What's the Point?

[D.A.R.K.]

I saw some people playing the game, and it's really boring, we go coordinate by coordinate and take some pictures to see something, if we take too much time, we lack oxygen and die, if we rush to the last picture, a creature attack us... In the end, what's the point of this game?

I saw a guy who hacked into the game and managed to remove the submarine walls and really see that we are, truly navigating around a place, we see stuff around, have a better view instead of the picture.

But... Like... Is this some kind of walking simulator but inside a submarine? I didn't get it, what's the purpose of the game?

[Emmy]

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

I saw some people playing the game

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Emmy:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

I saw some people playing the game

Will you give me a copy?

[Mister Macaroni]

The time you're spending arguing that this game is bad could instead be spent playing games that you think are good.

[Peafowl]

Iron Lung is good at what it does. The dev obviously went with something that many would be too afraid to go with. The game is very eerie. Fair enough if you don't like it, but you sure are talking about it a lot. It's living in your head rent free.

Point of the game is literally told to you before you even start playing. Your character isn't the first person to go in the Iron Lung, which is hinted by an item you can find near you. Earth is gone, we're living out in space, and you're a criminal trying to complete a mission to "win your freedom." That's the simplified version of the game. Again, ALL of this is given to you.

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh DuskDev:

The time you're spending arguing that this game is bad could instead be spent playing games that you think are good.

I'm playing games that I consider good games, while also discussing and arguing in this thread, both aren't mutual, we can do both. The thing is, your game (I'm assuming you are the developer) is short, around 1 to 2 hours of game play, this means we can't have a Demo, which means to know about the game we need to research about it.

Around so many games on Steam, I already checked 100% of them and list all the ones I want on Wishlist while listed all that I'm not interested in Not Interested. I'm from Brazil, I can't spend money on something that I don't know how good it is.

I watched some players playing the game, and it isn't that good (I already pointed out why), so I came here to understand that, I asked what's the point on playing the game, and players who liked it weren't able to answer that.

I can say there's a lot of players playing because of the streamers and everything, but what's the point of playing this game?

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Limp:

Iron Lung is good at what it does. The dev obviously went with something that many would be too afraid to go with. The game is very eerie. Fair enough if you don't like it, but you sure are talking about it a lot. It's living in your head rent free.

Point of the game is literally told to you before you even start playing. Your character isn't the first person to go in the Iron Lung, which is hinted by an item you can find near you. Earth is gone, we're living out in space, and you're a criminal trying to complete a mission to "win your freedom." That's the simplified version of the game. Again, ALL of this is given to you.

So, the point is lore? That's the purpose of playing the game, to understand what's going on?

[Peafowl]

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Limp:

Iron Lung is good at what it does. The dev obviously went with something that many would be too afraid to go with. The game is very eerie. Fair enough if you don't like it, but you sure are talking about it a lot. It's living in your head rent free.

Point of the game is literally told to you before you even start playing. Your character isn't the first person to go in the Iron Lung, which is hinted by an item you can find near you. Earth is gone, we're living out in space, and you're a criminal trying to complete a mission to "win your freedom." That's the simplified version of the game. Again, ALL of this is given to you.

So, the point is lore? That's the purpose of playing the game, to understand what's going on?

I would say that's part of it. The coordinates you enter lead you to specifically marked areas on the map. You make sure your pointing the right way prior to taking a picture of said coordinates and *snap* take the photo. Picture then comes up on the screen in front of you.

I would say that you never knew what was going to show up on the screen. Bones? Fish? Something bigger? It plays on the idea of the unknown.

Very simplified version of the game = You literally guide the sub to each location on the map buy pressing a handful of buttons (up, down, left, right). You then push a button to take a picture of what's outside the sub. You need to pay attention to the radar to make sure you don't hit the walls (death if you do). I enjoyed the game, but if what I just said doesn't so appealing, I would just skip it.

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Limp:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

So, the point is lore? That's the purpose of playing the game, to understand what's going on?

I would say that's part of it. The coordinates you enter lead you to specifically marked areas on the map. You make sure your pointing the right way prior to taking a picture of said coordinates and *snap* take the photo. Picture then comes up on the screen in front of you.

I would say that you never knew what was going to show up on the screen. Bones? Fish? Something bigger? It plays on the idea of the unknown.

Very simplified version of the game = You literally guide the sub to each location on the map buy pressing a handful of buttons (up, down, left, right). You then push a button to take a picture of what's outside the sub. You need to pay attention to the radar to make sure you don't hit the walls (death if you do). I enjoyed the game, but if what I just said doesn't so appealing, I would just skip it.

I already argument about this part of the game play, besides the boring setting up the coordinates, the developer did made an entire world. This got me by surprise, usually when a game doesn't show how the world is, there's no world, you basically show a square (like the monster's eye) to take picture and that's it, there's no world, since you don't see it, you don't move, everything happens when you are standing still, it just gives you impression.

Let me give you an example, in Portal 2 there's a moment that we fall WAAAAY high from the chamber to the outside area. This fall, this long fall, it's just an impression, we are actually standing still in an invisible ground, and the hole is moving up, why's that? Because it's better to process, instead of really creating a huge world, there's only the whole, you don't need to process an entire world to show only one small thing. How do we know that? There's a command on Source Engine called "cl_showpos 1" that show your position, angle, and speed... With this command we can see our speed is 0.

NOW... What a developer do when you have this situation, that you are inside a confined space without vision of outside, it's to NOT implement a world, but just what you need the players to see, in this case, just the picture. You don't even move, you press the buttons just to "fake" you are really input a coordinate, and then you show the picture, a little square that takes only that field of view, why to do that? Because it requires less from the machine, processor, memory, etc...

NOW!!! IN IRON LONG THAT ISN'T TRUE, there's huge world, the developer, indeed, made a HUGE world that you can explore... How do I know that? Because people already hacked into the game (or it's an option, I don't know) that removes walls (I think they used Nvidia for this, to be honest...), and when you don't have submarine walls you can see that, IN FACT, you are moving around... There's a world around.

WHY? Why to build a real world if we won't see it? My experience tells that the developer (and he can confirm if I'm right or wrong) WAS thinking about using that as experience, a window that shows the world or something, and then this idea was scratched in the release, something like that...

The thing is, being able to see everything would be way better than just pictures because of fear VS jumpscare that I mentioned multiple times before. Take this example... Let's say you are moving to a coordinate, and then you see something hiding, reaching a hiding spot before you can process what it is... NOW YOU KNOW YOU AREN'T ALONE.

If you go there to explore, the thing isn't there, it moved before you reach the hiding spot. Knowing there's something besides you that's highly dangerous is more effective on fear than on jumpscare, I mean, people are jumpscare when they see this situation, but after that THEY KNOW there's something out there to get them, what prompts fear.

I mean, I already explained enough the difference of fear and jumpscare. One thing that bothered me is that everything the developer does, the atmosphere, the situation, everything just pays out with a single jumpscare, that's the part that I think they lost potential.

Jumpscare doesn't need atmosphere, doesn't need reason, doesn't need a situation, jumpscare works because it's a jumpscare, something happening so fast that we can't process, I already mentioned that. FEAT, in the other hand, requires everything to create a situation that your imagination will take control, and remove completely the control of the situation out of the player's hand.

My point is, the whole game seems a waste when the payoff is just a jumpscare, the whole atmosphere, the whole situation, the eye picture, everything is meaningless because everything turns out to be a jumpscare in the end. The same way that I think it's a waste of potential knowing there a full explorable world out there, just to see some pictures instead.

[Emmy]

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Limp:

I would say that's part of it. The coordinates you enter lead you to specifically marked areas on the map. You make sure your pointing the right way prior to taking a picture of said coordinates and *snap* take the photo. Picture then comes up on the screen in front of you.

I would say that you never knew what was going to show up on the screen. Bones? Fish? Something bigger? It plays on the idea of the unknown.

Very simplified version of the game = You literally guide the sub to each location on the map buy pressing a handful of buttons (up, down, left, right). You then push a button to take a picture of what's outside the sub. You need to pay attention to the radar to make sure you don't hit the walls (death if you do). I enjoyed the game, but if what I just said doesn't so appealing, I would just skip it.

I already argument about this part of the game play, besides the boring setting up the coordinates, the developer did made an entire world. This got me by surprise, usually when a game doesn't show how the world is, there's no world, you basically show a square (like the monster's eye) to take picture and that's it, there's no world, since you don't see it, you don't move, everything happens when you are standing still, it just gives you impression.

Let me give you an example, in Portal 2 there's a moment that we fall WAAAAY high from the chamber to the outside area. This fall, this long fall, it's just an impression, we are actually standing still in an invisible ground, and the hole is moving up, why's that? Because it's better to process, instead of really creating a huge world, there's only the whole, you don't need to process an entire world to show only one small thing. How do we know that? There's a command on Source Engine called "cl_showpos 1" that show your position, angle, and speed... With this command we can see our speed is 0.

NOW... What a developer do when you have this situation, that you are inside a confined space without vision of outside, it's to NOT implement a world, but just what you need the players to see, in this case, just the picture. You don't even move, you press the buttons just to "fake" you are really input a coordinate, and then you show the picture, a little square that takes only that field of view, why to do that? Because it requires less from the machine, processor, memory, etc...

NOW!!! IN IRON LONG THAT ISN'T TRUE, there's huge world, the developer, indeed, made a HUGE world that you can explore... How do I know that? Because people already hacked into the game (or it's an option, I don't know) that removes walls (I think they used Nvidia for this, to be honest...), and when you don't have submarine walls you can see that, IN FACT, you are moving around... There's a world around.

WHY? Why to build a real world if we won't see it? My experience tells that the developer (and he can confirm if I'm right or wrong) WAS thinking about using that as experience, a window that shows the world or something, and then this idea was scratched in the release, something like that...

The thing is, being able to see everything would be way better than just pictures because of fear VS jumpscare that I mentioned multiple times before. Take this example... Let's say you are moving to a coordinate, and then you see something hiding, reaching a hiding spot before you can process what it is... NOW YOU KNOW YOU AREN'T ALONE.

If you go there to explore, the thing isn't there, it moved before you reach the hiding spot. Knowing there's something besides you that's highly dangerous is more effective on fear than on jumpscare, I mean, people are jumpscare when they see this situation, but after that THEY KNOW there's something out there to get them, what prompts fear.

I mean, I already explained enough the difference of fear and jumpscare. One thing that bothered me is that everything the developer does, the atmosphere, the situation, everything just pays out with a single jumpscare, that's the part that I think they lost potential.

Jumpscare doesn't need atmosphere, doesn't need reason, doesn't need a situation, jumpscare works because it's a jumpscare, something happening so fast that we can't process, I already mentioned that. FEAT, in the other hand, requires everything to create a situation that your imagination will take control, and remove completely the control of the situation out of the player's hand.

My point is, the whole game seems a waste when the payoff is just a jumpscare, the whole atmosphere, the whole situation, the eye picture, everything is meaningless because everything turns out to be a jumpscare in the end. The same way that I think it's a waste of potential knowing there a full explorable world out there, just to see some pictures instead.

So many words. So little meaning.

You're just repeating what every jaded horror game player says about jumpscares and making the existence of a tangible map an issue when it's presence or lack thereof changes nothing of the experience.

It's wild too that you're focused on the climactic jumpscare when the actual scariest part for me was when I went in reverse at fullspeed away from the gazing creature and found it still directly in front of me.

Really though, it's just as other have stated, you need an ounce of imagination to experience the fear. By your general logic, I can pick apart every single horror game. Seriously, every one.

[Nostrvm]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Emmy:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

I saw some people playing the game

This dude not only watched a gameplay but also a behind the scenes video, oh my god he didn't even play the game, i thought he must've refunded it but he doesn't even have it hahahahah and he still wonders what's the point! lmao

Congratulations, you played yourself.

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh PolarisVII:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Emmy:

This dude not only watched a gameplay but also a behind the scenes video, oh my god he didn't even play the game, i thought he must've refunded it but he doesn't even have it hahahahah and he still wonders what's the point! lmao

Congratulations, you played yourself.

The last person didn't give me an answer, so I'm gonna ask to you the same question that I asked to the last person who uses this argument:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Emmy:

Will you give me a copy?

[Nostrvm]

Even if the developer gave you a free copy, what's the point if you already spoiled yourself to kingdom come? Honestly, at this point you already know everything that happens is scripted lmao you'd have to experience the game first hand, go in completely in the dark as they say, without any foreknowledge of the game's inner workings to actually enjoy it

Basically, you already peeked behind the curtains and you robbed yourself from a great horror experience. But to be honest, judging by your opinion of what a horror game should be like, you'd probably be amongst the people that crash their sub nonstop and drop the game out of frustration and impatience lol

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Emmy:

you need an ounce of imagination to experience the fear.

Actually no, you don't. When you present fear, you don't simply left for imagination to do the work, you present a reason for that. I already gave a lot of examples, but what's most important is KNOWING (which isn't imagination) there's a threat lurking around ready to get you. This game rely on imagination because it gives NOTHING to the player to rely on.

Games like P.T. that you circle around the same area over and over again multiple times, the presence of fear is the changing in the scenario. Something changing, even if you did nothing to change it.

In this game, you have "steps" of dangerous situations, which aren't that dangerous to be honest (talking about fear perspective):

01. First you have steam coming out of the pipes, this happens because your submarine can't support the pressure from that level deep... There's no fear here because you know the reason behind the danger, and since there's nothing to do to deal with it, you simply keep going.

02. Further more you see fire that you can put out right away, no fear neither feeling of danger when you already have the solution right close to you, also you know the reason around that, because your submarine can't handle the pressure for much longer, there's no fear behind this danger.

03. Then there's the blooding flooding in, which could bring the feeling for drowning, but it doesn't seems to rise up, it's just a pool that stays in the same level until the end of the game... You also know the reason behind it, your submarine giving up for the pressure... Again, because you know the reason, no fear nor danger here.

04. The monster attacking and jumpscaring you.

You see, in the fire part, since we cans imply put it out right away, there's nothing to give danger or fear... If we weren't able to put it out, and "receive damage" getting in contact with it, the player would have to change the "round" moving around the submarine when going between changing course and taking pictures, it's a dangerous hazard that we can't avoid, and must dance around it to keep going. The map could be even a physical part of the submarine, so instead of pulling it out anywhere, we could go to the wall to pay attention to the coordinates, also having to deal with the fire hazard.

Same with the blood part, the blood could rise up and create the fear of drowning, this is one of the top tier list of fears around humanity, I see another opportunity lost by the developer, if the player sees the blood rising, the player would have the sensation of fear because there's nothing to do to deal with it.

Instead, even before seeing the blood rising, the monster attack and jumpscare us. Can you see this game has flaws that could be way better? At least, in my point of view, of course.

[D.A.R.K.]

Diposting pertama kali oleh PolarisVII:

Even if the developer gave you a free copy, what's the point if you already spoiled yourself to kingdom come? Honestly, at this point you already know everything that happens is scripted lmao you'd have to experience the game first hand, go in completely in the dark as they say, without any foreknowledge of the game's inner workings to actually enjoy it

Basically, you already peeked behind the curtains and you robbed yourself from a great horror experience. But to be honest, judging by your opinion of what a horror game should be like, you'd probably be amongst the people that crash their sub nonstop and drop the game out of frustration and impatience lol

I don't think so.

First, the crash nonstop, frustration and impatience. To be honest, the worst part of this game, for me, is the input coordinates... It's boring and monotonous, in my opinion, there's no value, it seems the reason is to increase the time between the player, and the events.

About the scripted, yes, and I also already know that the events happen based on how many pictures did you take, not the order, or how "deep" you are in the game, it's possible to do from last to first, the pictures are the same, you'll see the eye first (I think the eye is the last), and the monster attack will happen right after you take the last picture... To be fair, knowing there's a monster lurking around in the middle of the trip would be better than see it in the end.

About the "go in completely in the dark", you are right, experiencing it for yourself is better than watching someone playing, and playing for the first time is always better than already knowing what's going on, but it's about what I've told before, I didn't know about this game, I saw it on Steam and didn't care much because the pictures aren't interesting (usually I see the pictures, if the pictures are interesting, I watch the trailer, and then I set the game on Wishlist or Not Interested), and there's no Demo. The worst thing was, accidentally, watching MatPat playing the game, I didn't expect him to play it, was the first, and then when I saw what the game really was, I searched around more about the game.

About my answer for those two, are basically an not so sudden answer for a stupid comment. Saying no one have to right to talk about, or comment about something without experiencing it for itself is completely stupid. So, isn't that I want the game, it's just to shut them up for putting on the table a stupid, irrelevant, argument.

[Nostrvm]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Emmy:

you need an ounce of imagination to experience the fear.

Or not knowing everything that happens and how it works or how to respond to it beforehand. I think you need that too.

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

01. First you have steam coming out of the pipes, this happens because your submarine can't support the pressure from that level deep... There's no fear here because you know the reason behind the danger, and since there's nothing to do to deal with it, you simply keep going.

See? If you went in completely in the dark you wouldn't know that it doesn't matter. When I played it I really though the sub was going to colapse if I didn't hurry. There was fear there, let me tell you.

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

02. Further more you see fire that you can put out right away, no fear neither feeling of danger when you already have the solution right close to you, also you know the reason around that, because your submarine can't handle the pressure for much longer, there's no fear behind this danger.

When I first played it I didn't know I could use the fire extinguisher. I panicked so hard i just fumbled like an ♥♥♥♥♥ for a solid 20 seconds before I even tried to take the extinguisher. At this point the sub was almost completely on fire. I managed to extinguish it, but you know what fire needs to burn? The same oxygen I was breathing. I didn't know at the time the oxymeter was scripted, and I though because I took so long to put out the fire I was already doomed to run out of oxygen. Which made me hurry up even more and get even more scared.

Diposting pertama kali oleh D.A.R.K.:

03. Then there's the blooding flooding in, which could bring the feeling for drowning, but it doesn't seems to rise up, it's just a pool that stays in the same level until the end of the game... You also know the reason behind it, your submarine giving up for the pressure... Again, because you know the reason, no fear nor danger here.

I didn't know this either. I really thought I'd drown in freaking BLOOD if i didn't hurry. That if the sub didn't colapse around me from the monster ramming against it a minute ago, which at the time I didn't know would never happen. That made me get scared too.

Now, if you add all of that up, the jumpscare at the end feels EARNED. It was a great way to relieve the tension. Honestly, what's you idea of an ending? I think that was clearly the best way to end the game. Anything else would've been lame.

See? If you don't spoil yourself and you don't know what the actual limits of the game's programming are, it can be absolutely horrifying. Such a shame you'll never get to experience that now. I on the other hand get to remember and cherish it forever