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There’s just so much more dignity in begging handouts from faceless advertising algorithms, right?
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Aug 8, 2020 03:24
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I expected to like Carrion a lot more than I do. I love how the monster moves but the controls kind of suck and the environments are muddy and forgettable. Just another a Metroidvania with a gimmick, albeit a fun one. It feels like it's a great and big idea stuffed into a small game not up to the task.
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Aug 8, 2020 03:56
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ultrachrist posted:I expected to like Carrion a lot more than I do. I love how the monster moves but the controls kind of suck and the environments are muddy and forgettable. Just another a Metroidvania with a gimmick, albeit a fun one. It feels like it's a great and big idea stuffed into a small game not up to the task. It's barely even a Metroidvania. There's one track through the game that loops in on itself, and exploration is generally limited only to "well this will be the critical path eventually but you're not allowed to go here yet" and the optional upgrades aren't exactly exciting
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Aug 8, 2020 03:58
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I think it’s great at being what it is, it just maybe didn’t warrant such a prolonged hype buildup
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Aug 8, 2020 08:51
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I think it's an okay if flawed game and unquestionably very unique, but I've heard people say the same thing so often (and frankly felt the same way) that I would not say it is great at being what it is by any measure. It's just the only game on the market that does it.
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Aug 8, 2020 09:13
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Kokoro Wish posted:He talked this over on his channel once and came out with the old Scott Kurtz bit about how it was begging for handouts. Everyone called him an idiot telling him about the myriad way is would free him up, pointng to his youtuber friends doing the same thing and how it beneffited them but nope, man was determined to be an algorithm slave. lmao what a dope.
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Aug 8, 2020 10:42
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Kraxxukalf posted:John Wolfe? I also enjoy his Youtube stuff, so I wanted to check out his Streams, and oh boy are they toxic - and I've only watched a few of his in the past few weeks. He seems to have some real anger issues, as he's been fuming and yelling at his audience far too often. Yeah, even his really assface treatment of me that time aside, his streams were and probably still are getting really uncomfortable often enough with how badly he'll just fly off the handle sometimes. Also his shtick against just making a patreon is really stupid too, because another thing he's raged out about before is people just asking if he'd play some neat indie games again some time or some other not-trash and/or not-horror games on the channel, to which he'd bug out like "UH, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY VIEWS I GET ON THOSE, I ONLY GET BLA BLA BLA, MY CHANNEL WOULD BE -DEAD-, THE ALGORITHM THE ALGORITHM, SO NO, I'LL NEVER PLAY THAT" like okay man, I mean it's not like there isn't a solution right there that literally all your friends have benefited from, drat drama queen, enjoy making another dozen "Four random horror games that are mostly stolen asset trash" videos to appease the youtube robobrain I guess! Really I just hate how much he soured me on himself, I used to be like the first person that'd recommend him for horror and talk up his content because for a while, he really was the big A+ youtube pick for "People playing horror games that aren't aping the rapenaziswede" but over time he absorbed too much of the ~cynical~ man jaded shtick and let idiots in youtube comments poison his brain or something, occasionally his youtube content will still be fun to check out if it's something he seems like he actually *wants* to play whatsoever, but that's fewer and further between now as well. Yardbomb fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Aug 8, 2020 |
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Aug 8, 2020 12:11
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The ironic thing is that I strongly suspect that it's really his own fault. Someone else in this thread said that his attitude just doesn't work with any game that isn't lovely and worthy of the kind of spiteful and mocking commentary he gives them. He's stuck with crappy indie horror being the only thing he can do anymore because it's the only thing that's anyone can tolerate seeing him do. Nobody really likes to see a good and creative game being shat on because the guy streaming it has a lovely and self-centered attitude.
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Aug 8, 2020 12:31
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I feel he may be a little too harshly critical
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Aug 8, 2020 13:49
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I enjoy John Wolfe and hate people on the internet so I fully understand his attitude
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Aug 8, 2020 14:07
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Pretty cool, that game Scrutinized now has always had that that 'no jumpscares' mode that you can tick box on and off any time in options, which turns off the loud bwang spin around scares when you get got, but does still keep the outside threats active and able to get you just without the loud jolts, they just now added 'Detective Mode' as well which is that, but turning off the invaders entirely, if you only wanna do the spooky Papers Please-y side of the game without the window lock and light flickering plate spinner gameplay. The dev's been jumping at the demand for accessibility options with this one right out the gate, which is real nice.
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Aug 10, 2020 10:53
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I finally finished Carrion, it took me way longer than it should have because I was working on a bunch of other things. Anyway, my final thoughts are this: it's a fantastic game, very fun to play. I do wish it had a map though, the levels are designed with a real sense of flow that tends to inately steer you in the right direction, but if you stop playing for a few hours then come back (like I frequently did) it's easy to forget where you were going and get turned around for a bit. That's pretty much my only complaint though. Earlier in the thread someone asked if you could do a pacifist run, and while I don't think that's completely possible I do think it would be a fun challenge to play the game and kill as few people as possible. Get a pad and paper and make a tally everytime you murder a person, see how low (or maybe how high) you can get that number.
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Aug 10, 2020 11:05
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Yardbomb posted:Pretty cool, that game Scrutinized now has always had that that 'no jumpscares' mode that you can tick box on and off any time in options, which turns off the loud bwang spin around scares when you get got, but does still keep the outside threats active and able to get you just without the loud jolts, they just now added 'Detective Mode' as well which is that, but turning off the invaders entirely, if you only wanna do the spooky Papers Please-y side of the game without the window lock and light flickering plate spinner gameplay. The dev's been jumping at the demand for accessibility options with this one right out the gate, which is real nice. That sounds really rad; I loved the idea behind Welcome to the Game but I hated that all the tells for the baddies were super imperceptibly quiet, but the hack alert and 'gotcha' sounds were deafeningly loud. I want to play my spooky deep web game without being deafened, please.
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Aug 10, 2020 11:07
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I still like John Wolfe, I don’t watch his streams but I still enjoy his YouTube videos even if he is a bit jaded now. Now that just makes the times when he really likes a game more interesting.
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Aug 10, 2020 12:42
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Heroic Yoshimitsu posted:I still like John Wolfe, I don’t watch his streams but I still enjoy his YouTube videos even if he is a bit jaded now. Now that just makes the times when he really likes a game more interesting. I prefer some honest jadedness to the over-the-top enthusiasm most Let's Players have. Its refreshing.
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Aug 10, 2020 13:23
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I just want a normal person, which is what John used to feel more like. Fake enthusiasm is grating because it feels patronizing (Real high energy enthusiasm is good, but that often means it's not an always-on thing), but at the same time jaded angry man shtick just feels depressing to me by now.
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Aug 10, 2020 13:55
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Something Game Grumps had to get over is that you don’t always have to be “on.” You don’t need to struggle for a joke every second.
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Aug 10, 2020 14:42
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Sometimes, I'm honestly just kind of sick of that all-pervasive, contemptuous cynicism that certain demographies on the internet worship so much. It makes me think of teenagers who never grew up enough to realize that no, dressing like a Hot Topic mannequin being a downer about everything doesn't actually make you smarter or more insightful than everyone else. Over the years, I've come to develop a serious dislike of people who prop themselves up by putting everyone and everything else around them down, so when I watch a streamer or an LP or something, I like it to be someone who genuinely enjoys what they're doing. It doesn't have to be fake or overbearing enthusiasm, but people who have fun and share that fun by telling me about it? I appreciate seeing that instead of yet another armchair exert spending every moment of their videos looking for flaws and weaknesses to bitch about.
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Aug 10, 2020 14:49
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Cardiovorax posted:Sometimes, I'm honestly just kind of sick of that all-pervasive, contemptuous cynicism that certain demographies on the internet worship so much. It makes me think of teenagers who never grew up enough to realize that no, dressing like a Hot Topic mannequin being a downer about everything doesn't actually make you smarter or more insightful than everyone else. Exactly all of that, 'cynical' and 'jaded' poo poo has all gotten so extremely tired for me, cool, I love more forced downer negative poo poo in this depressing era, I just want all my entertainment to be as joyless and downtrodden as possible! And like yes it's kind of funny to say that in a horror thread, but you know what I actually mean.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:03
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I think a good horror game doesn't automatically have to be depressing, which is why I'm always annoyed as hell at the current "it's not artistic if it's not relentlessly bleak" trend that dominates so much of the genre at this time. Horror tends to default to bad things happening to undeserving people, but there's a very wide sliding scale of feeling between that and TLOU 2's 'do you feel the sadness yet' tour de force of bad decisions and worse endings.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:17
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Cardiovorax posted:I think a good horror game doesn't automatically have to be depressing, which is why I'm always annoyed as hell at the current "it's not artistic if it's not relentlessly bleak" trend that dominates so much of the genre at this time. Horror tends to default to bad things happening to undeserving people, but there's a very wide sliding scale of feeling between that and TLOU 2's 'do you feel the sadness yet' tour de force of bad decisions and worse endings. True, and I think I've said it before here but I roll my eyes so hard at "the real monster was abuse/loss/mental illness all along!!!". You can have a ghost or a monster or whatever without trying to make some dimwitted artistic statement.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:23
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Manager Hoyden posted:True, and I think I've said it before here but I roll my eyes so hard at "the real monster was abuse/loss/mental illness all along!!!". You can have a ghost or a monster or whatever without trying to make some dimwitted artistic statement. Agreed, and similarly "the bad guy was YOU ALL ALONG!!!! FEEL BAD!!!!" endings. One exception I can think of is Amnesia: The Dark Descent, since it tips it's hand early and makes the game more about "holy poo poo past you was a massive rear end in a top hat, you gotta fix this"
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Aug 10, 2020 16:40
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A lot of Steam trash horror games are made on a budget of like $10 so "you were the bad guy all along" really cuts down on asset use.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:42
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Danaru posted:Agreed, and similarly "the bad guy was YOU ALL ALONG!!!! FEEL BAD!!!!" endings. One exception I can think of is Amnesia: The Dark Descent, since it tips it's hand early and makes the game more about "holy poo poo past you was a massive rear end in a top hat, you gotta fix this" Amnesia's story was fine, but in the wrong hands the twist would have been "you're trapped in a purgatory state because you drank a lot and yelled at your family"
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Aug 10, 2020 16:43
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Yeah, its lame that psychological horror basically means the protagonist killed somebody or at least horribly abused them.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:51
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Manager Hoyden posted:True, and I think I've said it before here but I roll my eyes so hard at "the real monster was abuse/loss/mental illness all along!!!". You can have a ghost or a monster or whatever without trying to make some dimwitted artistic statement. I listen to a lot of random, narrated horror stories pulled from different sites often enough as just like a fun 'relaxing' thing and man, there's a real cavalcade of "THE BAD THING WAS ABUSIVE DAD" or "AND THAT HORROR WAS DEMENTIA" type writers who still can't get past feeling like they need a "deep" rug pull at the end and can't make a story actually be about a weird creepy thing anymore. Like it's totally fine when it's someone who made a story to get their own creative output for those types of lived experiences, but you can very much tell when that's the case and when it's not with a lot of them, the latter regularly feel like they so badly wanted to put an [Applaud Now] at the end. Thankfully a lot of the uninspired BAD DAD type stories do seem to be drying up though, both in games and stories finally.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:52
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Amnesia manages to get away with it for a wide number of reasons, not the least of which that the protagonist has a legitimate reason to resort to desperate measures. "I am chased by an eldritch shadow monster and I just didn't know what else to do anymore" is hardly sympathetic, but as plot beats go, it's still a league above "the evil shadow was your own feelings of guilt because you beat your wife, you bad bad person, you."
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Aug 10, 2020 16:52
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I think Harvester was the first game where that kind of twist ending let me down. I just wanted it to be a hosed up town that was way more unnerving.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:54
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The biggest difference between Dark Descent and Machine for Pigs is in the motivation of the protagonist. Taken literally Oswald killed his kids and is directly responsible for hundreds of deaths not counting that he built a machine to euthanize the planet. Daniel was tricked by a dimensional wizard into kidnapping and torturing innocent people to save himself, a selfish act for sure but guess whose redemption I'm rooting for?
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Aug 10, 2020 16:57
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There is also simply far more complexity to the story in general. The fact that there's actually a proper deuteragonist-slash-"real villain" at whole feet you can lay at least part of the blame for how bad things got raises it above being just yet another badly written quasi-fable with nothing but the most bare-bones gameplay to prop it all up.
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Aug 10, 2020 17:01
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And then there's SOMA, where theres no real antagonist even the WAU had good intentions, it's just "resurrect the human race" involves a lot of trial and error, it turns out, it's just a poo poo situation all around and everyone left is doing what they can to survive and stay sane gently caress SOMA was good
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Aug 10, 2020 17:16
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Kokoro Wish posted:He talked this over on his channel once and came out with the old Scott Kurtz bit about how it was begging for handouts. Everyone called him an idiot telling him about the myriad ways it would free him up, pointng to his youtuber friends doing the same thing and how it benefitted them but nope, man was determined to be an algorithm slave.
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Aug 10, 2020 18:02
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Danaru posted:And then there's SOMA, where theres no real antagonist even the WAU had good intentions, it's just "resurrect the human race" involves a lot of trial and error, it turns out, it's just a poo poo situation all around and everyone left is doing what they can to survive and stay sane Having recently finished A Machine for Pigs it makes so much sense that WAU is the direct opposite of the Machine and the whole game feels like a corrective response to it. Relin posted:this is such a weird american way of thinking The American dream of the middle class is believing that wealth has to be earned instead of the reality of inheriting it, getting immensely lucky, or making friends with lucky heirs.
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Aug 10, 2020 18:30
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John just looks like a dude that's trapped between being terrified of changing anything lest the algorithm fucks him and being absolutely miserable doing what he's doing. His own branding is garbage, all his thumbnails are him making a dumb face and a close up of the monster of each game (hint: they all look like the same lovely unity asset) to the point where you don't know if you've seen the video already or not. I'm not a Youtube expert, maybe those thumbnails get him clicks but I suspect the viewers he's attracting are not the viewers he actually wants if he ever hopes to get away from $5 unity asset flip horror games.
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Aug 10, 2020 21:24
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its probably diminishing returns by now since everybody uses the same loving template and facial expressions so its impossible to stand out
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Aug 10, 2020 23:24
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I dunno why that works but it's what like 99 percent of gaming YouTube videos use.
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Aug 10, 2020 23:59
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Honestly, I'm fairly sure that nobody gives a flying gently caress what those thumbnails actually look like, they're just supposed to give you an instant idea of what game is being played and who is doing the playing. They exist for the convenience of a userbase that will likely watch different people play through the same content multiple times just because they're really there for the personality of the streamer and enjoy seeing different takes on the material. Making more individualized ones wouldn't help because nobody cares to begin with. It doesn't pull people in. But yes, the fact that all lovely Unity asset flip games look the same probably also doesn't help.
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Aug 11, 2020 00:02
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ravenkult posted:His own branding is garbage, all his thumbnails are him making a dumb face and a close up of the monster of each game (hint: they all look like the same lovely unity asset) to the point where you don't know if you've seen the video already or not. This is absolutely an "algorithm" thing, there's a whole bunch of implicit rules about formatting and packaging youtube content that all the full-timers cling to out of some combination of superstition and servitude to their metrics, and "put your face in every thumbnail with a hook next to it" is really high on that list. Every once in a while John will rant about some of the behind-the-scenes stuff like that in the middle of random videos and honestly he makes content creation sound like an abysmal job.
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Aug 11, 2020 00:07
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"do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is one of the vilest lies ever foisted on the younger generations
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Aug 11, 2020 00:12
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Unsurprisingly, being a slave to your own ability to hold the attentions of a fickle, faceless audience can be a bit of a drag. It helps when you're not being a moron about it, though. I've talked to a number of other professional streamers who really like their job.
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Aug 11, 2020 00:18
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