dogs

[ballycumbers]

is there a way to save the dogs? if not I don't think I want to replay it. i had all this space in the boats as some of the crew had died and for some reasom they insist dogs can't go on boats? why not? in the scene before I even saved a dog instead of the medicine or tools and then i have to basically just shoot them or abandon them?😶

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by vaxquis:

a game that allows you to kill almost all of your crew just for fun and without any strict reason (i.e. just for an artificial achievement), but at the same time forces you to basically kill the dogs or let them die and later let you feed them to the people or burn them in a furnace, while at the same time not allowing you to kill people to feed neither the dogs nor even other people (even when cannibalism is explicitly mentioned in it), simply sucks for me. There's no consequence here, simple as that, and saying "BUT THIS IS REALISTIC" about a game that has people who lived in a flaky tent in -40C while most of them are not wearing hats or mittens and some are even having just some jackets on them and are later sailing a ship with a magic a peach tree allowing consciousness transfer across time that's growing on a ship inside an active volcano...

don't effing get me started on this "REALISM" XD

I definitely agree about the lack of cannibalism.

A game set in the coldest place on Earth - and there's no amputations, and no cannibalism. Both of those should definitely be in - possibly even combined...

OK maybe not combined, don't think it'd be smart to munch on a gangrenous toe or something...

But seriously, not having the possibility to have amputate when frostbite gets really bad is a bit weak.

Also, why does Hunt get to eat his crew and we don't?!? .

[vaxquis]

Originally posted by MoreEvilSquid:

A game set in the coldest place on Earth - and there's no amputations, and no cannibalism. Both of those should definitely be in - possibly even combined...

(...)

But seriously, not having the possibility to have amputate when frostbite gets really bad is a bit weak.

Also, why does Hunt get to eat his crew and we don't?!? .

Exactly - it's even stranger taking into account we already had that both in real life (not only the amputations, which were quite common in general in frosty climates... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/07/01/pot-polish-on-bones-from-franklins-1845-arctic-expedition-evidence-of-cannibalism/ shows cannibalism was clearly a thing in those conditions also even among seasoned explorers) and in computer games (Frostpunk & Sunless Sea, to name a few).

As a result, I guess it was just an aesthetic choice by the writers, though, which makes it even stranger to play the dog trick here, TBH.

[Pikey]

Originally posted by Federok:

My understanding was that even Cordel cant control all the dogs while sailing life boats on turbulent waters, one is poissble and even that was treated as a favor from Shaw to Cordel. So if all the other 13 were putted into the boats they could cause a conmotion that
would've made the sailing harder.

Remember this is a situation where a bad distribution between healthy and ill/injured can sink a boat..... if you add 13 scared dogs to the mix, well...

best case scenario cordell and the 14 dogs are loaded in one ship with some poor bastards to help and it gets taken by the storm

worst case scenario you try to distribute the dogs evenly and only the ship with cordel in it survies.

Notice that even while Cordel doesnt like it and is clearly upset about it (as it would be expected) she doesnt even try to argue against the decission.

Devs marked this as an "answer" which shows neither they nor you have ever been around dogs. This game decision was clearly a cheap attempt at emotional impact with no basis in reality. If I make good decisions and play the game well, there is no reason to kill my dogs. They are dogs, not horses. I have taken 100 pound dogs on a kayak much less putting them in life boats. Thankfully I caught this spoiler while looking for an answer to something else. I am still under the 2 hour mark and will refund the game now. Plenty of games out there that don't rely on cheap emotional gimmicks. Too bad as the game seemed to have potential.

[Krosis Priest]

I was just about ready to buy the game as it looks great to me and I do expect it to be heavy at times, but I saw this mentioned in one of the recent reviews and this may be a dealbreaker for me if there's no way around it.

Tough emotional situations are one thing and what I sign up for when the game's entire style screams "cold and miserable", but artificially forcing the player to do something horrible without any alternative (even a risky/difficult one - which is usually extra satisfying when you pull it off) is something I absolutely despise in games, not to mention if it involves animals.

(It would be different if this was presented in a way that genuinely makes sense, even if depressing, but the review basically said "the game forces you to do it even if you have lots of resources and are doing great", and this thread seems to confirm that.)

[vaxquis]

Originally posted by Krosis:

(the review basically said "the game forces you to do it even if you have lots of resources and are doing great", and this thread seems to confirm that.)

Yes, this is exactly the case here; it's not a myth or badmouthing or anything. Regardless of one's opinion on the broad issue this piece of information is completely factual. I completed the game multiple times, same I guess with other people here, and whether anyone likes it or not, this is how it is: you might have a whole crew healthy, happy & have pantry stuffed with food, you might be playing on the lowest difficulty level, you are an immortal time traveller - but you still need to kill the dogs, either directly or indirectly, because.

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by Pikey:

Originally posted by Federok:

My understanding was that even Cordel cant control all the dogs while sailing life boats on turbulent waters, one is poissble and even that was treated as a favor from Shaw to Cordel. So if all the other 13 were putted into the boats they could cause a conmotion that
would've made the sailing harder.

Remember this is a situation where a bad distribution between healthy and ill/injured can sink a boat..... if you add 13 scared dogs to the mix, well...

best case scenario cordell and the 14 dogs are loaded in one ship with some poor bastards to help and it gets taken by the storm

worst case scenario you try to distribute the dogs evenly and only the ship with cordel in it survies.

Notice that even while Cordel doesnt like it and is clearly upset about it (as it would be expected) she doesnt even try to argue against the decission.

Devs marked this as an "answer" which shows neither they nor you have ever been around dogs. This game decision was clearly a cheap attempt at emotional impact with no basis in reality. If I make good decisions and play the game well, there is no reason to kill my dogs. They are dogs, not horses. I have taken 100 pound dogs on a kayak much less putting them in life boats. Thankfully I caught this spoiler while looking for an answer to something else. I am still under the 2 hour mark and will refund the game now. Plenty of games out there that don't rely on cheap emotional gimmicks. Too bad as the game seemed to have potential.

Well similar things happened in real life in similar expeditions.

It's just a shame that this is one of the only "harsh" things from reality they actually included. There needs to be amputation due to frostbite possible, as well as, perhaps, resorting to even more unorthodox food if things get really bad.

[Krosis Priest]

Originally posted by vaxquis:

Originally posted by Krosis:

(the review basically said "the game forces you to do it even if you have lots of resources and are doing great", and this thread seems to confirm that.)

Yes, this is exactly the case here; it's not a myth or badmouthing or anything. Regardless of one's opinion on the broad issue this piece of information is completely factual. I completed the game multiple times, same I guess with other people here, and whether anyone likes it or not, this is how it is: you might have a whole crew healthy, happy & have pantry stuffed with food, you might be playing on the lowest difficulty level, you are an immortal time traveller - but you still need to kill the dogs, either directly or indirectly, because.

Yeah, so that's a real problem for me. As I said, emotionally heavy and dark stuff is one thing, artifically forcing it is another and very anti-immersive.

[mahu]

i got to the scene with a rifle, scratched the dog and alt-f4'd out of the game
if this is a game about choices, then my choice is to not entertain such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[dedreamer428]

Yeah the answer about the dogs tipping the boat if they don't have Cordell with them is BS. They put in a scene about her training others to work with the dogs that comes to absolutely nothing. The dev coming in here to highlight users excuses for them is pathetic and indicative of the general lack of creativity that plagues the entire end of the story.

[lib-lab-scan]

переведите на другие языки!!!

[Kuri]

I'd rather we could have turned the dogs into meat instead, they'd have been useful as food at the later stages

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by Kuri:

I'd rather we could have turned the dogs into meat instead, they'd have been useful as food at the later stages

After you kill them you get the option to keep them as food... So that's already a thing.

Too bad by that point it's not that useful.

[SqueakyFrancis]

I hope the devs come back to this game and reconsider this unavoidable story beat, because at the moment it's the one thing that means I will never be able to recommend this otherwise very good game to my animal-loving friends. It's also going to contribute to my not replaying it as many times as I would otherwise. I'm fine with dark moments in games, but I don't think this one works for several reasons.

It's not fun. Games don't have to be happy to be fun, but bad outcomes as a result of challenging situations are different than unavoidable bad outcomes. One can argue that this is a reality and a harsh fact of life, and sure, maybe that's true, but it misses that this is a game. MANY things are unrealistic in order to aid gameplay—people healing with magic potions in a week, wounds never being untreatable, all food being fungible without regards to nutrients, etc. You can't say that there's not room on the lifeboats when whatever you happen to have in your inventory at the time, including a furnace and potentially 14 dog corpses, can fit.

It takes away player agency. There are other bad things that inevitably happen in this game, but they're the result of environmental externalities that you have to react to. This is the one place that really takes away player choice, you just get to almost the end of the game and are told you can either shoot the dogs or leave them to starve. That hits differently than things that aren't the character's choice, such as ice breaking up. This was the character's choice but it's not the player's choice.

It's the only time you have to make a challenging decision about these dogs and again, it's not your choice, so the result isn't impactful, just sad. Had you been given the option during the long winter to sacrifice some dogs to eat, that would be a good place to give players choices and make them feel ownership for the outcome. If dogs could get injured and you needed to treat them in the med tent, potentially taking up a bed from a human and impacting the loyalty of Nutlee and Cordell (in different directions), that would be a meaningful player choice. As implemented, the dogs aren't a meaningful player choice.

People acting like it's inevitable that this happens are ignoring that this game is fiction and the writers can write whatever they want. You can give people the option to save the dogs in tons of ways—arrive at that week with enough lumber and maybe you can build kennels. You could hogtie the dogs for transport knowing something could go wrong and maybe one would break out and endager the boat it's on. You could be investing resources months prior into training an additional dog handler to help make transporting them safer. There's no reason saving all the humans and dogs shouldn't be hard, but it should be doable—and then the reward for doing the hard thing would actually feel good, and failing to have done it would actually feel bad (and encourage you to try again) because it's the result of player choice.

Of course the game designers/writers can do what they want and if they feel this is core to their artistic vision, that's what it is. But it doesn't mean that their choice to include this with no alternatives won't ruin the game for a lot of people and make it harder to recommend. This thread is a testament to that. So... Food for thought.

[emeraldeye14]

Originally posted by SqueakyFrancis:

This is the one place that really takes away player choice, you just get to almost the end of the game and are told you can either shoot the dogs or leave them to starve. That hits differently than things that aren't the character's choice, such as a ice breaking up. This was the character's choice but it's not the player's choice.

Let me repeat that: This was the character's choice but it's not the player's choice.

I was enjoying this game. I wound up with nearly everyone dying and normally that would be a strong drive for me to replay the game, to do better next time. I won't be replaying the game. I cannot handle shooting those dogs being the kindest thing, I cannot handle the fact that there is absolutely no way to save those dogs even if I do everything right or make the correct sequence of choices. As good as this game is, I cannot recommend this game because of that single design decision. I can't put myself through that again, and I won't. Maybe that is pathetic, but all other deaths genuinely felt like they occurred because of a failure on my part, but the death of the dogs felt like a punishment with no cause. No. I won't be replaying it.

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by emeraldeye14:

Originally posted by SqueakyFrancis:

This is the one place that really takes away player choice, you just get to almost the end of the game and are told you can either shoot the dogs or leave them to starve. That hits differently than things that aren't the character's choice, such as a ice breaking up. This was the character's choice but it's not the player's choice.

Let me repeat that: This was the character's choice but it's not the player's choice.

I was enjoying this game. I wound up with nearly everyone dying and normally that would be a strong drive for me to replay the game, to do better next time. I won't be replaying the game. I cannot handle shooting those dogs being the kindest thing, I cannot handle the fact that there is absolutely no way to save those dogs even if I do everything right or make the correct sequence of choices. As good as this game is, I cannot recommend this game because of that single design decision. I can't put myself through that again, and I won't. Maybe that is pathetic, but all other deaths genuinely felt like they occurred because of a failure on my part, but the death of the dogs felt like a punishment with no cause. No. I won't be replaying it.

Different people get triggered by different things I suppose...

I'm still triggered by the fact that we're told it's important to horde food for the "massive winter", only to then find out the turns are twice as long but still use the same amount of food - so we're effectively on half rations but they count as full rations with no explanation given whatsoever. Same with usage of wood/etc for heating. Completely destroys any feeling of "struggling to survive" during this period, which should have been the most tense with respect to not only food and heat, but also morale - yet morale is only represented in a couple of short scenes (which are very easy to resolve), as opposed to the massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ one would expect when a bunch of people are all huddled under a massive sheet together, not really knowing if they'll have enough food and heat to survive...