Firewatch | First Person Narrative Exploration Wyoming Simulator

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Firewatch | First Person Narrative Exploration Wyoming Simulator | Feb 9

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

This game is going to be fantastic.

I want it.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2015 23:26

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 17:27

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

I want to buy your game now but you guys won't let me.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jan 28, 2016

# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 17:26

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

tinaun posted:

Firewatch website has updated with price info!

20 bucks, can preorder on steam for 18 (10% off).

25 bucks gets you the soundtrack too, though I don't know if there is any place you could listen to it before you buy it.

One more week until launch!

Pre-ordered in a heartbeat, now to wait...

# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 22:18

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Pre-load is up for those interested.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 22:42

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Funso Banjo posted:

From what I have managed to play of this (haven't finished it yet), this feels like interactive fiction more than any other genre. It's outstanding, and I think the best game in the field, but I am struggling to call it anything else. I mean there are adventure trappings here, but it's not really an adventure game to me. I think it may be because I am getting older.

Adventure games don't be need to be puzzle heavy and they can just rely on exploration, Riven only had like four puzzles total and most of them were tied with just exploring and learning about Riven.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 01:06

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Yeah, really don't get why people think the ending is bad, it fits the theme, it ties pretty much every loose end, and it felt like a satisfying ending.

I'm starting to think that its Gone Home's ending again and gamers excepted some big bombastic genre fiction-eqsue twist when there was never going to be one because the game is grounded in reality.

Great game overall, glad it was so after looking forward to it since long before it was announced.

If Jake's reading this though I did run into a glitch, when I went into the locked off part of the cave the dialogue said that Ned should have locked the gate behind me, but that never happened, I just progressed through the cave without it happening.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Feb 10, 2016

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 01:25

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Cowman posted:

Ending Spoilers for a very minor thing

Did you look at the picture in Delilah's tower? I told her Henry wears a tux and had a thin mustache and scar so there he was in a tux with a thin mustache and scar. Turt Reynolds was there too. It's super adorable.

An even more subtle joke there is that she was the one who stole the Pork Pond sign. I loving love games that do poo poo like that.

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

I do think it's similar to Gone Home, in that (spoiler for both games) it sets you up for an expectation that's far more interesting than what it actually delivers. It's fine to subvert the player's expectations, but only if what you give the player instead is something more interesting than what they were expecting. Giving them something less interesting just evokes a disappointed "Oh," which is what it did for me.

I think that's only part of it though, and it's nowhere near as bad in Firewatch as it was in Gone Home - I think the other big part, as I said, is that I just don't understand why Ned did any of this. I get it, he's a hermit with PTSD and his son's death hosed him up. Kinda. What the hell is with the complicated science experiment fakeroo? Why would he go through all that trouble faking reports, planting radios, and all that? I feel like none of it received an adequate explanation, the whole thing just... sputters and peters out.

They totally it explain though. The research site was just an unrelated research site, Ned just took advantage of it by breaking in and making those falsified reports with his own typewriter and purposely planting them to make Henry and Delilah think they're being studied so they'd get scared off.

And really what you just said just furthers my point, gamers are too predisposed to fantastical twists. Games really need more grounded stories like this.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 01:51

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

The stuff with Julia can be resolved though, like in my playthrough Delilah told Henry to go back to Julia at her outpost at the end and I had Henry agree, because I had been playing him as still devoted to her. Like they both had character arcs and its baffling how people say they don't.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 05:15

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

lelandjs posted:

� You can find a 20 sided die in your tower--but Ned/Kevin were never in your tower; they lived in the now burned-out shack (and then I guess in the castle hideout). How'd the d20 get there?

They did though, Ned was one of the watchmen at Two Forks before Henry so he and Kevin both hung out there. You can also find Kevin's map of the region which he turned into a D&D campaign in one of the drawers.

I forgot to bring it before, but what happened to Accidental Savior from Gone Home being one of the books in the game? I remember seeing it in the previews but I couldn't find it ingame.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Feb 10, 2016

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 05:54

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

NaDy posted:

Ned definitely did wrong poo poo like covering up his son's death and messing with Henry and Delilah and setting fire to the forest but I don't think he killed him. I just think Brian didn't like climbing, Ned kept trying to get him into it because he wanted to bond with his son (see all the father/son stuff Ned kept in his hideout) but they just got unlucky which can happen when you go climbing and it was just a really unfortunate accident.

Yeah, it also makes more sense that he didn't purposely kill his son because if he was the kind of guy to kill his own son in cold blood what would stop him from just murdering Henry instead of just trying to scare him away?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 09:50

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

I love how dumb gamers completely miss the point of a narrative driven game by speedrunning it and then calling it poo poo.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 10:14

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Tekopo posted:

I am actually interested in finding out what the motivation for Ned coming up with the conspiracy is. I was discussing this with a friend and he noted that Ned largely wanted to keep Henry away from the cave and drive him to leave the area, but even then I still don't understand why the conspiracy was created, since it doesn't seem to be an effective method of actually driving out somebody, not in the way that simply starting a fire would be. Maybe he wanted to get rid of the research camp at the same time, thus killing two birds with one stone and blaming Ned for the fact, but this still runs against the fact that the research team was not interested in the cave, and that Henry mentioned the cave (or hell, just walked past it without even mentioning it to D if you played it that way), then completely forgot about the cave and didn't even mention it for more than a month (at least as far as we know). If the storyline had shown Henry getting gradually more and more interested in the Ned/Brian story, if he had been actively investigating the Cave/the mysterious stranger he saw, then maybe Ned's motivations would have made sense, at least to me. People can do irrational things, but they tend to be snap judgements. Ned's conspiracy was something that he planned during months and months, with Henry giving no inclination that he was actually cared about what happened to Brian/Ned.

I do understand the alarmed backpack: Ned wanted to give himself up because of his guilt/shame etc. That DOES make sense in context. But the bits before regarding the conspiracy make no sense to me.

Maybe I missed something that truly set in stone what Ned's motivation was, but if the motivation was "get Henry the hell away from the area so he can't investigate the cave" then I have trouble believing that it fully explains Ned's actions.

The conspiracy was an act of desperation because Henry had caught him by surprise at the lake, and he left behind the clipboard and radio in his haste to hide. Once he realized that Henry read the clipboard he knew that he had to make poo poo up to scare away Henry. If Henry never found the clipboard, Ned would have left him alone after cutting the communication line because Ned considered that to be enough. A lot of this outlined in Ned's journal entries in his hideout which people seem to not have read.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Feb 15, 2016

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 13:51

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

brylcreem posted:

Emma Blackery is not impressed by the game.

https://youtu.be/MwUf7cLJBrw

I'm just going to ignore all the dialogue and not try to even engage with the game the slightest bit and then wonder why I don't like it, lol.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 23:20

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Tommofork posted:

I seem to have lost the note in my save game but I think in Ned's faked personality dossiers of Henry and Delilah, he notes that Delilah has a boyfriend Javier but has been seeing other people. I think that's true based on her drunk call to Henry, and Ned put it in the dossier because he'd overheard her talking about it. I think she was talking to one of those people or another lookout friend about it and saying Javier doesn't know.

No, Ned made that up so Henry would start doubting her. Delilah's problem is that she's a drunk that runs away from responsibility, so she left Javier because she couldn't commit.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 02:53

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Copper Vein posted:

I wanna blast "Fight the Power" from a ghettoblaster for 77 loving days.

Henry is way too white for that though.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2016 08:29

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Petr posted:

"Is this a game" is the most boring video game analysis possible. It's like "what is art" with a GED.

Are there any other games with the same kind of atmosphere and mystery feel as Firewatch? Searching for paranoia-inducing games just brings up poo poo jump-scary horror games.

Gone Home and Oxenfree.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 07:27

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Ethan Carter's ending was terrible because it just felt like a twist for the sake of one and had like zero emotional impact. I was just like, "Really? :geno:

" the whole time.

Firewatch's is thematically appropriate, supported by a bunch of evidence if you take your time and look for it, has emotional impact, and actually leads to character development.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Feb 23, 2016

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 18:42

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

It also fit the themes and narrative, Henry and Delilah are both a bunch of irresponsible flakes that are desperate for any sort of excitement in their miserable lives.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 06:20

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 17:27

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Megaspel posted:

The ending feels really flat, I think, because absolutely no one learns a god drat thing. The characters have no arc, there's no story, there's only constant backstory exposited out at you for the entire game.

This is all on you though, because they do change if you let them. As I've said my Henry decided to stop running away from his problems and Delilah sounded like she would start to too.

Like you can totally just have Henry never develop, but that's your choice.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 03:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Firewatch | First Person Narrative Exploration Wyoming Simulator | Feb 9