|
Kinda disappointed about the story, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I don't think I've played another game that situated you in the game world as much as this one. I'm going to compare it to Gone Home: in GH, you are pretty much a disembodied entity. You can look down but you won't see your feet, and you can examine things by rotating them with your invisible hands. In Firewatch, you will see your feet, and you will manipulate objects with your hands. You will have trouble climbing things, and you will get lost in the wilderness (if you turn off your map icon). All of these: the sounds, the animations, the environment design, are reinforcing the fact that you are an unathletic, middle-aged dude, walking around a very real place. It sounds extremely mundane, but I was enchanted. I am glad I played this game.
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 06:48 |
|
|
Pretty neat playing two highly-anticipated games in the same month with artistic outdoors places to explore and having both of their endings be a mild letdown. I hope Campo Santo have success from this title but, gosh, I'm going to forget the whole experience in a week.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:08
|
|
|
I enjoyed my four hours But poo poo I haven't played a game that screamed WASTED POTENTIAL more than this one in quite a while.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:29
|
|
|
This game is gorgeous, the opening hike made me stare in awe at the scenery before I remembered I would never volunteer to go in a wilderness hike in real life. I can see why the story gets all sorts of reactions and I'm with the person who said it would work better as a movie - empathizing with characters vs getting invested in a role (which brings me back to how I'm not a going on a hike type of person plus other things). I got a pretty strong Gone Home vibe throughout the game so I kept expecting the mystery stuff to be deception toying with your expectations and in the end, my reaction to Ned being the spook all along was meh. In fact, I think the game could ditch him and his corpse of a son entirely, make fire the primary antagonist and be a better story for it. Plus, I wouldn't mind fleshing out your character in the beginning to explain why you are who you are. Personally, I had trouble getting into the role of a character who had the option to either get the love of his life to ditch her dream job or do a dreary commute because he can't compromise. Or get pissy because she stayed out late that one time. I get it, you play a particular character, but if that's the case, I don't need the illusion of choice in shaping the character. I'm gonna stop rambling now, because the game is still lovely to experience.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:35
|
|
|
Did anyone else feel that the character study aspect of game being kind of weak? I think the game needed another hour or 2 to flesh out the Henry and Delilah relationship more. I didn't feel like she was my only life line since the game only took about 4 hours and I didn't feel vested in their relationship.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:41
|
|
|
voltcatfish posted:I enjoyed my four hours But poo poo I haven't played a game that screamed WASTED POTENTIAL more than this one in quite a while. Yeah, even the dynamic dialogue system I didn't think was all that noteworthy. I tried playing it in a slightly different way from what I've seen in videos and sure enough the dialogue is different, but not meaningfully so, if that makes sense? Like at least what I've seen it doesn't really give much more insight into the characters or anything. Optimus Subprime posted:Did anyone else feel that the character study aspect of game being kind of weak? I think the game needed another hour or 2 to flesh out the Henry and Delilah relationship more. I didn't feel like she was my only life line since the game only took about 4 hours and I didn't feel vested in their relationship. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:41
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm with you on that. The game opens pretty strong, I felt, and the first few days were a nice introduction to the character. But I think it launches into the rest of the story arc too quickly without really giving itself a chance to establish just how isolated and lonely Henry is during the massive two-week timeskips we never end up seeing. The teenager plot kind of sputters out and dies, too. I mean, it never goes anywhere after day 3 or so. They go missing, Henry and Delilah fret over it, and then the problem fixes itself out of the blue. Okay, that's... good, I guess. I never felt any urgency or real worry about that anyway.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 13:46
|
|
|
Having beaten the game I can say this is the most idle thumbs game ever. Like only these guys would be able to do this. Like they took miasmata, gone home and cribbed the far cry 2 aesthetic and made a game. I liked it a bunch and honestly I would've probably preferred a more conspiracy style thing since that was so gripping but real life is boring and I think that was represented well maybe?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 14:33
|
|
|
Not enough dynamic fire IMHO. Camp Santo's next game should be the spiritual successor to Burning Rangers.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 14:43
|
|
|
I thought it was really boring and kinda regret picking it up, but eh. I guess these kind of games just aren't for me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 14:46
|
|
|
Optimus Subprime posted:Did anyone else feel that the character study aspect of game being kind of weak? I think the game needed another hour or 2 to flesh out the Henry and Delilah relationship more. I didn't feel like she was my only life line since the game only took about 4 hours and I didn't feel vested in their relationship. The one thing I do wish we got more of is those little snapshots where it's just 2 or 3 minute conversations. I get that the time skips getting bigger and bigger is to imply the long passage of time and thus their relationship building, but seeing a little more of it firsthand would've been just as pleasant. I'm really excited to play this game with my sister, letting her make the dialogue choices. She loves stuff like The Walking Dead and similar where the game lets you create your own winding dialogue path, so it'll be interesting to see how she plays Henry. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Feb 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 14:46
|
|
|
Steam refunded me after 2.8 hours played so go ahead and try it if you had a bad time like me!
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:05
|
|
|
Hyper Crab Tank posted:Yeah, I'm with you on that. The game opens pretty strong, I felt, and the first few days were a nice introduction to the character. But I think it launches into the rest of the story arc too quickly without really giving itself a chance to establish just how isolated and lonely Henry is during the massive two-week timeskips we never end up seeing. It reminds me of The Martian the book vs The Martian the movie. The movie does a terrible job of committing how much time is passing and it really does just feel like he's stuck on Mars for a short two years, whereas the books make it feel a lot more day by day and the fact that he's stuck there for over a year is driven home much better. I do think Firewatch could serve it self much better if it actually was a book or even just a short story, but then you wouldn't get all the gorgeous vistas and the shock and confirmation when you get to the bottom of the cave and see a figure lying there as you slowly inch forward. I don't think there's a good way you could've done that scene in a book as well as the game did it. e: I actually think it would be a good "young readers" novel or something like the Hatchet, if it was more fleshed out. Minera fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Feb 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:06
|
|
|
Mortimer posted:Steam refunded me after 2.8 hours played so go ahead and try it if you had a bad time like me! It only stops refunding you when it rolls over to 3 hours played when you look at it on your library. If it still says 2 hours played, even if that's in actuality 2h 58m, it will still refund you.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:08
|
|
|
Has anyone gotten the scene in the trailer where Henry arrives at the cut wire and Delilah tells him someone else is in his tower? I've replayed Day 2 like three times to try and get it, but the only thing I have left to try is to try and bum rush the day without talking to Delilah. Asking because I'm starting to realize that maybe we as the player were suppose to expect this to be some crazy conspiracy since we saw the first preview, which drives home how mundane the ending actually is.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:17
|
|
|
It ended like a silent fart, there was some good set up for more. Like much, much more but you can tell how much they were rushed by the end of it. It felt like 2 hours of set up, 30 minutes of tying it up and then it ended. Art, colour and setting were quite good. The dialogue was top fuckin' notch in some places, like wow, it was almost as if 2 normal people were talking to each other. There was music apparently?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:18
|
|
|
Moldy Taxes posted:Has anyone gotten the scene in the trailer where Henry arrives at the cut wire and Delilah tells him someone else is in his tower? I've replayed Day 2 like three times to try and get it, but the only thing I have left to try is to try and bum rush the day without talking to Delilah. That pops up later on.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:29
|
|
|
I loved every minute of this, even the ending. It was a great little game. Thanks for making it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:29
|
|
|
Posted my review. Loved it. 99.9% of games are power fantasies involving larger than life concepts like magic or saving the world, or unrelatable genre staples like murder revenge. I can see why people want bombast and spectacle, but it's super refreshing when a game tells a human story, and I thought this one was told rather well. It had my attention the entire time, whether the plot was progressing or I was dicking around to see what objects I could get Henry to oafishly describe to Delilah. I also think it's rare for a game to account for the way that mechanics, story, and player expectations combine at any given point and heighten the experience by reducing or building up those elements as needed. I'd imagine a lot of work goes into that, and it's not the sort of thing that hits you in the face like a back-of-the-box feature. Looking forward to Campo Santo's next game, an 80+ hour Wizards & Wyverns tactical RPG. Corin Tucker's Stalker fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Feb 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:36
|
|
|
The whole "games are power fantasies it's so refreshing to see a human story" is fine and all but that was a movement that began in indie games before this game even started development. Obviously it still is extremely far from the norm but by this point I've played dozens of games like that and I don't think this one does much in terms of storytelling to stand out or excel. I appreciate that they try to increase the scope a little bit in terms of world building, but it still wasn't quite enough to really impress outside of the art design.
Hakkesshu fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Feb 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 15:52
|
|
|
Ah, the normal ordinary human story of a guy who accidentally gets his son killed and then spends the rest of his life living in an alcove in the forest making his own surveillance equipment to track two random people while also going around and planting fake evidence in weird places to throw them off his trail. I kid, but for me I was expecting the story to end with no great reveal. I think Gone Home had a great ending that wasn't a huge twist but was still satisfying. Firewatch didn't quite do it for me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:04
|
|
|
Hakkesshu posted:The whole "games are power fantasies it's so refreshing to see a human story" is fine and all but that was a movement that began in indie games before this game even started development. Obviously it still is extremely far from the norm but by this point I've played dozens of games like that and I don't think this one does much in terms of storytelling to stand out or excel. I appreciate that they try to increase the scope a little bit in terms of world building, but it still wasn't quite enough to really impress outside of the art design. Yeah, I'm not saying Firewatch is the first game to take this route or that doing so automatically makes it good, but responding to specific complaints about the game not going in a direction that felt bigger or more sci-fi/paranormal/whatever. If you're open to anything but the story didn't connect with you then it didn't connect with you. Can't argue with that. For me, I can't think of a game of this sort that went further to invite player investment. Just about every game I've tried was either abstracted or didn't have enough connective tissue between the points it tried to make. Gone Home was the only game that came close for me, and while Gone Home is almost exclusively about inferring things (which I enjoyed), Firewatch does a lot of approachable surface-level stuff that nudges the player to read between the lines.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:13
|
|
|
Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:Yeah, I'm not saying Firewatch is the first game to take this route or that doing so automatically makes it good, but responding to specific complaints about the game not going in a direction that felt bigger or more sci-fi/paranormal/whatever. That isn't my complaint, though (don't know about anyone else). My complaint is that the fake premise is relatively interesting, if not particularly new, but the actual reveal behind it is boring and uninteresting and barely makes any sense. If you're going to bait-and-switch your players, you really need to deliver something that's even more interesting than what it seemed at first, and I don't feel like this game (or Gone Home) did that. It's like a Scooby-Doo episode, except it wants to be taken seriously.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:30
|
|
|
Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:For me, I can't think of a game of this sort that went further to invite player investment. This game had exactly the opposite effect for me because Henry was doing all the talking, not me. I felt like some sort of passenger rather than having agency like I did in Gone Home where I was doing my own investigation. The silent protagonist may be a cliche, but it works for a reason.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:34
|
|
|
Osmosisch posted:This game had exactly the opposite effect for me because Henry was doing all the talking, not me. I felt like some sort of passenger rather than having agency like I did in Gone Home where I was doing my own investigation. You choosing what he says, when he speaks, and how he responds to other people talking to him wasn't enough agency?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:35
|
|
|
I'm really glad my pre-release speculation that Delilah isn't a real person and it's all in your head turned out to be false though. Now, that would have been a lovely plot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:37
|
|
|
I feel like the game would've been a lot better if it had focused on the actual fires in some manner, with henry's wife and delilah serving as subplots as they currently do, with the scooby doo mystery bits possibly maxing out at the two girls who go missing. The whole Ned and Son subplot just feels so unnecessary. *peels off mask* IT WAS OLD MAN NED THE WHOLE TIME!
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:43
|
|
|
First thing I did in the cabin was walk out the door and fling the photo of me and my wife as far off into the woods as possible. I also spent most of the game wearing two hats
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:45
|
|
|
I just found out about this game moments ago from watching the Giantbomb quicklook and I have no interest in playing it but I have one question is Delilah as hot as she sounds
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:46
|
|
|
drunken officeparty posted:I just found out about this game moments ago from watching the Giantbomb quicklook and I have no interest in playing it but I have one question I'm not mad, just disappointed.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:47
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:You choosing what he says, when he speaks, and how he responds to other people talking to him wasn't enough agency? I meant agency in the sense of the character in the game doing what I wanted (and thus leading to more investment on my part), so no, not really. If only because you only get a small preview of what will actually be said, so I'm not making a very informed/interesting choice there; further the way the game was structured made my influence on what actually happens close to nil. I didn't have to figure anything out for one. The voices did that for me. The thing that was especially jarring when I wanted to talk about another thing in the environment but H&D were still doing a spiel about something else in the meantime. If I (the player) want to talk about something else but H (the character) is still talking about something else it makes the contrast between both agents obvious and jarring.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:48
|
|
|
drunken officeparty posted:I just found out about this game moments ago from watching the Giantbomb quicklook and I have no interest in playing it but I have one question (Ending spoiler) As usual for indie games, they go to greath lengths to avoid modeling a human face. You never see Delilah.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:49
|
|
|
I've spent all day at work googling fire lookout poo poo thanks to this game and it's awesome. Shame they're declining thanks to other technologies but I'd love to spend a few weeks in one.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:50
|
|
|
phourniner posted:Guess I'm waiting for a patch too. I'm at the part where Delilah tells you to go to the Cottonwood Tree and I go there and nothing happens. Delilah isn't saying a word, nothing to radio in on, the quest is not progressing. Actually, the game just stopped rendering textures when I moved away from the area. It seems a lot of people are hitting points in the game where the dialogue just will not trigger, making the game unplayable. Hopefully it gets fixed soon, or I may have to just watch the end of the game on Youtube. I really want to see what happens. I'm an impatient bastard :/ I got hit with this. I don't know if you can trigger it immediately, but I had to run all the way back to the tower, look at the poster again, and try to call Delilah repeatedly. Maybe if you wait it out in the tower the flag will eventually trip. Did anyone else find the Hunter's Mark from Bloodborne?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:52
|
|
|
grassy gnoll posted:I got hit with this. I don't know if you can trigger it immediately, but I had to run all the way back to the tower, look at the poster again, and try to call Delilah repeatedly. Maybe if you wait it out in the tower the flag will eventually trip. Find the supply box that's a bit north of that burned up tree with the ski. I thought my game had glitched out as well, but you just have to find that thing in the spoiler
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 16:59
|
|
|
Spudd posted:
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 17:20
|
|
|
Are there any jump scares / chase sequences?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 17:22
|
|
|
ymgve posted:(Ending spoiler) As usual for indie games, they go to greath lengths to avoid modeling a human face. You never see Delilah. WELL THEN. In the Quick Look the devs even made a point of noticing how if you look down you see your body and are a fully formed human.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 17:24
|
|
|
Yuriki posted:Are there any jump scares / chase sequences? There's one bit which might make you jump but it's not a scary game, and no there are no chase sequences.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 17:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 06:48 |
|
|
PaybackJack posted:
Now, this I'm on board with. It's actually kinda what I thought the reveal was going to be (and I got Henry to ponder something to that effect in a brief moment of lucidity). You'd probably need to have some of the This poo poo Is Basically Innocent Reveal come through Delilah phoning her supervisors after you go poke around the research site, but that's fine both mechanically and thematically - she's your sole link to the outside world all game anyway. Yuriki: There is exactly one jump scare. Good luck! ymgve posted:(Ending spoiler) As usual for indie games, they go to greath lengths to avoid modeling a human face. Ending spoiler: That's not entirely true. Watch the entire credits.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2016 17:27
|
|
