to be that we can try all we want, making wild guesses, the end result will almost certainly be disastrous.

Fun!

All this about the lamp and snowglobe.... that will help you with what, one profile per day? And since you can't always get eradicators, that's not useful.

Besides... just because the one you chose was bad, doesn't mean the one you didn't choose isn't worse.

When I have to get a third party tool to do well the game - aka cheating - that's a bad game.

The official secret seems to be to keep playing through bad endings until you've encountered all profiles twice (and marked them differently each way) so you can use the lamp to tell you which way to go. In order to get there, you have to basically lose dozens of times. It'd be one thing if the game was quick to play, but it's not, it's tediously slow.