The writing, story, and art direction.

[Vexy]

The writing in this game has got to be the most subpar, no, worse than that. It's just straight up horrible. These characters are just so disjointed and uninteresting characters anyone could have ever tried to write. The way they speak, trying to get you to feel feelings of some kind of nostalgia that doesn't exist because no one has ever actually conversed the way these characters do. The story is complete schlock ranging from plot devices that lose meaning as soon as they are introduced and only come back when the writers remember what their plot is about. Your have the option to choose what your character says, but in the end it doesn't matter. For instance, you have a "heated" read: wooden argument with your mother about how you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up your life. You can retort by saying that it was her mother's fault. This situation doesn't convey anything as the characters are wooden and not emotive. The next encounter with your mother ends in an apology between the two of you. There is nothing that comes from the argument. There is no effect on the story in a meaningful way. It's just there to illicit false emotions. Later, you have to sit through an assumed breakup between two characters, but afterward they all get along just fine. Just a few minutes later, the main character has a mental break and goes off on a character. Soon, again, they are all fine and dandy and then the main character throws up for no reason. The writing feels as though it was written by at most a teen thinking they have the answer to the most existential questions making it a shallow experience. None of the characters are likeable or relatable in any way as they all feel like cardboard cutouts of "characters" that the writers wanted them to be but didn't have the skill. They have to resort to making a character homosexual or have them have some form of mental disability to make them somewhat interesting, but in the end nothing comes from it besides talking about how broken they are like most games of this "calibur". The "gameplay" if you can call it that is filled to burst with sluggish walking speeds to pad out the game severely. Dream sequences are very evident of that as they have no substance and serve to pad the game's runtime in an attempt to be deep. There are numerous times in which you must walk through the same boring looking environments with nothing going on. None of the characters that populate the town are interesting. You may talk to these characters, but overall you may only get a couple of lines of dialogue from them that boils down to "Hey" "Sup" "Well, Bye". The artstyle, while at first very nice and whimsical, gets very tiring to look at as the game drones on. By the end of the game, it turns into just as much of a blight on the game as the story and gameplay does.

I'm placing this here because I am not shelling out 20 dollars for this game and I advise people to seriously think about not purchasing it themselves in order to save the money and buy games that are infinitely better than this.

[Dumb_Woof]

A'ight. Sorry you didn't dig it man.

[GruntOfAction]

The game looks great, and the characters are cute. But everything else is just mediocre. What should've been a 10$ short romp turned into a 7 hour slog with no payoff in the ending.

[eli]

Completely disagree. Really love the writing.

The writing in Longest Night was beyond fantastic as well. Very moving.

Sorry you don't enjoy it. :^(

[eli]

also paragraph breaks might help in the future

a little bit.

sorta just a block of text

y'know, speaking of good writing and all…

[Luxaster]

Disagree. I'm of the age-group presented and I find the dialogue to be pretty realistic of how we speak nowadays. And the art style is subtle but surprisingly emotive, considering the abstraction of the character's faces.

It is about moody young adults doing moody young adult things, and if that's not your jam that's not your jam. I dislike your characterizing the inclusion of a gay or mentally ill character as being an attempt at depth; rather its an accuracy to the age group at hand.

It's a literary game, though, I'll give it that. That's not to everyone's tastes.

[ice]

Wrong on so many levels. Every single character in this game has more depth that almost any I have ever seen in many years of gaming. The only thing I can say would be comparable would be some of Kojima's characters or some from the early Bioshock series. There are a few that are written kind of short-handed, but this isn't unusual. In a well-written novel there are many characters who don't serve a huge purpose besides advancing dialog, or making an important plot point, even though they are under-developed they exist to get the job done, but there are usually a number of characters that have established character traits. I can honestly say many of the emotions the characters in this game reflect on or actually act out are things I have personally experienced word for word and feeling by feeling in my life. This is something I've honestly never encountered in a videogame in my life. I wouldn't say any one particular character is one I relate to the most, it's more so that every one of them kind of has something they say or do that I can reflect on, or some that I literally see other people I have known in my life in.

OP is just someone who fails to see the forest for the trees. He wants to point to the individual trees the artist had painted and how low detail one or two particular ones look and claim some how this some how invalidates the whole work.

Nonsense. Disregard such a worthless opinion for the trash it is, considering the OP could never make something even a tenth as good himself.

[Yellow]

I agree with Luxaster. I am also of the age group presented, and I think the dialogue is spot-on. I can even tell the tone the characters are saying things in most of the time despite the lack of recorded dialogue. That's pretty good writing if you ask me.

I don't know what you're talking about with the uninteresting townspeople. You can talk to them a few times in a row and they'll tell you more about how their lives are going. They even have something new to say every day in the game.

And about the choices not having an effect on the game: have you gone back through the game to see if different choices have different outcomes? I'm genuinely curious. I felt that there were a few times when a different choice could have resulted in a different outcome. I was going to go back through to see for myself after I finished the game.

Anyway, sorry that it's not your thing, but it's not like you couldn't have found out what the game was like beforehand. There are two free "demos" that show how the game plays. There are also a few videos of people playing early versions of the game. Perhaps look into something before buying it next time?

[StanleyMOV]

It took them three years to complete this game. I have followed them since their Kickstarter campaign.

dont talk ♥♥♥♥, if you dont have any experice with game development

[[They/Them] ChesseTheWasp]

Originally posted by Oculus Nex:

It took them three years to complete this game. I have followed them since their Kickstarter campaign.

dont talk ♥♥♥♥, if you dont have any experice with game development

i have made better games in roblox in a week

[RedCervidae]

You're incredibly wrong. Sorry you didn't enjoy it, but you likely didn't kickstarter it since you know nothing about it, so you can get your money back via the refund policy on steam if you're that salty.

[Wolfy Hopeless]

You can have your opinion and all but you pretty much destroyed it's validity with that block of pure whining and bashing with no actual basis.

The writing, art direction (from Scott Benson, who makes some AMAZING shorts and music vids) and depth of this game are pretty incredible. Obviously, this type of game isn't everyone's jam and that's fine. It resonates strongly with me, and I'm about 13 years older than Mae. Thinking isn't for everyone, but don't pretend to "critique" when you're clearly looking to just ♥♥♥♥ on it.

[Salestax1]

>I'm placing this here because I am not shelling out 20 dollars for this game...
What? Do you mean you're getting the refund then? Or do you mean to say that you are reviewing a game you don't own and just watched? Cause that phrasing is weird.

[PsychoDino]

Originally posted by Siggy Stardust:

The writing in this game has got to be the most subpar, no, worse than that. It's just straight up horrible. These characters are just so disjointed and uninteresting characters anyone could have ever tried to write. The way they speak, trying to get you to feel feelings of some kind of nostalgia that doesn't exist because no one has ever actually conversed the way these characters do. The story is complete schlock ranging from plot devices that lose meaning as soon as they are introduced and only come back when the writers remember what their plot is about. Your have the option to choose what your character says, but in the end it doesn't matter. For instance, you have a "heated" read: wooden argument with your mother about how you ♥♥♥♥ed up your life. You can retort by saying that it was her mother's fault. This situation doesn't convey anything as the characters are wooden and not emotive. The next encounter with your mother ends in an apology between the two of you. There is nothing that comes from the argument. There is no effect on the story in a meaningful way. It's just there to illicit false emotions. Later, you have to sit through an assumed breakup between two characters, but afterward they all get along just fine. Just a few minutes later, the main character has a mental break and goes off on a character. Soon, again, they are all fine and dandy and then the main character throws up for no reason. The writing feels as though it was written by at most a teen thinking they have the answer to the most existential questions making it a shallow experience. None of the characters are likeable or relatable in any way as they all feel like cardboard cutouts of "characters" that the writers wanted them to be but didn't have the skill. They have to resort to making a character homosexual or have them have some form of mental disability to make them somewhat interesting, but in the end nothing comes from it besides talking about how broken they are like most games of this "calibur". The "gameplay" if you can call it that is filled to burst with sluggish walking speeds to pad out the game severely. Dream sequences are very evident of that as they have no substance and serve to pad the game's runtime in an attempt to be deep. There are numerous times in which you must walk through the same boring looking environments with nothing going on. None of the characters that populate the town are interesting. You may talk to these characters, but overall you may only get a couple of lines of dialogue from them that boils down to "Hey" "Sup" "Well, Bye". The artstyle, while at first very nice and whimsical, gets very tiring to look at as the game drones on. By the end of the game, it turns into just as much of a blight on the game as the story and gameplay does.

I'm placing this here because I am not shelling out 20 dollars for this game and I advise people to seriously think about not purchasing it themselves in order to save the money and buy games that are infinitely better than this.

is the game like oxenfree?

[eli]

Originally posted by PsychoDino:

is the game like oxenfree?

no

http://steamcommunity.com/app/481510/discussions/0/135509724377774907/

[TemmieNeko]

The absolute irony of a person insulting writing and then they write a GIGANTIC non-indexed, run on sentence of a "rant"

good bate, mate.
how would you know ANY of the writing is bad or the characters, etc.. if you NEVER played it or bought it?

weak bait.