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Thoom
Jan 12, 2004

LUIGI SMASH!
A recent favorite playthrough of mine was IsNotRetro's. He's got a good mix of general competence, piloting skills, chill vibes, and a few super out-of-left-field theories and occurrences to keep things fresh.

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The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



This twitter thread gives me huge Outer Wilds vibes and reminded me i need to get back to Echoes of the Eye

https://twitter.com/latifnasser/status/1750952860131729544?t=oub3Rl-JeAOqvpGjSuTcsg

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1750952860131729544.html

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

gently caress. I'm so stupid.

I somehow never found the tower on Giant's Deep with the instructions for how to lock a quantum object in place. I've been bashing my head against a wall trying to line up the Quantum Moon with the Gravity Cannon in Brittle Hollow thinking that was the only way to get to the moon (if I flew there in my ship it would just disappear when I got close enough to the atmosphere that I couldn't "see" it properly anymore). I haven't tried it yet but I think I know how to get there now!

Also went to Dark Bramble for the first time. :gonk:

Kazzah
Jul 15, 2011

Formerly known as
Krazyface
Hair Elf
Haha, hell yeah. If you get close enough to a fellow astronaut (or another source of a signal), it'll become permanently identified when you use your signalscope - so if you're ever at a loss for what to do next, just chase down any unidentified signals you've got left.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I did get the idea after my encounter in Dark Bramble to go back in with my signalscope turned on to the distress signal frequency since I understand the third escape ship remained trapped in there. In the end I decided against it for now, on the basis of I was scared and I wanted to go home to my mommy.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Fair.

ExcessBLarg!
Sep 1, 2001

Jerusalem posted:

I did get the idea after my encounter in Dark Bramble to go back in with my signalscope turned on to the distress signal frequency since I understand the third escape ship remained trapped in there.
Did you try the Outer Wilds Ventures frequency too?

Mykroft
Aug 25, 2005




Dinosaur Gum
Down to Tubular and Beginner's Luck for achievements, and I did not expect Tubular to be more frustrating that Hotshot. I felt like I was improving between tries on the latter whereas the former feels like it's mostly tedium and luck.

beep by grandpa
May 5, 2004

ThomasPaine posted:

I still don't know what they were thinking putting
These are pretty major spoilers, can you please you spoiler tags

ThomasPaine
Feb 4, 2009

We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

beep by grandpa posted:

These are pretty major spoilers, can you please you spoiler tags

I didn't think a pure gameplay thing would be spoiler worthy but apologies, done.

Kazzah
Jul 15, 2011

Formerly known as
Krazyface
Hair Elf
Tubular convinced me not to try and complete the cheevo list. Time-wasting bullshit.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

ExcessBLarg! posted:

Did you try the Outer Wilds Ventures frequency too?

That's the default for the scope and I have assumed since early game (haven't gone back in yet) that Feldspar is in there somewhere too.

I've also assumed that due to counting three lit masks each time I have gotten a view of the project, that Feldspar may also be experiencing the time loop like Gabbro is. Looking forward to finding out!

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jan 28, 2024

Man with Hat
Dec 26, 2007

Open up your Dethday present
It's a box of fucking nothing

Exciting Lemon
I just tried shooting the little scout into the quantum moon because I noticed on a youtube video that the scout is marked on the map even when it's on the moon, so I wanted to see if I could see the where the eye is on the map with the scout on the moon and sure enough, the little bastard bounces around the outside of the solar system sometimes! No idea how the probe manages to find the eye by looking at it because if the moon orbits the eye on its fifth location and, the eye moves around the solar system so the probe seeing it shouldn't help lock it down. I'm dumb though and it took me many explanations understanding many of the things in this game (like why are we on loop 2000000+ accordin to the probe tracker when we've not gone through 2000000+ time loops (because the probe went through 2000000+ time loops before inviting us into it)) so I'm sure there's an explanation I don't understand just now!

I thought that was really neat and wanted to share. Full game spoilers up there.

Sassy Sasquatch
Feb 28, 2013

This makes me think, (do not read if you haven't landed yet on the QM !!) Why does the scout only broadcasts static when you shoot it at the quantum moon? By the game's own rules, if you shoot it at the moon while you're looking at it, it should land there without a hitch. I get that from a game design standpoint that would make the QM a little bit too easy to access but that's the only instance I can think of where the game does not operate by the rules it's supposed to.

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


Man with Hat posted:

I just tried shooting the little scout into the quantum moon because I noticed on a youtube video that the scout is marked on the map even when it's on the moon, so I wanted to see if I could see the where the eye is on the map with the scout on the moon and sure enough, the little bastard bounces around the outside of the solar system sometimes! No idea how the probe manages to find the eye by looking at it because if the moon orbits the eye on its fifth location and, the eye moves around the solar system so the probe seeing it shouldn't help lock it down. I'm dumb though and it took me many explanations understanding many of the things in this game (like why are we on loop 2000000+ accordin to the probe tracker when we've not gone through 2000000+ time loops (because the probe went through 2000000+ time loops before inviting us into it)) so I'm sure there's an explanation I don't understand just now!

I thought that was really neat and wanted to share. Full game spoilers up there.

The Eye doesn't move, that's why it has set coordinates.

The Eye indicator in the Southern Observatory flipping out is meant to represent the fact that it's just unable to detect any signal.

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

Sassy Sasquatch posted:

This makes me think, (do not read if you haven't landed yet on the QM !!) Why does the scout only broadcasts static when you shoot it at the quantum moon? By the game's own rules, if you shoot it at the moon while you're looking at it, it should land there without a hitch. I get that from a game design standpoint that would make the QM a little bit too easy to access but that's the only instance I can think of where the game does not operate by the rules it's supposed to.

something about the moon’s atmosphere or EM environment is blocking the transmission. I don’t remember if this is actually in the game anywhere but if they want an easy explanation that would be a good one

DontMockMySmock
Aug 9, 2008

I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Man with Hat posted:

I just tried shooting the little scout into the quantum moon because I noticed on a youtube video that the scout is marked on the map even when it's on the moon, so I wanted to see if I could see the where the eye is on the map with the scout on the moon and sure enough, the little bastard bounces around the outside of the solar system sometimes! No idea how the probe manages to find the eye by looking at it because if the moon orbits the eye on its fifth location and, the eye moves around the solar system so the probe seeing it shouldn't help lock it down. I'm dumb though and it took me many explanations understanding many of the things in this game (like why are we on loop 2000000+ accordin to the probe tracker when we've not gone through 2000000+ time loops (because the probe went through 2000000+ time loops before inviting us into it)) so I'm sure there's an explanation I don't understand just now!

I thought that was really neat and wanted to share. Full game spoilers up there.

Huh, weird. I just tried this, too. (full game spoilers) I don't think the scout SHOULD show up on the map when it's on the QM, since it's clearly supposed to have its signal interrupted by the moon's atmosphere (hence the static and it not showing up on the HUD). And when it's at the sixth location, it shows up just outside the orbit of the map satellite, and not always in the same place:





This is clearly not where the Eye is, as the Eye is very large and ought to be plainly visible if it were there. I feel like this is a bug/oversight.

As for your second comment, yeah, the Ash Twin Project went through 9,318,054 loops before finding the Eye, and only upon finding the Eye does it then activate the memory statues and bring the player character into the loop. The probe number in the Probe Tracking Module will actually show that number plus the number of loops you've done in the game - the first loop where you get the launch codes and the statue's eyes open for you is loop number 9,318,055 and if you go to the Probe Tracking Module right away, that's the number it'll tell you it's on. You have looped nine million times before the game started, but you don't remember any of them. The Nomai did not want to be conscious of what they expected to be a huge number of 22-minute time loops; there's a dialogue somewhere about how the memory statues will turn on if either the ATP is successful in finding the Eye, or there is an equipment malfunction of some kind.

Man with Hat
Dec 26, 2007

Open up your Dethday present
It's a box of fucking nothing

Exciting Lemon

DontMockMySmock posted:

Huh, weird. I just tried this, too. (full game spoilers) I don't think the scout SHOULD show up on the map when it's on the QM, since it's clearly supposed to have its signal interrupted by the moon's atmosphere (hence the static and it not showing up on the HUD). And when it's at the sixth location, it shows up just outside the orbit of the map satellite, and not always in the same place:





This is clearly not where the Eye is, as the Eye is very large and ought to be plainly visible if it were there. I feel like this is a bug/oversight.

As for your second comment, yeah, the Ash Twin Project went through 9,318,054 loops before finding the Eye, and only upon finding the Eye does it then activate the memory statues and bring the player character into the loop. The probe number in the Probe Tracking Module will actually show that number plus the number of loops you've done in the game - the first loop where you get the launch codes and the statue's eyes open for you is loop number 9,318,055 and if you go to the Probe Tracking Module right away, that's the number it'll tell you it's on. You have looped nine million times before the game started, but you don't remember any of them. The Nomai did not want to be conscious of what they expected to be a huge number of 22-minute time loops; there's a dialogue somewhere about how the memory statues will turn on if either the ATP is successful in finding the Eye, or there is an equipment malfunction of some kind.


As how I understand it, the player has not looped 9 million times, the probe cannon has though and is programmed to activate when it finds the eye so our loop one is cannon loop 9,318,054. Maybe that's exactly what you said above and I'm just repeating it. This game is confusing to even talk about lol

Thoom posted:

A recent favorite playthrough of mine was IsNotRetro's. He's got a good mix of general competence, piloting skills, chill vibes, and a few super out-of-left-field theories and occurrences to keep things fresh.

This was whose youtube video game the idea to check btw, they're really good so far! Video 1 spoiler when he went to the eye locator on the moon and lined it up with the sun just as it went supernova was amazing.

DontMockMySmock
Aug 9, 2008

I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Man with Hat posted:

As how I understand it, the player has not looped 9 million times, the probe cannon has though and is programmed to activate when it finds the eye so our loop one is cannon loop 9,318,054. Maybe that's exactly what you said above and I'm just repeating it. This game is confusing to even talk about lol

Yeah, I think we're thinking the same thing, just describing it slightly differently. The entire universe is looping; it's just a question of whether or not we're aware of it. The entire nine million loops, the Probe Tracking Module is "aware" of the loop, changing the trajectory of the probe each time, but only once the Eye is found does the player character become aware of the loop.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
It's explicitly stated in the text of the game. If the Sun Station had worked, it would cause the star to go nova, which powers the ash twin project to send a signal back in time that causes the probe station to launch a probe and wait to see if there is a signal from the eye. Then time catches up and the sun station causes the nova again (or for the first time if you want to be pedantic) and the whole thing starts over again. If something goes wrong or eye is found, the statues are activated which then pulls one of the nomai into the time loop to either figure out the problem or to stop the loop so they can head to the eye's location. So when the probe finally finds the eye, the statues activate and one of them grabs Gabbro, and another one grabs the player. The only problem is that you can't stop the loops because the star exploding is a natural event.

homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

DontMockMySmock posted:

This is clearly not where the Eye is, as the Eye is very large and ought to be plainly visible if it were there. I feel like this is a bug/oversight.
The map is diegetic as can be seen by, idk if this is eote spoilers or not, the Hearthian deep space probe. So they couldn't put it on a map any better than the Nomai could

ExcessBLarg!
Sep 1, 2001

DontMockMySmock posted:

The entire universe is looping; it's just a question of whether or not we're aware of it.
This is a philosophical nit, but, my take on it is that the universe isn't actually looping. What's happening is that information is being sent back in time, where the contents of that information (in this case, the probe tracking data and the Nomai statue conscious memory brain dumps they conveniently know how to restore) is in superposition, and observation of a particular instance of that information informs the contents sent back for the next iteration. Functionally that may be equivalent to the "the universe is looping" to an observer "stuck" in the loop, but the result of each loop is still just information that's effectively instantaneously generated for any non-observer.

The beauty of the Ash Twin project is that since the only thing the Nomai needed from it was an informational result (the probe data), when they would've "canceled" the nova as result of having found the eye's location it would have been as if the nova events never happened. In fact the whole bring-conscious-memory-into-the-loop as a failsafe wasn't really necessary. Shame they couldn't get the sun to explode though.

Edit: I think this interpretation is supported by the various breaking spacetime endings that happen if you shoot a scout into the Ash Twin black hole or jump into it yourself. You have to do the same thing at the end of the next loop or you get this ending. Note that these behaviors were either added or changed in patches to the game so they certainly seemed informed by some amount of philosophical debate among the development team.

ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Jan 29, 2024

ExcessBLarg!
Sep 1, 2001
Quote != Edit.

Organza Quiz
Nov 7, 2009


ExcessBLarg! posted:

This is a philosophical nit, but, my take on it is that the universe isn't actually looping. What's happening is that information is being sent back in time, where the contents of that information (in this case, the probe tracking data and the Nomai statue conscious memory brain dumps they conveniently know how to restore) is in superposition, and observation of a particular instance of that information informs the contents sent back for the next iteration. Functionally that may be equivalent to the "the universe is looping" to an observer "stuck" in the loop, but the result of each loop is still just information that's effectively instantaneously generated for any non-observer.

The beauty of the Ash Twin project is that since the only thing the Nomai needed from it was an informational result (the probe data), when they would've "canceled" the nova as result of having found the eye's location it would have been as if the nova events never happened. In fact the whole bring-conscious-memory-into-the-loop as a failsafe wasn't really necessary. Shame they couldn't get the sun to explode though.

Edit: I think this interpretation is supported by the various breaking spacetime endings that happen if you shoot a scout into the Ash Twin black hole or jump into it yourself. You have to do the same thing at the end of the next loop or you get this ending. Note that these behaviors were either added or changed in patches to the game so they certainly seemed informed by some amount of philosophical debate among the development team.

I think this is correct but it also makes my brain hurt REALLY badly if I think about it for too long.

DontMockMySmock
Aug 9, 2008

I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

homeless snail posted:

The map is diegetic as can be seen by, idk if this is eote spoilers or not, the Hearthian deep space probe. So they couldn't put it on a map any better than the Nomai could

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at but you probably ought to re-spoiler-tag the part of my post you quoted. I'm aware that the map comes from the Hearthian satellite.

ExcessBLarg! posted:

This is a philosophical nit, but, my take on it is that the universe isn't actually looping. What's happening is that information is being sent back in time, where the contents of that information (in this case, the probe tracking data and the Nomai statue conscious memory brain dumps they conveniently know how to restore) is in superposition, and observation of a particular instance of that information informs the contents sent back for the next iteration. Functionally that may be equivalent to the "the universe is looping" to an observer "stuck" in the loop, but the result of each loop is still just information that's effectively instantaneously generated for any non-observer.

That's not really what "superposition" means, either in real-life quantum physics or in the universe of Outer Wilds (two very different things, by the way). That information being sent backwards in time results in a materially different universe for each instance of the time travel.

There's two kinds of time travel, broadly speaking, which I will now explain in detail even though probably most people know this poo poo already:

The first kind is the "closed time loops" kind, exemplified by (for example) The Terminator. Kyle Reese goes back in time because he's ordered to by John Connor; while in the past, he becomes John Connor's father. John Connor essentially causes himself. Nothing that happens in the past changes the future, because that past already happened. There is one universe that is consistent and locally causal, but because of time travel, is globally non-causal. It is predestined, basically. It is easy to imagine how this works within the framework of the physics of space and time (general relativity).

Then there's the second kind of time travel, "alternate timelines" or perhaps "open loop time travel", exemplified by (for example) Back to the Future. Marty McFly goes back in time from the Twin Pines Mall parking lot and ends up doing a bunch of stuff including, for one, running over one of those eponymous pines. When he returns to his own time, he arrives in the parking lot of the Lone Pine Mall. There are two different versions of that moment in time, shown differently in the two different parts of the movie. This suggests that there is some kind of branching timelines thing going on. There are essentially multiple universes that branch off depending on whether or not that universe had Marty McFly travel back to the 50s in it. In one universe, the mall is called Twin Pines; in the other, it's called Lone Pine. (Distressingly, it also suggests that Marty's original timeline has Marty disappear back in time and never return. Or, perhaps, it receives a version of Marty that originally came from an unseen timeline with a Three Pines Mall?)

It sounds like you're positing that OW has the former, and I'm asserting that it's the latter. Each time the signal is sent back in time, that creates a new "universe," a new loop. We know that there isn't one consistent universe because there are material differences that we can observe between different loops - namely, the trajectory of the probe. So that's why I say "the entire universe is looping." The only difference between the different timelines is exactly what information is received from the future, but that information has material consequences that impact the rest of the universe.

If it was true that the different probe trajectories are a quantum superposition and only which one we are observing changes, then it should be the case (via the game's logic, not via actual quantum mechanics) that if we close our eyes, we should be able to open them and see that the probe is going in a different direction. Also, it should be the case that the Probe Tracking Module always reports the same number of probes fired (all of them) if it got all of that information all at once. That's the "consistency"/"predestination" bit of "closed time loop" time travel. But this isn't true - the probe trajectory is fixed within each loop, and the Probe Tracking Module's counter does increment. The loop is not a closed loop - it is an open loop, modified each instance by the loop that came previously. Each loop is essentially an alternate timeline, an alternate universe.


ExcessBLarg! posted:

Edit: I think this interpretation is supported by the various breaking spacetime endings that happen if you shoot a scout into the Ash Twin black hole or jump into it yourself. You have to do the same thing at the end of the next loop or you get this ending. Note that these behaviors were either added or changed in patches to the game so they certainly seemed informed by some amount of philosophical debate among the development team.

I typed all that stuff before you edited this; that's an interesting point. I don't think that those endings ultimately support closed-loop time travel, because if the loop truly was closed, you wouldn't be able to modify the loop at all. But they also don't make sense in open-loop time travel, because if you jump in the ATP black hole once, and you meet yourself, and then you don't jump in on the next loop, it should simply create another loop in which you don't meet yourself. In that respect, I think the game is fundamentally inconsistent with itself. Why should you going back in time once and then not going back the second time break spacetime? In the same way, a certain packet of probe data is sent back in time once, and then a different packet of probe data is sent back on the next loop, and nothing breaks. Every loop has something different being sent back, and there's usually no problem. I've always sort of mentally filed those endings as non-canon, and I'm only now just fully realizing that this inconsistency is what always bothered me in the back of my mind.

Idk whether any of that really makes any sense but that's my attempt to puzzle out what I think about OW's time travel.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Went to Dark Bramble, found Feldspar, figured out how to get into the electric center of Giant's Deep, got the coordinates for the Eye of the Universe, finally caught the probe, and topped it off with a return trip back to Dark Bramble to get to the last escape pod, got impatient and gently tapped the gas while tracking it down and got eaten by an anglerfish :gonk:

This game is... good!?! :aaa:

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Good progress today! So tell us, what do you think is happening so far? How do you think the rest of the game is going to play out?

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Okay, here's what I think I have figured out! Spoilered for complete speculation:

The Nomai came to the solar system tracking "The Eye of the Universe" and the signal it was sending out, but their ship was damaged by the Dark Bramble causing the survivors to flee by escape pods. At least two of these ended up reunited, I as of yet have no idea if there were survivors of the 3rd group and whether they ever reunited with the others.

After getting past the bare minimum required survival state and rebuilding something akin to the civilization they were now stranded from, the Nomai began their quest for the Eye again but dismayed when they couldn't find it anywhere within the solar system, and the signal that had brought them in was no longer active. They came to the conclusion it must orbit in a path so wide that the chances of stumbling across it even knowing what to look for, and there were so many possible courses it might be on that they'd have to send out millions (maybe tens of millions) of probes in the hope of finding it. But in the process their investigation of the Quantum Moon lead to the discovery of not only easy transport around the solar system to every planet, but also (minuscule) time travel, and they realized that with enough power they could travel back in time perhaps up to 22 minutes.

These two investigations crossed over as they realized that they only needed one probe, and it only ever needed to be fired once, because they could use the time travel technology to shoot the probe out looking for it, then jump back 22 minutes and shoot it again and again and again until eventually it found the Eye and technically only 22 minutes would have passed.

This is where I feel I'm fuzzy, I'm not sure what wiped out the Nomai or why all the stars are older than they appear/going supernova. My guess is something to do with the Ghost Matter did in the Nomai, whatever it was appears to have happened FAST as we find bodies of Nomai literally still sitting in their chairs, kids playing under the Anglerfish fossil etc and no notes (so far) of people lamented or leaving information.

As for why the stars are dying, I suspect it must have SOMETHING to do with all the time travel, and there are THREE masks lit whenever I project into the Ashen Twin Mask Chamber and the only people I know for sure who have activated by it are myself and Gabbro. I don't think it's a surviving Nomai, I thought it might have been Solarnon (might have spelled that wrong?) but I think I found his body on the Quantum Moon, haven't gotten the tower to the Northern Pole yet to make it to the Sixth Quantum Moon location. So my guess at the moment is that the probe is linked to the third mask (how that works I don't know) which is how it is able to shoot off in a different direction each time, and that while it might be jumping back however many minutes each time, that "time" is still being counted by the White Hole and it is causing the universe to artificially age. The Nomai seemed aware of this, talking about how they were concerned what the Sun Station they were using to power their project might do to the solar system. I don't think they ever got a chance to trigger the initial probe launch themselves, and after however many hundreds or thousands of years, something caused it to trigger just before the start of the game and it repeating 9 million plus times before I happened to also get paired with the Nomai statue and start repeating the last 15-20 minutes of my life as well.

So my guess is that in the end my role will be to find the Eye, get inside Ashen Twin and shut down the masks project to stop the probe from being launched, which in turn will "reset" time on the stars.

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, Dark Bramble and the Interloper in particular I am curious how it all fits in, the latter appears to be the source of the Ghost Matter, but is Dark Bramble something deliberate or just an organism attempting to survive with no awareness that doing so destroys everything else? Can't wait to see what I got right (nothing) and what I got wrong (everything)!

Poque
Sep 11, 2003

=^-^=
I love this. Please keep posting!

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Not responding to any of that but enjoying very much to hear it.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013

Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.
Thats the good poo poo, thanks!

My only question is whether you have the DLC and whether you plan on playing its content before beating the base game.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I don't have it but if the quality is the same as the main game I'm definitely considering changing that!

Arrhythmia
Jul 22, 2011
It's a little worse overall but still part of the definitive experience.

Wingnut Ninja
Jan 11, 2003

Mostly Harmless
Most people seem to enjoy the DLC and find it worthwhile. It attempts to mix up the formula in a few different ways rather than just adding more of what you get in the base game, and how well it pulls that off is a matter of personal taste with a wide range of opinions. Personally I loved most of what they did, and even the few aspects that are pretty widely panned I didn't think were that bad, although I agree that it would be better without them.

ThomasPaine
Feb 4, 2009

We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.
Whether the DLC is better or worse is pretty subjective really. I didn't like the (minor gameplay spoiler) inclusion of stealth sections but the new location is very cool and it ties up a few loose ends for the main game while providing a really heartfelt melancholy but good story arc. I did feel it didn't have quite the same feeling of wonder and exploration as the main game (which makes sense given it's very self contained), and I personally found it a lot easier to get stuck and frustrated because you don't have the same ability to go concentrate on something else and work your way back to it once you've found more info. Still very much worth getting though, and the little changes to the ending you get for finishing it are pretty cool.

DontMockMySmock
Aug 9, 2008

I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.
The DLC has some really cool aspects and interesting ideas, but overall the execution is a fair bit worse imo, and there are specific parts that I straight-up despise. YMMV. If nothing else, the new environments are really beautiful and cool.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Jerusalem posted:

I don't have it but if the quality is the same as the main game I'm definitely considering changing that!

If you’re planning on doing it, you should know that it is a very self-contained experience. Unlike all of the other mysteries in OW, there is exactly one on-ramp into it, so you are going to need to actively seek it out. Completing it does have an effect on the base game, and it’s very much worth finding out what that is, but the fact that the DLC is so out of the way means that doing it before you beat the game will be a big interruption to the endgame flow of the base game.

My personal recommendation is that you beat the game while you’ve got momentum, then do the DLC, then go back and figure out what’s different after. The pacing of the base game’s endgame is fantastic because of the way that all of the information and discoveries finally click into a clear path forward, and stepping off that path to spend ten or so hours off in a corner might ruin it.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Yeah the general recommendation is finish the base game, enjoy the ending, and then pick up your existing save and do the DLC.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Sounds like something to hold off on then!

Right... time to delve back into Dark Bramble... :gonk:

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Duzzy Funlop
Jan 13, 2010

Hi there, would you like to try some spicy products?

Played through the Forgotten City on the thread's recommendation, and it was a fun ride, definitely felt a lot of parallels to the Outer Wilds experience.

Couple of thoughts


- I think the game could definitely have gone with a less "hand-holdey" approach regarding the mechanics (especially re: the butterflies being big ol' HEY, YOU CAN DO SOMETHING HERE-beacons) without increasing the difficulty significantly, or even approaching a level where player frustration would be involved
- the zombie-shooter-segments in the game felt unnecessarily hamfisted-in due to how long and linear they were. The peeled-statues concept was cool (and creepy as hell the first time I ran into one), and the plot twist regarding them was also pretty nifty, but the way the sections were incredibly drawn out made it feel like they just wanted to milk the whole bit for content
- the couple of jokes and pop-culture comments they built in got some solid chuckles out of me
- the way everyone is just completely cool with your time-traveller explanation felt kinda dull and discardey, but I get how it would have probably massively overcomplicated the game if they'd built in several tiers of dialogue between multiple interactions with characters just for them to come to terms with it
- I was kinda suspicious of our "ferrywoman" from the get go, albeit not in a way that was related to the eventual twist, but when it dawned on me that they actually tied the Karen-jokes to Charon, I lost my poo poo
- Apparently, there's a way to sweet-talk your way to a "perfect" ending (based on the locked achievement I don't have), but threatening a fierce intergalactic/universal deity by abusing time-loop mechanics just felt so much more badass and...right
- The "perfect" ending epilogue was super-cheesy, but by the time I got to it, I was entirely down with it


Overall, fun lil game and playthrough, bit of a hefty price-tag for something that guides you to the point where you can complete it in like 6-8 hours. Definitely enjoyed the ride.

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