Am I bad or is it pretty trail and error based?

[Oaks]

Hi folks,

I feel I tend to die a lot after each checkpoint. I'm nearing the end of the school level, and there have only been a handful of segments where I didn't die at least a couple times.

I'd say the deaths are 25% "oh shoot, pressed the wrong button", 25% "I couldn't have avoided that trap without knowing about it" and 50% "well game, I'm not sure what you want me to do here to not die."

I'm not really complaining, I enjoy the game very much so far. Excellent atmosphere, sound design, and monsters.

I'm more just interested if I'm a particularly bad player at it or if it is a game that's actually built around the concept "you need to do the segment a few times to know what to do".

What do others think about this?

[kanna]

Originally posted by Oaks:

I'm not really complaining, I enjoy the game very much so far. Excellent atmosphere, sound design, and monsters.

I'm more just interested if I'm a particularly bad player at it or if it is a game that's actually built around the concept "you need to do the segment a few times to know what to do".

Good to see you're enjoying yourself!

Everyone's first idea for how to get through solving a puzzle is not necessarily going to be the same every time, so it's definitely got trial and error to it. I would place both LN1 and LN2 in the puzzle platformer niche genre (+ horror elements, obviously).

The following post by SAMNESIAC (also the last one), commenting in a thread for the first game is pretty accurate for both games and might maybe help with your thought process as you go through the game (if you want):
https://steamcommunity.com/app/424840/discussions/0/7187237851765289879/

[RageOfPerun]

That was also my experience with the school level, especially the "combat" was super-random.. did not progress further yet.. some traps feel especially "cheap" as you are DEAD if you dont see them coming in advance(you cant doge) - I think this game needs a doge/roll/jump-back mechanic or similar, seeing something coming at you and knowing you *could* doge it if you could doge yet since you cant you just stand there and die is soooo frustrating

[[GER] derChat]

The encounters in school were frustrating. Now I am where I have to use a lamp against puppets which is also frustrating.

[Felix Purcell]

To an extent all games are but I feel in this franchise they're good at hinting when something is going to come up.

For example: one can see on the floor where they is a trigger for a trap. It's not easy to see but there are no "gotcha! you're dead!" moments.

[Oaks]

Originally posted by Felix Purcell:

To an extent all games are but I feel in this franchise they're good at hinting when something is going to come up.

For example: one can see on the floor where they is a trigger for a trap. It's not easy to see but there are no "gotcha! you're dead!" moments.

Admittedly I returned the game because achievements were not unlocking. But I made it to the end of level 2 and it didn't feel like I could predict those deaths.

If course I could be wrong since I only played the first two chapters.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

The combat was done very poorly. I've pretty much stopped at the point where I have to hit stuff with perfect timing or die over and over again. That part was a big mistake.

[Felix Purcell]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

The combat was done very poorly. I've pretty much stopped at the point where I have to hit stuff with perfect timing or die over and over again. That part was a big mistake.

With all due respect, I wonder if you're judging a horror game by an action game standard.

It's the inelegance and the clunkiness that is the charm for me.

[Oaks]

Originally posted by Felix Purcell:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

The combat was done very poorly. I've pretty much stopped at the point where I have to hit stuff with perfect timing or die over and over again. That part was a big mistake.

With all due respect, I wonder if you're judging a horror game by an action game standard.

It's the inelegance and the clunkiness that is the charm for me.

You definitely have a point, most horror games have you pretty weak and awkward, as opposed to most other genres.

The trick there is, can a game be fun with purposefully clunky combat?

I had a pretty bad time I level two when you need to hit a series of school kids with the club. Hitting one or two was kinda satisfying, but there is a string of quite a few school kids at one point which I had to redo a lot to get down the timing. To me, it wasn't fun but tedious.

Though of course opinions vary, you seem to have enjoyed it.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Felix Purcell:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

The combat was done very poorly. I've pretty much stopped at the point where I have to hit stuff with perfect timing or die over and over again. That part was a big mistake.

With all due respect, I wonder if you're judging a horror game by an action game standard.

It's the inelegance and the clunkiness that is the charm for me.

I had to put the game down for a while and come back to it, and I finally passed the part where I was whacking kids with a hammer, and got to the flashlight section, which is also frustrating, and for exactly the same reasons, though maybe not quite as bad as the hammer section.

Really clunky controls aren't good for a game that requires exact timing and precision to progress, especially when the game just has you restart a few steps backwards.

The end result is just repeating yourself until you give up and ragequit. It's not fun, it's not scary, it's not entertaining. It's just frustrating.

[QuantumRyze]

Originally posted by Oaks:

Hi folks,

I feel I tend to die a lot after each checkpoint. I'm nearing the end of the school level, and there have only been a handful of segments where I didn't die at least a couple times.

I'd say the deaths are 25% "oh shoot, pressed the wrong button", 25% "I couldn't have avoided that trap without knowing about it" and 50% "well game, I'm not sure what you want me to do here to not die."

I'm not really complaining, I enjoy the game very much so far. Excellent atmosphere, sound design, and monsters.

I'm more just interested if I'm a particularly bad player at it or if it is a game that's actually built around the concept "you need to do the segment a few times to know what to do".

What do others think about this?

It is 100% a trial and die and figure out that's what you were not supposed to do type of game. Outlast two did this a lot It was very annoying. And the game has pretty low budget gameplay design to begin with. They wanted us to see the unique death animations that's probably why they added so many cheap trap type deaths during enemy fights. Except they forgot to animate any of the death animations because everything looks exactly the same when you just rag doll lifeless

[QuantumRyze]

Originally posted by Felix Purcell:

To an extent all games are but I feel in this franchise they're good at hinting when something is going to come up.

For example: one can see on the floor where they is a trigger for a trap. It's not easy to see but there are no "gotcha! you're dead!" moments.

Lol nice try dev on your alt account. 98% of the chase scenes in both little nightmares games are literally trial and error gotcha moments. The developers even openly said this was the case because they didn't want you rushing through the game and that the bad controls and clunky unpredictable moments extend the game and make it more spooky. Also very frustrating

[QuantumRyze]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Cassandra:

Originally posted by Felix Purcell:

With all due respect, I wonder if you're judging a horror game by an action game standard.

It's the inelegance and the clunkiness that is the charm for me.

I had to put the game down for a while and come back to it, and I finally passed the part where I was whacking kids with a hammer, and got to the flashlight section, which is also frustrating, and for exactly the same reasons, though maybe not quite as bad as the hammer section.

Really clunky controls aren't good for a game that requires exact timing and precision to progress, especially when the game just has you restart a few steps backwards.

The end result is just repeating yourself until you give up and ragequit. It's not fun, it's not scary, it's not entertaining. It's just frustrating.

100% agree with you. It is kind of wild when you check the reddits of this game All the developers with fake credit accounts and the crazy fanboys will say it's a skill issue for the player. When every sane human being above 70 IQ can see the controls and the trial and error is something straight out of a original Nintendo game

[Enter Name Here]

@Oaks: Hi there. Now I don't really know what you're doing during the play-through, but usually a few puzzles and chases require you to die a few times to understand it completely. I won't spoil anything here but one thing I did find as a bug during a chase was that my key-bind to crouch wasn't letting me slide when it was on C so I had to change it to F (although that might be because I'm playing on a PC and not a controller). So it could be a bug, or that you can't figure out what to do. Hope this helps!