Why don't I like these games?

[Joa Joa]

Fez, Hollow Knight, and now Hyper Light Drifter... I guess I 'm just bad at enjoying beautiful games.

I don't like these amazing games because I can't understand them. Yes, these games have amazing music, they have heart, and the graphics used in each of them are some of my favorite in the entire industry... but I can't understand them. There always comes a point in these games where I can't find out what I'm supposed to do next and just give up.

Fez is probably the one out of these I enjoy most. Fez wasn't too hard and I liked it a lot, but I never really understood it. Its platforming was fun, its whole "Collectathon" vibe actually got me to finish the game. The puzzles are somehow engaging and simple enough for me to solve them... but I don't understand it. I don't think I'll ever be able to comprehend what's going on in that game. It'll always be a great indie game to me, but I just don't get it. What is the story? Who is the golden cube? why are there purple cubes? What are these people saying? What is the deal with this owl? I KNOW these things have answers, and sure, I COULD go online and just READ about what it all means... but I don't want to and shouldn't have to. I should be able to piece it all together for myself. I want to be able to discover it all and tie it all up myself without searching for all the answers online...

But I just can't bring myself to.

Hollow Knight came out on Xbox Game Pass a while ago. I was really excited. Everyone was talking about how great it was. They were saying it was an amazing "Metroidvania" that couldn't be missed. That alone got me a little worried. Those games are massive, tough, frustrating and require you to puzzle your way through rooms upon rooms of secrets that I always find myself too stupid to solve. Sure enough to form, that's exactly what happened. I played the game and got maybe 20% through it. I learned to double jump, to dash, and even learned how to beat some of the bosses. It's a really cute game. It's a really nice sounding game. It's a well made game. It is a great game...

but I don't understand it, and couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Hyper Light Drifter was recently free to download on the Epic Games Store. "Great!" I thought. "This game's art is amazing and I just know it's going to sound awesome!" I downloaded it and was so excited to play it for the first time... and then I got to the town where the people were speaking in pictures instead of text. The shop menus were unique, but difficult for me to understand. "How many coins is this? How do I get them? I mean, the enemies don't drop money when I kill them so is there even money in this game?" I knew immediately I was going to hate this game. Not because it was bad, *it's not.* I knew I was going to hate it because I knew I was never going to understand it. Story in gaming is very important to me and it enrages me when I can't understand what that story is. Worse still is when I have literally no idea what my goal is or how I'm supposed to accomplish it. I really want to like this game... But I knew exactly what kind of game it was going to be the moment I saw that town and its signature lack of text. I knew I was never going to understand this game. No matter how pretty it was, no matter how challenging it was, no matter how good it sounded...

I just couldn't bring myself to play more than five minutes of it.

Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe these games aren't about "Winning" or "Beating" or "Saving the world." Maybe they're about the journey. Maybe they're about relaxing and listening to the music. Maybe they're about exploration and mastering the world around you. Maybe they're not even about "Discovering" the world you're in. Maybe they're meant to relax you and to put you into a world where you can just watch the leaves blow or watch the sun set. Maybe they're about reminding you the beauty of the world you really live in, or about showing you how simple graphics can invoke more feeling than 4, 8 or 16K can. Maybe they're meant to show you how the journey is more important than the destination, or that there doesn't always have to be a destination. That sometimes you can just muddle through and wait for things to reveal themselves to you.

I wanted to start this discussion so someone could explain to me how to enjoy games like this. So if you're a big fan of this game and your love of it goes deeper than "tight controls" or "pretty graphics" and is more about what the game actually culminates into being, then please explain. Let me know what I'm doing wrong and maybe you can teach me how to love games like this. There are more I didn't even talk about like The Outer Wilds, Below, Superbrothers Sword and Sworcery and even the original Legend of Zelda. These games all feel the same to me in a few ways, and I've at least tried them all, but have only ever finished Fez. If any of you can help with that, please teach me.

[Vandal Savant]

I never played Fez or Hollow Knight. In HLD though, I find that some of the obscure parts are basically very light thought puzzles in their own right.

For instance, money and the shops. When I first played I went into the shop and couldn't buy anything. I thought to myself "I must not have money." So I kept playing and I eventually found one of the gearbit fragments (the gold cubes) and it filled in one of four spaces in my inventory. So I thought "I wonder what will happen if I collect 4 of these." When I did, it combined into a full gearbit and I was like "Oh, this looks like that gold cube icon from the shops. This must be currency!"

It's kind of similar in how npc "dialogue" works. It shows pictures instead of text, where I was examining each slide to process what was happening in them, and how they collaborate with each other in order to form a narrative in my mind. Something similar works with HLD's overall plot, where it expects the player to observe, mentally mull it over, and draw a conclusion.

You don't need to feel bad about not liking that kind of connect-the-dots style relay of information. Maybe you just find it contrived and too artsy-fartsy to be enjoyable. There's nothing wrong with preferring clear-cut communication.

[John]

Not to be the "back in my day" guy, but there is mounting speculation across various spheres that younger generations have been growing up with conveniences baked into technology to such an extent that they 1) are generally more impatient than previous generations, and 2) may not be building up problem-solving skills to the extent of their forebears. You can probably ask any boomer for relevant anecdotes, but I'm sure even you must have noticed how many questions are posted online that are by people who seem unable to do their own basic research. Now, how applicable that is to you specifically, I don't know, but there is something to be said for the fact that Fez and HLD in particular target an audience familiar with the 16-bit era of gaming that may have a certain amount of gaming capital already built up that will help them understand or relate to games that present with initial frustration or opaqueness. It's common sense that if you have a Steam library of 100+ games (as many gamers seem to nowadays), you're likely going to spend less time digging into a game that frustrates you in some way than when you don't have a ton of alternatives, as was often the case in the days of game cartridges. Still, I do think you saying you can't bring yourself to play more than five minutes of a game you seem to not understand, when you find yourself liking other things about it, says a lot about how your approach to uncertainty and problem-solving... particularly that you're choosing to limit yourself because of your assumptions.

At the same time, sometimes people connect with different things just because of how our brains work. I'd long thought puzzle games weren't for me until I played Antichamber and The Witness. Maybe the previous puzzle games I saw weren't as well-designed, or maybe these were different types of puzzles, or maybe I'm just thick. I don't know for sure (well, I know I'm not *that* thick), but I've since found more that I do like. I hardly ever feel like I "get" poetry, but I often grasp layers of meaning in song lyrics that many overlook. Maybe the music sets my mind down the right path, I don't know. I just try to be honest with myself about not shirking away from a challenge, and try to learn from others as much as I can.

Coincidentally, I've beat both Fez and HLD and loved them both. With Fez, the whole mystery of what is going on is part of the appeal, and if you're diligent with your curiosity, it pays off in a massive way, because you can and do find out what the heck is going on in a most satisfying fashion that wouldn't be anywhere near as good if you didn't have to work for it. HLD's vagueness of dialogue and narrative is more of a stylistic choice, I think.

[stiiin]

It's worth noting that opaqueness was part of the business model before the advent of the internet. Back then, publishers helped through "hint hotlines" for one dollar per minute, you could buy walkthrough manuals, and subscribing to games magazines also helped a bit. If the game would be "easy to follow", it would be too self-contained to make money off it beyond selling the copy.

I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that these games are really hard to grasp may partially be traced back to nostalgia for the good old games with poor design. The result works for some people, and frustrates others.

OP, you're not alone. There are quite a few reviews with negative recommendations from people who also don't enjoy the vagueness of these games. Personally, I love this narrative style, but I understand why it's not enjoyable for everyone.

[hxhdrn]

I totally get this, but it's not true at all for me. Fez and Hyper Light Drifter are two of my favorite games. I think the reason for me is that I enjoy the experience of feeling lost in a game. The two games have totally different styles of gameplay, but their shared attributes include a hard-to-read map (in Fez only because it was unfamiliar, it became easier to read as I got used to it), strong worldbuilding and environmental storytelling without any written explanation, and a core aesthetic of exploration and feeling lost but gradually becoming familiar with the environment. It's those things that really make them two of my favorite games ever (the wonderful soundtracks by disasterpeace and the art only make them better).

I'm 20 years old, but I'm definitely a very diy, figure it out kind of person. I love puzzles and programming. And I don't always feel like I need to fully understand or be able to explain something in order to like it—I can just vibe with it, live in the aesthetic. My favorite movie is Cloud Atlas and I didn't fully work out the plot until the third time I watched it. I still loved it with my entire soul the first time, when I had no clue what had just happened.

I'm actually a game designer. I did a playtest with someone recently, and the player's main feedback to me was that at any given point, they didn't know what they were "supposed" to do. It's not that they didn't understand the controls, it's just that they were used to games that gave them a clear objective and method to reach it at all times, whereas my game required them to connect a few dots. I had another playtest the same day with someone who played more puzzle games, and it went brilliantly. It was just a difference in expectations between players.

I think one thing that could help with this is the way a game is marketed. If those games put more of an emphasis in their descriptions and trailers and such on the "lost and found" aesthetic, it might attract more players who enjoy that. I'd be curious, though, if there's a way to make the game fun for both types of players. For example, if there were an "explained" version of the game where it gave you some story text, puzzle explanations, and maybe dev commentary that appeared in a sidebar as an option when you enter an area. It would make the game playable for people who don't enjoy uncertainty, and it would be fun extras for players who play the game normally and then want to learn a little more about the world.

[John]

Originally posted by hxhdrn:

It was just a difference in expectations between players.

I should have replaced my entire post with this.

Re: making such games fun for both types of players, Jonathan Blow had a few interesting things to say about that during his development of The Witness. In sum, he thinks you can't without sacrificing the integrity of the game. I don't have an actual link to him saying so but if you look up the Blow Fan youtube channel you'll probably come across it eventually.

[jgono]

I just finished Hyper Light Drifter, I also got it from Epic Games Store.

For the record, I also loved Fez, and totally hated "The Witness", which I found it horribly contrived and boring, but generally I love all kinds of puzzles and puzzle in games.

It took me 13hr to finish HLD, and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it, after pushing through the first 1-2hr, which was slightly confusing.

What I think is brilliant in this game is the sound, like in Fez, atmospheric ambient synth that really make the world and story feel more immersive. The level designs and the subtle puzzles. The sense of it being difficult and deliberately mysterious but revealing itself to you slowly, more and more, so you never feel like you're stupid or that it's "too hard", just that the extra bit of information you need is around the corner, or that you need to keep exploring a bit futher.

This game to me was an immersive journey to a foreign land that unfurled itself slowly, interposed with bouts of exciting sword and gun fights, and then restful atmospheric moments where you might come across a huge waterfall or a snow-capped mountain, or a giant fossilized skull. And then followed up with a series of platform style puzzles.

Honestly I thought it was brilliant.

To the OP, thanks for posting your question, and being honest, sometimes it's hard to understand why you don't like a game that you SHOULD love. Like with The Witness, I went in assuming that I would love this critically acclaimed puzzle masterwork, but I absolutely hated every minute, when I wasn't completely bored.

What I would suggest is that sometimes you are more in the mood for one game than another. HLD was the sort of game that I would only play after 6pm when my work was over and I was able to completely relax for at least 45min, and unwind into it. So I wouldn't play it late into the night like at 1am, when I'm too tired to process puzzles and in a rush to get to bed.

I reckon you should give it another try, turn up the volume, use a game controller, and give yourself freedom to 'just explore' the world.