I feel let down...

[vainglorious11]

This game encourages you to be creative and dig into its inner workings, but utterly does not reward you for doing so. I sunk like 15-20 hours into this and feel like I wasted that time. It's really obvious that the designers built a beautiful system and then ran out of time with the middle and end game.


Although the game was a little slow and lacking in direction at first, there was some real thrill of discovery as you started to figure out the layers of the world. Learning to ignore the 'day job', discovering that modifiers were a thing, figuring out how to get one, tweaking objects were all really exciting.

So then I dug deeper, checking out computers all over the place to figure out what was possible. I found a couple of useful computers and stayed up late writing a script to build a database of every object in the game. Using that data I also found a tool that let me move around freely.

Feeling like I had some useful abilities I continued through the story. But none of the 'missions' rewarded or even let me use the tools I'd built in any meaningful way - in fact I had to make a point not to use them, because I would miss triggers to continue the story.

And then I got to the final story mission. Using even basic hacks (like enhancing my coffee so I didn't have to sleep in my bed) made it impossible to finish. You literally have to sleep in your own bed for the story to advance - even if you follow all the other steps. I found the missing person, got him safely back to his girlfriend, and she didn't even acknowledge he was back. At that point my game was broken and I had to load a previous save, and read walkthroughs here to figure out the order I needed to do things to trigger an ending. It was the most frustrating and anticlimactic ending possible to a really promising game.

In most games I wouldn't expect a reward for taking shortcuts. But Else Heart.Break() repeatedly hammers home the message that you should dig into the mechanics and try to break the rules. And it gives you tools to do exciting powerful stuff. But when you figure out how to use them there isn't much to do - and by breaking the story it actively punishes players for using them.

I honestly feel like the middle and ending ruined the entire experience for me and the devs failed to reward the players who put the most into the game. At minimum the story missions need to have enough flexibility to handle unexpected solutions ('oh wow, that was fast, how did you get those back so soon?') and there should have been a few advanced challenges for those who wanted to take them on.

[FCC]

Don't have anything new that I haven't already said on these forums, but if that first post was a review, I'd mark it as helpful.

I spent a lot of time working to finish the story, and I do also kind of regret trying so hard for it, but I don't regret taking the time to play around with the world.

I agree that it's a beautiful system with a real let-down story arc, but I kind of already expected that the author's goal was pre-destined to be a hot mess on arrival due to the sheer scope. Sometimes I wonder if the game would have been better with a less emphasis on the macro plot, and more development on the self-contained side shows, such as Elsa in the tower, or the secret Arcade.

[Gl'bgolyb]

Originally posted by FCC:

Don't have anything new that I haven't already said on these forums, but if that first post was a review, I'd mark it as helpful.

I spent a lot of time working to finish the story, and I do also kind of regret trying so hard for it, but I don't regret taking the time to play around with the world.

I agree that it's a beautiful system with a real let-down story arc, but I kind of already expected that the author's goal was pre-destined to be a hot mess on arrival due to the sheer scope. Sometimes I wonder if the game would have been better with a less emphasis on the macro plot, and more development on the self-contained side shows, such as Elsa in the tower, or the secret Arcade.

I noticed you mentioned Elsa, so I may as well asked. I managed to find Elsa by accident, stumbling into a slurp to "DesolateFuseBox". When i did find her, she really didn't have a whole lot to say. I did find the oh-so-unnecessary key in her room, but that's pretty much it.

Did you have a different experience?

[FCC]

Actually I didn't have a different experience. Like you, I stumbled upon Elsa through the same internet node.

I suspect that I like the *idea* of certain designs in the game, but not the execution. For example, I thought it was clever that her tower had a broken elevator, and that if you got there without a modifier, Seb's "what???" reaction would have been a neat twist. I like the idea of a character who's in a mysterious tower, who you cannot reach until you gain programming powers.

In reality though, I suspect most people did not explore the slums by intention, and stumbled upon those secrets in an anti-climatic manner through the internet. Because of that, I feel like the internet as a highway was an interesting idea, but it made it really hard to curate a player's path through the game.

As another example, I find the idea of the Secret Arcade super cool. The set design of that room is quite cozy, and the idea of people creating game implementations at a pre-release hackathon was really neat. But in reality, the games are not very fun in themselves, and after the initial discovery the area loses its charm once you realize how little interesting content is in there.

[Gl'bgolyb]

Originally posted by FCC:

Actually I didn't have a different experience. Like you, I stumbled upon Elsa through the same internet node.

I suspect that I like the *idea* of certain designs in the game, but not the execution. For example, I thought it was clever that her tower had a broken elevator, and that if you got there without a modifier, Seb's "what???" reaction would have been a neat twist. I like the idea of a character who's in a mysterious tower, who you cannot reach until you gain programming powers.

In reality though, I suspect most people did not explore the slums by intention, and stumbled upon those secrets in an anti-climatic manner through the internet. Because of that, I feel like the internet as a highway was an interesting idea, but it made it really hard to curate a player's path through the game.

As another example, I find the idea of the Secret Arcade super cool. The set design of that room is quite cozy, and the idea of people creating game implementations at a pre-release hackathon was really neat. But in reality, the games are not very fun in themselves, and after the initial discovery the area loses its charm once you realize how little interesting content is in there.

Perhaps you can take some enjoyment in the fact that the game can be, in many ways, crafted without needing developer tools.

I'm enjoying searching through all the unused or developer rooms in the game, finding what I want, and taking it where I want it.

I'm in the process of establishing my own little base with computers I teleported into the room, and I'll probably set up a pair of doors between this room I claim and some obscure corner on the Internet.

I've yet to figure out how to move walls or even if it can be done, but I'm very quickly finding new ways to amuse myself with the SetPosition() function.