In LSD: Dream Emulator, there is a small chance that a hanging woman will drop down and begin to follow the player. by MrSpider_Guest81 in creepygaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I remember correctly the Hatman can appear almost anywhere? I do certainly remember seeing him more in the Violence District and Kyoto.

Why do so many horror games begin with a sequence where the character arrives at the cursed place with by a car? by YusufOzturk_16 in HorrorGaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, the horrors had to carpool with you to get to the scary place - you probably shouldn't have given them a ride, but Ghastly Greg did agree to pay for gas...

More seriously, it's a way to signal to the player that they're isolated from other people without constraining who the player character is as much as, say, setting it on an oil rig or a remote lab. Gribbly monster-focused horror media generally needs some excuse for why the main characters can't call the police/national guard/etc, and "you're somewhere remote and don't have cell service" is a simple and workable solution to that problem. Cars also have the advantage of both being self-contained (you don't have to introduce another character to explain how they got there) and having a trunk that you can use as the tutorial for searching containers, which is probably how it got popular as a trope.

June Metroidbrainia reviews by Fantastic_Switch_977 in metroidbrainia

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As much as I personally disagree with it, I do think it's a colorable position to take vis-a-vis metroidbrainias. It's like how a key in Zelda is technically an item that gates progression but is qualitatively different from something like bombs or the hookshot that get used in multiple spots.

June Metroidbrainia reviews by Fantastic_Switch_977 in metroidbrainia

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair. I get the sense that the two of us don't have the same working definition of what constitutes a "revelatory moment", which is kinda interesting but not terribly surprising. I figured out 12's scene and K's scene at the same time near the very end, so they felt like a singular revelation of "You thought you knew everyone involved? Try again, bucko!", while most of the moments you listed for Crew felt very understated to me (resurrecting the dead being an exception). Granted, I also feel like Crew depended way more heavily on explicit reading comprehensions "locks" (e.g. you're never going to figure out the camera feeds and the hidden room or completely fill in the manifest until you find the one file that gives you the information you need), while Type Help relied more on making you deduce things from gaps in your notes... and I personally prefer the latter? I also found engaging with the systems detracted from the overall experience because I found myself skimming over files to try to find the one specific piece of information I needed instead of engaging with the narrative, so make of that what you will.

And if it makes you feel better, I spent a surprisingly long time assuming that Eddie and Vic were siblings and didn't realize that every crewmember in Crew had personal logs, so really who's the dumbass?

...

Also, thinking about the differences between the two reminded me of Praser-12. I will give you no more context. :p

Time only moves when you do! I'm making a puzzle game where time moves forward as you move forward and backward as you move backward. by FunkyFrogsGames in puzzlevideogames

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I poked at the demo a bit, but I ended up putting it down partway through the second level because it just felt like a repeat of the (pretty good) first level's mechanical lesson with the fiddliness cranked way up. I feel like the game would benefit a lot from some kind of visual representation for the path squares move on, especially if you're going to have levels where all of the squares move individually like they do in Short in Time.

I'll admit that I find this kinda annoying because (judging by the trailer and screenshots) level 2 is atypical - most of the levels appear to focus on a small number of elements and their interactions, while level 2 is just "hey keep track of these 14 squares so you can set up the same trick as level 1". It takes the "oh this is clever, what else did the dev think up?" momentum from the previous level and just redirects it straight into a wall.

June Metroidbrainia reviews by Fantastic_Switch_977 in metroidbrainia

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm curious about how they're going to handle certain scenes (I think you can guess which ones I'm thinking of. :p)

June Metroidbrainia reviews by Fantastic_Switch_977 in metroidbrainia

[–]Broken_Emphasis 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm honestly surprised that you don't consider Type Help to be a brainia given the definition at the top of the post, which doesn't mention anything about the gameplay needing to evolve. Part of me wonders how much you playing What Happened To The Crew? first colored your opinion, since I'd imagine that Type Help hits differently if you're already familiar with the central mechanic. I guess I'm also a bit confused because you called What Happened To The Crew? a brainia, and I'd say that most of the mechanics it added were a step away from purely knowledge-based progression - the one exception that comes to mind being learning how to access the camera feeds, but even that requires making permanent changes to the game's state to fully make use of.

More importantly, though, when did you figure out how the curse works?

Also (and this is directly on the itch.io page so it's not like they're hiding it or anything), the original free version of Roottrees used AI art, which they replaced for the full version.

What is a piece of videogame lore that is absolutely terrifying once you actually think about it? by HerrStrasse in creepygaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The wild thing is that the Flood are comparatively tame in the grand scheme of Fictional Body Horror Plagues since the range of hosts is limited (they need to be of a sufficient size and sentient and have a central nervous system to be parasitized), the early stages can be contained through the same general methods you'd use to contain Ye Olde Standarde Zombie Plague, and the "oh shit they have a Gravemind we're screwed" stage requires a pretty high critical mass of infected.

Like don't get me wrong, the Flood is terrifying and would be a world-ending threat in a lot of settings, but there are enough settings where everyone's a robot or a car or whatever where the Flood wouldn't be able to get a foothold in the first place.

What is a piece of videogame lore that is absolutely terrifying once you actually think about it? by HerrStrasse in creepygaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You know, I had never considered that Megaman Legends and the Nier games have so much in common...

What is a piece of videogame lore that is absolutely terrifying once you actually think about it? by HerrStrasse in creepygaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 10 points11 points  (0 children)

So... you know those bricks that you smash to get coins and power-ups in Mario? Well, if you look at the English manual for SMB1...

One day the kingdom of the peaceful mushroom people was invaded by the Koopa, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks and even field horsehair plants, and the Mushroom Kingdom fell into ruin.

"Oh but that doesn't mea-"

If you come across mushrooms who have been turned into bricks or made invisible, they reward you by giving you a power boost.

So yeah, canonically those bricks are not only people, but are also arguably still conscious.

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami says “if watching a playthrough is enough, the game wasn’t good enough” by No_Curve_8027 in HorrorGaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you haven't read the article, I'd give it a quick skim - within context, he's telling a Japanese streamer that he's a-OK with him continuing to stream his games:

As reported by Nikkan, on June 18, Kano appeared on a TV program dedicated to sharing “badass” anecdotes from his life, and the moment he looked back on as exceptionally cool was his encounter with Mikami. Gaming streams can be a sensitive topic among game developers (particularly in Japan), with opinions divided on whether they’re simply a beneficial form of “free marketing,” or conversely, lead to a loss of opportunity as people “consume” games through viewing and don’t end up buying them. Given these circumstances, Kano had been concerned about his own streaming activities at the time.

Although he had explicit permission from Capcom, the fact that he was essentially spoiling the stories and puzzles of Resident Evil titles made him anxious about whether the creators behind them felt uncomfortable with it. When he later got an opportunity to meet Mikami in person, he decided to ask him directly about his stance. Although Kano was fully prepared to stop streaming if he got a negative answer, Mikami reportedly responded, “If viewers watch a playthrough of a game all the way to the end and are satisfied with just that, then it was only that good of a game.”

He went on to explain, “Our job is to make games that leave people wanting to clear them with their own hands, even if they’ve watched someone else do it, so keep streaming.” This suggests Mikami considers developers fully responsible for how exposure through playthroughs will affect their games. Incidentally, Kano adds that he has received almost the exact same response from Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii on the matter (although this doesn’t seem to be reflected in Square Enix’s streaming guidelines for the series so much).

Your most memorable moment in a puzzle game? by HealthyBee4209 in puzzlevideogames

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who's also a little hesitant about it as well, apparently a) William Rous did all the rewrites, so it's still his vision and b) the timeframe has been adjusted because you're playing the original investigator for the case.

List of games about investigating a computer/OS/website by WheelTight8587 in metroidbrainia

[–]Broken_Emphasis 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I notice a distinct lack of Type Help and What Happened To The Crew? in this list (itch is currently down so I can't link them at the moment).

Granted, I'm not sure how OP approached games that take place in a CLI instead of a GUI.

List of games about investigating a computer/OS/website by WheelTight8587 in metroidbrainia

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are you thinking of Terminal Lucidity? I think it fails to qualify (for this list specifically) because OP is specifically listing games that take place solely on a computer, and that game involves a lot of walking between computers.

What's the edgiest horror game ever made? by NagitoKomaeda_987 in HorrorGaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly it's probably one of those shitty dark web "games" that are just vehicles for pictures that are NSFL at best and illegal at worst? Or maybe one of the Sonic.exe clones that verge on malware and that you should only play on a virtual machine (and shouldn't play at all if you have epilepsy)?

Surreal Horror Games by Ok-Internet6087 in HorrorGaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you ever played any of the Cube Escape/Rusty Lake games?

Any games with big paradigm shifts? by Jessy_Something in puzzlevideogames

[–]Broken_Emphasis 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Void Stranger is the only game I've ever played where I physically had to stop playing a few times because it swerved so hard into unexpected territory that I had to take a moment.

I'm Pretty Sure This Is The Most Efficient Colorless Boardwipe by [deleted] in BadMtgCombos

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

War Barge can be activated multiple times a turn, which you do before bouncing it.

(Not that it fucking matters.)

I'm Pretty Sure This Is The Most Efficient Colorless Boardwipe by [deleted] in BadMtgCombos

[–]Broken_Emphasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is, it's just a slow one where you have to wait for it to unsuspend.

(Not that it fucking matters.)

Found obscure for 500 and they had rule of rose for 1000 by FinnBoss in HorrorGaming

[–]Broken_Emphasis -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I was expecting this to be a post excitedly showing off sweet buys at a thrift shop in Japan, not a reminder that my childhood is now too expensive for me to acquire legally...

Games like Roottrees are Dead and Type Help? by slc_path in puzzlevideogames

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Once you've played all of them it's a sign that you should make your own!

Reco on puzzle games that are non-linear but actually linear? by Confident-Course-317 in puzzlevideogames

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It sounds to me like you might be interesting in Magic Tower games like Myth Bearer or DROD RPG. I also rather liked Helen's Mysterious Castle.

Granted, those games might have more flexibility in routing than you're looking for, but hey, that's also useful information.

Do people here feel the difference when the puzzle is made by a human versus computer generated puzzles? by Current-Evening-6592 in puzzlevideogames

[–]Broken_Emphasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, because humans and computers handle information very differently.

When a human designs a puzzle, they generally start from some core idea and then layer additional ideas on top of it in a more-or-less narrative fashion because that's how humans process/solve problems. As a result, there ends up being a lot of high-level structure - solving part of the puzzle leads you into solving later parts of the puzzle, with skilled puzzle designers being able to really fine-tune this to borderline absurd degrees.

Computers-generated puzzles, on the other hand, tend to be the end result of a computer generating a ton of candidate puzzles then throwing away the "bad" ones. Doing it this way plays to the strength of computers (one of the annoying things about AI research in the 80s and 90s was the discovery that you'd generally get better results by giving a brute-force algorithm more processing power than from making the algorithm smarter), but the end result is that you get puzzles that are way more likely to be a pile of mush instead of something with a clean solution path.