Do you have to have a mic?

[MasterLingChi]

I was going to play this with my wife, in the same room on two separate PC's. I was not sure if any part of the game required voice or not (for puzzles), or if it was simply just for the co-op aspect of communication.
We would be in the same room, so we would just talk to each other. lol

[ChaeriCake]

Hello, to get the full experience of our games, you will both need to sit apart from each other and communicate using the in-game walkie-talkies, as these are the core concept of our games and serve as some sort of 'communication test' between you and your partner while trying to solve puzzles at the same time (and sometimes under pressure). You can talk to each other in real life, but it will remove a difficulty level from the game. Also, if you play in the same room, we highly recommend to not look at each other's screens, because our puzzles are designed to be asymmetrical so "peaking" at each other's point of view would be a spoiler and kill the purpose of these puzzles.

[MasterLingChi]

Originally posted by ChaeriCake:

Hello, to get the full experience of our games, you will both need to sit apart from each other and communicate using the in-game walkie-talkies, as these are the core concept of our games and serve as some sort of 'communication test' between you and your partner while trying to solve puzzles at the same time (and sometimes under pressure). You can talk to each other in real life, but it will remove a difficulty level from the game. Also, if you play in the same room, we highly recommend to not look at each other's screens, because our puzzles are designed to be asymmetrical so "peaking" at each other's point of view would be a spoiler and kill the purpose of these puzzles.

Thank you for your response!
We will not look at each others screens and will be communicating throughout. We love these types of games, just making sure mics were not "required" for two people who were able to be in the same room as each other.

[Sole]

I think this won't be a problem. I am playing (and loving) this game with a friend and we use Discord for communication. We thought about using the in-game walkie-talkies, but while it works great, it was kind of annoying for us (because it is push-to-talk where only one person can talk at one time, if both try to talk, no one can talk) and we have more fun playing the game without them. And i guess fun is what we play this game for, so why not? :)

[gamecreator]

Originally posted by ChaeriCake:

as these are the core concept of our games and serve as some sort of 'communication test' between you and your partner while trying to solve puzzles at the same time (and sometimes under pressure). You can talk to each other in real life, but it will remove a difficulty level from the game

Can I get details or clarification on this? My friend and I only played through Discord (and beat the game). How is using the walkie-talkie different for communcation? Is it a slower way to communicate? Feel free to put details in spoiler tags if it's something that happens in-game (like them becoming unavailable or something).

[Zombra]

The limitations of the walkie-talkie are an intended part of the gameplay loop. Only one person can talk at a time, and it's impossible to interrupt someone. If you circumvent this by being in the same room, using discord etc. I mean if that's more fun for you then fine, but you ARE cheating because you're not supposed to be able to do that. The game will be far less challenging if you break this rule.

[MasterLingChi]

Originally posted by Zombra:

The limitations of the walkie-talkie are an intended part of the gameplay loop. Only one person can talk at a time, and it's impossible to interrupt someone. If you circumvent this by being in the same room, using discord etc. I mean if that's more fun for you then fine, but you ARE cheating because you're not supposed to be able to do that. The game will be far less challenging if you break this rule.

Its the only way me and my wife can/could play. It was fun and I would not discourage anyone away from the game if you play this way and are without a mic like that.

[gamecreator]

Originally posted by Zombra:

The limitations of the walkie-talkie are an intended part of the gameplay loop. Only one person can talk at a time, and it's impossible to interrupt someone. If you circumvent this by being in the same room, using discord etc. I mean if that's more fun for you then fine, but you ARE cheating because you're not supposed to be able to do that. The game will be far less challenging if you break this rule.

For puzzles that have a time limit, I can understand this. But most puzzles let you play as long as you want so whether you're limited by the radio or not doesn't seem to make much difference, except to not let you speak when you want to.

[Zombra]

Originally posted by MasterLingChi:

Its the only way me and my wife can/could play. It was fun and I would not discourage anyone away from the game if you play this way and are without a mic like that.

I'm glad y'all had fun and didn't intend to take away anything from you or disrespect your situation. The previous post to mine had asked for a clarification about the developers' intent, and that is what I was responding to.

Originally posted by gamecreator:

Originally posted by Zombra:

The limitations of the walkie-talkie are an intended part of the gameplay loop.

For puzzles that have a time limit, I can understand this. But most puzzles let you play as long as you want so whether you're limited by the radio or not doesn't seem to make much difference, except to not let you speak when you want to.

Having played through the whole series only using the walkie-talkie as intended, it makes a huge difference in the way you communicate, whether there's a ticking bomb or not. Learning to communicate in this way is important even during low-pressure scenarios so that you are ready for the high-pressure scenarios; as in any well-designed game, the hard parts are a test of skills you developed during the easy parts.

Plus it's just fun to develop that skill for its own sake and look at things (or listen to them) through a lens we're not used to. My opinion.

Again, it's fine if you chose to play some other way - it's not a crime to make up your own house rules for any pastime. But it was clearly not the experience the developers intended, and I for one appreciate the difference.