Why Do We Love Hostile Worlds?
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- čas přidán 14. 08. 2022
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There are few better feelings in games than being able to immerse ourselves in unfamiliar and hostile videogaming worlds, but quite often - they fail to deliver on their promise of presenting us with environments that challenge and surprise us at every turn... why?
Well, it's hard to feel like a videogame environment is indifferent to your presence and filled with unknown mysteries when we already recognize the patterns and tropes used to construct them - so how can we get around this problem? The architect has braved multiple apocalypses, lands shrouded in spoiler warnings, and even vast subterranean cities to figure out this problem once and for all... and why the solution seems to involve cats?
You Saw:
Deathloop (2021)
Bioshock (2007)
Deus Ex Mankind Divided (2016)
Prey (2017)
Elden Ring (2022)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011)
Fez (2012)
Dark Souls (2012)
Metroid: Dread (2021)
Hollow Knight (2017)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the night (2019)
Subnautica (2014)
Minecraft (2012)
Journey To The Savage Planet (2020)
Control (2019)
Rain World (2017)
Super Mario Sunshine (2004)
LSD Dream Emulator (1998)
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (2022)
Monster Hunter World (2018)
DOOM (2016)
Resident Evil 8 (2021)
Half Life 2 (2004)
Spooky's Jump Scare mansion (2014)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017)
Dark Souls 3 (2016)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
World of Warcraft (2004)
Grounded (Early Access)
Outer Wilds (2019)
Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach (2021)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)
Mass Effect Legendary Edition (2021)
Grand Theft Auto 5 (2013)
Far Cry 6 (2021)
EXO ONE (2021)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)
Mirror's Edge (2010)
Getting Over it (2017)
Lorne's Lure (Early Access)
Hyperbolica (2022)
Call of Cuthulu (2018)
Apex Legends (2019)
Hunt: Showdown
Escape From Tarkov (EARLY ACCESS)
The Cycle: Frontier (2022)
Descenders (2018)
Deltarune part 1 (2018)
Psychonatuts 2 (2021)
Psychonauts 1 (2005)
Black Mesa (2015)
Half Life Alyx (2020)
Call of Duty 4 (2007)
The Looker (2022)
The Witness (2016)
Xenoblade Chronicles DE (2020)
Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019)
Death Stranding (2019)
Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)
The Eternal Cylinder (2021)
Power Washer Simulator (2022) - Hry
Want to check out the fancy NEW patreon tier? yeah this isn't a joke just go check it out it's cool... probably www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
Know what the REAL most hostile possible world is? Twitter dot com am I right eeyyyyy lmao gottem: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Gottem
That Hyperbolica segment needed a warning. It's been several minutes and I'm Still sick to my stomach. I doubt I'm the only one.
I think a game that's fantastic at being alien is Portal. I remember when I played it for the first time, it took a while to wrap my head around the portal mechanic. The idea that you can just walk into a hole in the wall and come out in a completely different location is so far removed from everything the human brain knows from real world experience that I frequently kept getting stuck for a few moments.
I remember the trailer back then said "Now you're thinking with portals!", and Valve was right - you have to think in a different way than what you're used to. The novelty also barely had a chance to wear off because the game was so short.
Credit to a few games seems to be missing, I cant see the game at 15:34(Which I'm interested in playing, so if you know please tell me), and I remember seeing Apex Legends at 13:41, yet it is not credited in the description.
@@discollife Yeah turns out I only copy-pasted some of the list of games, my bad - it's fixed now!
The first time I accidently stumbled into Deepnest in Hollow Knight really impressed me. It changed the game from 'I wonder what's back there' to 'what just happened and how the f#§& do I get out of here' in mere seconds.
falling down all the way into the hot spring and having no clue how to get out was quite the experience
Yeah I hated that place so much and wanted out so badly. It's amazing
I normally don't have this reaction to horror in games, but man Deepnest made me so deeply uncomfortable when I first found it. It just made my skin crawl and I was so engaged with how revolting it was on some primal level and how much I wanted to leave
I loved that place
But it also gives you an amazing feeling of power if you come back after a while, powered up and with more experience for fights
"Slug CAT- which, you might imagine, is this half snail, half DOG..."
- Adam Millard, 2022
I think the gamespot review unironically said that
@@aguspuig6615 i can see it as a dog. during the very beginning designs, the developer called it the bear
You somehow missed half the joke all while doing the unnecessary thing of repeating the joke
that's the joke. The joke is that the character is called slugcat, and he's joking about how it's a "Half Snail Half Dog", two animals that aren't in the name and are the opposite equals of Slug and Cat.
@@aguspuig6615 i think it said something about it being a rabbit lmao.
This video is just another regularly scheduled reminder that *YOU MUST PLAY OUTER WILDS*.
If you're reading this you have to do it - it's the law.
@@ArchitectofGames take me to jail.
@@ArchitectofGames I'm getting to it I swear I have Soo many games to play 😮💨
I played it but didn't enjoy it. I don't think I was in the mood for the game unfortunately, maybe another day!
Best game I've ever played and it's DLC is somehow even better
I think my favourite 'Hostile World' experience is the world of STALKER. The world is simulation/systems-driven enough that you really feel like the world outside of the main story just does not care that you're there. If you run into a hard enemy, it's because you walked into its territory, not because the game is trying to give you a challenge.
A hundred thumbs up. In STALKER the environment is indifferent to your survival; you play as a very lowly character, and there is no leveling. If your character improves it is entirely because you gained skill and knowledge, the game hands you nothing. Still my all time favorite series.
Stalker does better than so many other games because it allows the "territory" to change without warning.
One of my favorite STALKER stories is about this one outpost where a faction always occupied the structure, fending off little raider attacks and animal predation, and was a great place to store gear and trade.
Until one time I had to dash in there to hide from a Blowout (basically a short, intense thunderstorm that will melt your brain if you're outside as it passes) and then looked around and thought "huh, I wonder where everyone is" before a cold panic overtook me and I launched myself out a window just in time to avoid an invisible Bloodsucker from taking a bite out of my face.
@@neilwickman Definitely. The A-life system was easily the system that elevated STALKER to the cult classic it is. Everybody you come across in the zone is on their way to do something or go somewhere, there's no randomly spawned bad guys to fight. A passing bandit patrol has come from their base, they might be on their way to assault a stalker camp, clear a mutant lair or set up a checkpoint.
Simple things like stopping by a friendly campfire in the middle of the zone is a treat because these people have come from a base, travelled the zone and found themselves here. Maybe they'll be killed next time you come through, maybe they've moved on and it just makes the zone feel so much more alive.
And the effect is doubled because the hostile world isn't pulling punches against the hard enemy either, and you can lure THEM into an anomaly that rips them apart... And it's doubled again when the anomaly rips the loot they drop apart too.
Have you seen the movie the game was based on and named after? Definitely recommend it, especially if you are tired of movies having the same patterns.
Subnautica felt trully alien (before getting used to, since there's not enough turbulance). Progress is tracked by going down, not up. Your most valuable resource early on is your oxygen, which trickles down super fast. EVERYTHING is either wanting to kill you or indiferent. And after a while, the parts that are above ground feel the most alien.
There are few games I would wish to experience again, but Subnautica (1) would be one of the top ones.
Yeah, you do eventually become one with the weirdness. Post-Seamoth, I forget all about oxygen until I explore an underwater wreck. It's a game where simply walking around eventually feels incredibly unnatural. It sure doesn't help that solid land is actually janky as fuck. Don't make the mistake I made -- leaving something (a beacon) on land and expecting it to *actually stay there.*
Agreed. Walking on the islands in the sun was the weirdest feeling.
I wish Subnautica's creatures were as randomized and systemic as those in Rain World, because once you start to memorize where all its creatures 'live,' the world becomes so much more hollow. I revisited Subnautica recently and it just couldn't compare to that *incredible* first playthrough.
So many videos exist explaining the pain of not being able to experience something for the first time again. Be it a videogame or a book, you always remember something no matter how much you forget between runs.
For me the Pikmin games are in this category of wanting to get that first playthrough again but never being able to.
@@jasonreed7522 bro pikman again wound be a dream. That was my child hood
Totally agree with how Stray made me change my point of view on how to traverse. My bf and I both had moments while playing where we'd run into some perceived barrier to progression until we realized "oh wait, wtf do we care about this? We're a cat," and walk right through it.
to be fair, cats also do that
I didn't have that same moment where I felt blocked, but I did note to my friend the first time I walked straight through a grate how WEIRD it feels to just walk through what would be a solid wall in any other game.
I remember for me I spent like 20 minutes walking on the floor/ground level of the first city area, until all of a sudden it kind of just hit me. Was really strange how all of a sudden the world completely opened up after that, and from there it was smooth sailing.
Rain World is one of my favorite games. The ambience, music, mechanics, enemies AI. It all comes together so nice, even when you feel outnumbered and weak it makes you want to keep going and find the next safe, explore the next area, try to be creative on how you approach the predators that want to eat you. It is an amazing experience, very refreshing and so much fun! I've been playing coop with mods and it is a really fun time!
Same! I was waiting for someone to say something about this lovely game!
Rain World is amazing! Really excited for the new dlc coming this year 😄
Fun fact: Lizards have a reputation system like Scavengers. Other than taming simgular lizards, they'll first prioritize other prey, then not attack you unless you walk into their mouth and at the end they will completely stop attacking you. You can rise your relation via feeding them and saving them from predators
no it doesn't make you want to keep going. it makes you want to give up. and on the easiest setting, you find there's nothing to do even if you're not constantly getting killed
@@bpansky that is not the experience I had at all. The game captivated me. Compelled me to kove forward looking for adventure, trying to survive in any way I can find. It is hard, very hard. But it feels so good to finally land that move mechanic, or kill those lizards, or avoid that vulture or find a safe in the nick of time as the rain start to fall. It is a very oppressive game, makes you feel small and weak, but it is very rewarding.
When I first discovered the abyss in Hollow Knight, I felt like I really wasn't supposed to be there. Seeing all the dead siblings and the sea of void made me feel like I was way too deep down, at the bottom of the world. Great feeling.
Wait till you go to the abyss in rainworld.
@@aarepelaa1142 i had no light when i went there 💀
Rain world is a masterpiece, it simultaneously invents and perfects its own genre of games and every part of it works cohesively to create a harsh, difficult, beautiful, unpredictable and alien world. To anyone reading this who hasn’t yet, give it a try!
I did; didn't like it. The controls aren't fun to use, the karma system adds an unnecessary element of grinding, and that kind of heavily black environment has been done better by other games, like Knytt Underground.
rain world is easily one of the best games of all time
@@AnotherDuck Yeah me too. Plus, I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I had no motivation to try and survive
@@AnotherDuck thats almost word for word the IGN review, the clntrols are very intuitive but have to be mastered first and the karma system rarely requires a gridn if youre respecting the game and taking it seriously, its just there to avoid you going into zones that are too hard
@@elio6361 this frustrates me, youre given no indication of were to go on dark souls and that is praised as taking the player seriously and letting them make their own choices, also while you can pretty much go everywere on rainworld you do get very clear indicators of were you should go for a "standard" playtrough
Player: "Okay, so I can use these poles to get around and escape danger. Therefore, pole good."
Rainworld: "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT"
I distinctly remember how betrayed I felt when I first got got by one of those.
I've never played and probably wont but i fully agree with his WTF is that thing in the water, nope, nope, nope clip. No way is "snail-dog" fighting the kraken and living.
Yeah that axolotl monster camped at the pipes and I lost 10 ish minutes of my life
@@jasonreed7522 i think that's the real genius of rain world -- mastering the game doesn't necessarily mean climbing to the top of the food chain and learning to kill everything, but learning your place within the world as a prey animal
@@abefaerber7994 yeah, basically if you've got a spear and are skilled, you're on par with most lizards, and scavengers become killable with a good area and taking advantage from it, tbh vultures are a bit too weak, they really struggle to hit you if you keep stabbing them constantly while hugging them, but damn bazamms king vultures are mean as hell with the harpoon. One thing still is that everything is basically killable, everything down from king vultures go down with one explosive spear, so daddy long legs, miros birds, regular vultures, and for some reason not red lizards.
One of my favourite things about Rain World is its use of contrast in gameplay.
You experience both incredibly unforgiving frenetic sequences where your teeth start to ache from all the anger and stress, and at the same time, completely unexpected segments where you can literally just place down your controller, lean back on your chair, and just relax to its incredible visuals and gorgeous ambience/music. ("Stargazer" still sends shivers down my spine)
Since finishing the game, I have been listening to its ost and ambience tracks every night in order to fall asleep faster.
Trully and Incredible game! Videocult knocked it out of the park! :)
the rain world soundtrack is fantastic i think in part because it's hard-won and trapped between long, intense sequences of peril. it's the juxtaposition of moments of calm in a hostile world that makes it work so well in my opinion
random gods theme along with the visuals is such a contrast to the brutal gauntlet of unfortunate development leading up to it, probably the best example of what youre saying - or drainage system (atleast for me, terrifying) to the ending
I don't think I've ever made it through an AoG episode without adding at least one new game to my wish list 😅 this time it was Rain World
Remember to follow the little yellow guy guiding you around
Oh, boy, that one's an experience. The developers forgot about the "quietly help the player out" part of 5:00, and it loves to obfuscate things, so it is really brutal, but it rewards persistence, it's a thought-through world, the AI is amazing, the art is gorgeous, it is possible to master it and become a John Woo of the explosive spear, it's an absolute masterpiece, if you can get over the humps.
Rain pilled
Even if you don't take to the game, the OST is awesome.
W
Proposal: The ultimate foundation of all fun is learning.
The reason why all moderately intelligent animals from octopuses to humans instinctively enjoy playing is because play - at its most primitive level, creating "random" challenges and solving them - broadens one's understanding of how the real world works, and new understanding can potentially give you a survival advantage in a future encounter.
We create games to satisfy this primal instinct by constructing new worlds and challenging the player to learn how they work. Whether this is unlocking a new area, discovering a new item or creature, progressing in the story, or mastering the game's mechanics, the player is always learning something new about the game's world. Once the player has stopped learning, the game stops being fun.
(Which brings up an interesting side-point: if all fun is learning, why isn't all learning fun? And more importantly - COULD it be? The "edutainment" boom of the 90s was hot garbage, but maybe that's just because the games were poorly designed. Games which merge real-world knowledge into their core mechanics are objectively a more effective way of teaching that specific knowledge than book-learning can ever hope to be...)
yup. i think about this a lot
It's not the only motivation, but it is one of the primary ones. Some games derive fun from expressions of pure mechanical skill, performed through repetition. Others through social interaction. They appeal to different kinds of players.
Also, the latter question is likely due to a phenomenon Marxists refer to as alienation. When people are compelled to do labor by an outside authority, detached from any purpose, context, or sense of fulfillment and motivated simply by commands to obey - and have little control over the means of production or the outputs of their labor - they become alienated and demotivated. That technically applies mainly to actual labor, but the principle of not having sufficient investment in one's task to be motivated by it remains the same. In post-industrial "traditional" education, children tend to be instructed through rote memorization, drilled in the procedures used to create obedient factory workers rather than self-actualized individuals, without being encouraged to ask questions or understand the relevance of what they learn to their lives. That's why learning isn't always fun when it should be.
...This is a pretty depressing sort of realization to make, even if it makes evolutionary sense.
My takeaway from it is that defying and redefining human nature is going to be a lot damn harder than it should have to be...
@@Starfloofle oh, how could it be depressing? both fun and learning are positive things!
@@Starfloofle why do you think it's depressing? I find it fascinating
“Humans are so good at adapting we get bored” that’s what this video says
And the following video is the continuation of that conclusion.
It's why we've thrived for so long.
I appreciate you mentioning Lorn's Lure. Its demo was really great and the game defintely deserves more recognition
It's so good! No idea why it isn't bigger!
fr!! im so excited to play it (i just hope its more optimized because somehow my pc was making a lot of noise playing the demo)
This reminds me of Antichamber. A first person puzzler that operates on its own internally consistent set of rules, but a set of rules that is rather alien to the player from the start. You learn them as you go and eventually have no trouble navigating non-euclidean spaces.
I wrote a whole essay about this once.
It's because the spirit of adventure REQUIRES a hostile world. I mean think about it, what is adventurous about a world that helps you along as you go along? It is deeply immersion breaking when you can see the hand of the developer.
Which is why many open world games are FINALLY figuring out that giving the player less information (or making the gathering of such information part of the gameplay) actually enhances their visceral experience of the world.
Outer Wilds is the perfect example of that last part about gathering info being gameplay, and it works so well
I think it might also depend on your definition of 'adventure'. A Short Hike is an adventure on its own, but is it really a hostile world?
Where can this essay be read?
Maybe not necessarily hostile, but indifferent?
Simple example: a herd of animals migrates across your world. Its not actively trying to kill you and its easy to avoid, but you stand in front and you'll be crushed. So whenever a herd passes it could block your access to an area, forcing you to be creative with alternate paths, movement abilities and perhaps even just risking it and trying to navigate through the herd without getting trampled in the process.
Then add a dozen of such systems in the game that can interact with one another. Say predators that dont even attack you unless you attack them, but could alter the state of the world by hunting other animals which can cause them to change direction or behaviour. The problems you solve wouldnt come from direct danger but from the way they need to be solved and the danger you choose to accept while solving them.
The same can be done with a factory floor, where individual machines pose only a danger when they are on and you decide to step inside, but the interaction between different machines and changing sequence of machines in the process can offer the difficulty and turbulence you need.
We have 2 types of adventures (honestly more) one type is simply exploring the unkown and this could be hiking a new trail or visiting a city for the first time, these are normal real life adventures.
The other adventure is the classic literary adventure of going on a journey and overcoming obstacles/challenges. These adventures definitely needs a hostile or indifferent world to be truly fun.
I love rain world and I'm happy you're talking about it, since it never gets much recognition, even in channels that delve into obscure games.
Oh, the Rain World! I'm so glad it was mentioned. The game deserves to be more widely known.
When its DLC is released, I'm sure it will get notoriety.
My favorite game that fits the “hostile world” category has got to be Darkwood. Like a lot of the games mentioned in the video and in the other comments, it super effectively makes the player feel like they’re no longer the dominant force in their environment and that they need to adapt to survive. It’s similar in nature to STALKER in how it’s largely driven by an atmosphere of unfamiliarity, like you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be.
Darkwood gang rise up
@@hambubger7047yessss
darkwood is so good! I'd love to bring it up in a vid if its footage didn't look garbage because of how... err.. dark everything is
@@ArchitectofGames That's because Darkwood relies heavily on sound. If you were to show some night time fottage when you're in your hideout without all the music and weird noises it wouldn't have the same effect.
Also those knocks on your door on one of the firsts nights... jeez
Rainworld from a game designers perspective is my favorite indie game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played Celeste pizza tower, hollow knight, outer wilds, etc.😅 now that downpour is out please talk about it more 😊
Same here 🤗
My favourite hostile world experience is Subnautica. There's so much progression from swimming around outside your escape pod to sailing your 3 man sub out from a self-sufficient base so you can deploy your mechsuit to mine needed resources or explore dangerous areas. There's so much lore to figure out the massively intricate ecosystem you're struggling to survive in. There's the mystery of your fellow crewmembers of the Aurora, the Degassi survivors, and the alien efforts to cure the Khaara plague. You have so much to explore.
And yet, despite that, it never stops feeling alien. You are still stranded in the ocean, and even with the biggest tank, you've still only got about 4 minutes outside of a sub or base or below the surface before you just die because too much water, oxygen not found.
You still find Leviathans and, critically, still have to get away from them because even in your mechsuit, you're still not really able to fight them effectively. ...I mean, you can, if you're determined enough, but it's kinda a fool's errand. You never develop a tool that both promises and delivers on the idea of "you can now hunt Leviathans" - the rifle stops time, the torpedo launchers cause whirlwinds or ....what do gas torpedoes do again?.... and your knife is frankly small enough that it wouldn't be particularly efficient at killing another person, let alone Reapers...and those are the smallest hostile Leviathans. The mechsuit can punch things and drill them enough to make them leave you alone, but....the game deliberately avoids giving you a tool that completely solves the problem the hostile creatures represent. Except possibly the cyclops with a shield generator.
And through most of the game, the plot is occasionally reminding you that you are dying of a plague that the people who put a gigantic orbital cannon on the only solid island never cured.
The only time the game feels less hostile is when you start accepting the alien-ness of this world for what it is, not on a game design level like Control and Journey to the Savage Planet, but the same kind of way you accept the real ocean, only the real ocean doesn't have hypnofish and giant fire spitting squid-dragons. (I've seen enough deep sea fish to not be 100% confident there's not a small ghost leviathan or reaper leviathan -like creature down there. But Mesmers and Sea Dragon Leviathans, no way.)
To be fair to Minecraft, from some things I've seen, the Warden has caught players of guard and instilled fear in them, for the first time since their first weird cave noise.
Minecraft does count as a hostile world, stand still long enough in a non-constructed location and you will die.
The warden was hyped up as an anti-safespace and a force of nature to be avoided. Honestly they could have had a much better ecfect if they added the deepdark on April 1st and told nobody about its addition and didn't remove it. It could have been a great community puzzle to solve, instead they did the usual Minecraft thing and spilled all the beans and now its kinda flat since the knowledge is already available and not earned through personal experience.
Also those cave ambience noises are no joke, a random jackhammer is not what i expect to hear in a cave with presumably 0 airflow. (Because they aren't constant you cant predict or get used to them, in contrast the warden can be planned for)
Cave noises still spook me to this day, and no other game has a monster quite like the creeper...a completely silent self-destructing menace that can often just insta-kill you out of nowhere
@@Reydriel a shield prevents the instakill by just having it in hand.
@@Ghorda9 ever had them do the drop maneuver on you? Where they decide to suicide bomb by falling off a ledge above you and start their fuse mid-air so you have almost no time to react?
Yeah ravines are awful LOL
@@Starfloofle yes and a shield stops the insta kill even if you don't actively use it.
STALKER: Anomaly (stand-alone mod) ALWAYS keeps you on your toes, even in the starting area. It's such a superb game for atmosphere and immersion to the point that you want to take a break from that world while being in-world by chilling by the fire and listening to the in-game music
This video reminded me a lot of your Subnautica Terror video when you mentioned making dying infrequent actually increasing hostility. I think it's the same reason some people so strongly dislike save-scumming in rogue likes: once the stakes are revealed to be ultimately hollow, everything feels less exciting.
I think s phenomenal game that fits the alien category (the most alien/hostile I've ever played actually) is NaissanceE.
It's so cold, so foreboding, and sparse of mechanics. But it sucks you in with nearly curiosity alone. It's a short game at around 5 hours, and it's free! Please try it out!
The bit about extraction games reminded me how Escape From Tarkov is genuinely one of the scariest games I've ever played. Trying to get to an extract with a quest item you've spent hours finding is seriously terrifying.
Totaly agre, when the punishment for failing is actuly meaningful your body response accordingly and pumps blood like you would realy are hiding in the bathroom from the russians, same for Rust and Dayz
Glad you mentioned Rain World! It's good to see one of my favorite games up there that changed how I see games.
The pattern recognition is sorta unavoidable, but the antidote for it I've seen is sensible placement. Rain World has a bunch of pipes, which are just floating ledges when you think about it, but they all have a place in the world. Some are rebar for concrete, others are support beams, and they feel like they're supposed to be there. Length changes appear random as well, giving that sense of corrosion and decay over dozens of years.
I think the air vents in Stray have this issue, just sorta being there instead of showing their purpose. Venting air into small areas doesn't seem to make that much sense.
17:00 "As we play games and build up a subconscious knowledge of how they work, it becomes more difficult for a game to actually feel unpredictable"
Very well said. I think this is one of your best videos and it captured exactly what I look for when I play new games. It's not about the genre but the feeling of overcoming and navigating the challenges of a brand new world. And indeed, it becomes very difficult to keep capturing that spark.
This is exactly why I rarely finish most games, especially anything > 20 hours. By that point, I've gotten a sense of the world and the systems, and though I may not have mastered it entirely, I feel like it has lost its novelty. It's rare that games can keep things fresh and interesting longer than that.
But for those first few hours, it's a joy to see a new world, new mechanics, a new theme - whatever it is.
@@reverse_engineered I think that's true of a lot of games, particularly mainstream games. But there are a handful of games that I think it would be a travesty not to experience the ending. Outer Wilds, Forgotten City, and Braid come to mind.
Great video, good points!
I just want to point out that Control has a very intense SCP vibe rather than Lovecraftian, and that this same fear of the unknown stays throughout most of the game.
There are also several times where you think "how do I even get there" and later discover a power that allows you to do so, or you discover another power that interacts with the environment, which makes you realize that you've seen several of these interaction points earlier, but never recognized them as something you could interact with, prompting you to go back for special rewards.
The bees bit is delightfully nightvale-esque. I can just imagine Cecil going "Todays programming has been brought to you by our sponsor: Bees. Bees, They carry the pollen which fertilizes our corn, and who have listened carefully to our request for them not to pollinate Wheat, but do so anyways. Bees."
I was stuck in front of a metal gate for a few minutes in Stray, looking around the environment looking for alternate paths. I will never forget the moment it clicked that I'm a cat, I can just walk right through. I'd been so conditioned by other games to see a closed gate as an obstacle I forgot I'd seen cats walk through similar spaces hundreds of times in real life. That was a brilliant level design.
Stray may have a dedicated meow button, but Cult Of The Lamb has a dedicated bleat button.
I highly recommend hylics (or hylics 2 if you want a more polished experience) if you enjoy alien games. The dialogue is incomprehensible, the visuals are one of a kind and the mechanics are just a joy to watch
Anodyne?
That game is such a surreal experience.
Add Middens and Space Funeral.
You succinctly summed up the wonderful tension of patterns and entertainment. We need patterns in order to learn and understand, but we also need patterns to be shaken up to beat boredom and be entertained. That push-and-pull is the fundamental challenge underlining all creative pursuits.
Good stuff!
God I love rain world so much, it really pulls off the idea of the world being it's own ecosystem. In over words, the world isn't there for you and you alone, and if you / the player isnt there then the world will keep going out without you
I'm so glad game design tube is finally giving rainworld credit, I picked it up a few years ago on sale mainly because I found the steam store page so intriguing and it quickly became one of my favourite games ever. the design of the game feels so disinterested in your enjoyment that it makes it far more immersive than any other game I've played. it's a game that was only possible once the devs abandoned the assumption that games should be fair, and I think that's the main reason so many people bounced off it.
Funny you mention amnesia when talking about dying, because that's my biggest complaint about the game. Mainly that death has little to no consequence and can in some situations actually be a benefit by spawning you or the monster somewhere more advantageous. When you realize the best strategy is to run up and hug the monster, the game loses any horror it may have had.
The best part about starting out on the back foot is the feeling of getting back to the front foot.
It was only for like a second but I'm so happy to see someone show anything about The Eternal Cylinder. That game really doesn't get enough attention
You can feel detached from a world when it feels like the world could exist without you. Grime's world immediately comes to mind: there are all sorts of enemies that won't attack you until you attack them, but there are instances of those same enemies that will attack you on sight and other instances of enemies that use those same character models that won't attack you at all, and instead will just speak with you. It's also very challenging, which helps the game feel like it's not made for you.
However, UNWORTHY has probably the most hostile world I've ever played in. Being tortured in the opening cutscene, the phrase "you are a broken bell" within that opening cutscene, the high difficulty, the black and white aesthetic designed to evoke hopelessness in the player, the inability to jump in a 2D metroidvania, NPCs complaining about how much the world sucks, some downright disturbing enemy designs (even though most of them aren't all that scary), and a late-game story beat that I won't spoil outside of it messing me up mentally for a few days all contribute to the feeling that UNWORTHY's world isn't made for you. It never feels like you can predict what the world is going to throw at you to the point where the items necessary for progression don't have obvious tells for where you'd use them in the environment. Even the death screen (which you will see very often) contributes to this message, because instead of trying to reduce the sting of defeat or reminding you that you lost, you will instead see the reality of your failure. UNWORTHY puts its title on the death screen, telling you that you haven't earned the right to move on in the game. Where other games may try to encourage you with reducing the sting of defeat, UNWORTHY does not.
Getting aggroed in the baby area by Rotbart is iconic, but XCX is the best at that. You'll think you're approaching a wrecked ship and suddenly Uncontrollable starts playing.
Outer Wilds was great for this type of feeling, despite having an inviting art direction
That’s one of the best things about Outer Wilds. It’s so immersive because it’s so unconventional.
Superliminal and Antechamber do a good job with the uncanny by having the most basic assumptions like how space and perception operate being what are challenged. And both are short enough that they uncanny doesn't really fade into the familiar as much as in longer games.
i think the unspoken black-hole in the room is: many entertainment companies will not bother with all this because they can make more money selling lowest-common-denominator spam forever
I recognize that clock....
A great game I HIGHLY suggest is 7 days to die. Cause it's similar to when someone plays Minecraft for the first time where it's terrifying. But it keeps that throughout the game until you are capable of sustaining yourself of resources and ammo. As well as armor to make sure you don't get injured too much. It's a great game and soonish they're gonna add bandits to the game, making it all more hostile and terrifying to live in
This channel is amazing. Been binging your videos all day. Informative and entertaining while helping me rethink game design 🎉
I’m highly surprised you didn’t mention Don’t Starve anywhere here. That game absolutely NAILS the feeling of a world that wants you dead
Cat and Dog was the answer all along, of course! How could we have missed that for all these years?!
Great video as always Adam, love your new nomenclature XD
It is reliably terrible
Another banger of a video, love your insights lad. Keep up the good work.
god that last puzzle in the looker made me so mad
how did I not see it coming
It's legitimately amazing, you feel like a complete idiot for not spotting it because it's exactly the kind of thing the game would do
There are few things I love in games more than finding, or sometimes forging a safe space in a hostile world, whether it's finding/visiting a hub world between journeys, or mastering an area of the world so well that it doesn't feel hostile anymore, despite it still being full of enemies.
Hell, I even find this feeling in the least likely genre, RTS games, I always play like a tank (against AI especially), slowly chipping away at enemy territory, and by the end of the match, I like to look back at areas of the map that were previously full of hostile units, now fortified by mine as a secondary base.
This feeling is all about control I guess, which is exactly the opposite of what this video is trying to say, telling us to go outside our comfort zones (Something I've been trying to do for a while) instead of expanding them, but I just wanted to share my feelings about the video's topic.
I get that feeling. Minecraft can be that way. You're in a world that wants to kill you every night, but you create a structure you're safe in and get your plot of land to be self sufficient and before you know it, it's hard to peel yourself away from the safety of your home/base.
@@propheinx2250 Yes Minecraft is the prime example of this, as is every other survival game with crafting and building, how did it escape my mind?
Nothing is worse than having a creeper invade your safe space though.
@@THExRISER true stuff. That's why I encase my entire property in a fence and lay down plenty of torches. It's better if a creeper knocks out a bit of fence than the entire side of your house.
@@propheinx2250 Smart.
Landing on a lush planet or inside a space station in No Man's Sky after being chased by space pirates, sentinels, and awful storms on desolate planets is a great feeling.
That was a fantastic vid! Thanks for that and the acronyms!
I love this type of content. Please keep it up!!!!
I think Noita would've been an EXCELLENT example of a game that's challenging, alien and turbulent.
I think it is interesting you highlighted both Stray and Rain World in the same video as, largely in setting, I felt like Stray seemed inspired by Rain World. I got impeccable Rain World vibes from Stray with the whole post-apocalyptic, grimey, maybe sorta re-grown urban aesthetic. The whole sequence at the beginning with the cat falling away from its friends/family also seems to be nearly the same as the opening to Rain World.
I like you more and more with each video. You make so much sense.
You've quickly become my favorite creator to see new videos posted. Thanks for all the great content.
Absolutely love this channel ❤️
Rain world is a game that blew away all my expectations. Glad to see you covered it!
Your highlighting of Stray forcing the player to rethink their environment, made me think of the Aliens Vs Predator games, especially playing as a xenomorph. Knowing that you can cling to/traverse any surface makes the gameplay in that mode far more dynamic and interesting.
Man, this is such a great channel.
I got the looker after you mentioned it and oh man it did NOT disappoint.
I think the conclusion from this one is great. Definitely agree that the critical detail is how you achieve understanding of the game's world, both the process and the pacing.
Even if the conclusion you draw from some part of a game world is something you've seen before, if you have to build that understanding up from reasoning about the world itself instead of pattern matching to other games, it'll be good. After all, there's basically no better definition of something 'fitting' in a world than that.
rain world and outer wilds best videogames
"and/or being too busy fighting a boss" I feel attacked
12:26 "you play as this adorable creature called a slugcat, which is as you can imagine, half slug
HALF DOG"
I knew this video was something special when Lorn's Lure was mentioned. You really do your research!
12:27 "You play as this adorable creature called a "SlugCat" - Which as you might imagine is half SNAIL, half DOG..."
ME: So it's not a SnailDog then? OK cool...
6:57 gotta love the Don't hug me I'm scared clock
7:21 ok, that got a laugh out of me. well done bro
kenshi ticks all of those boxes and then some
it also has cats
NaissanceE (not a typo) is the most alien game I've ever played, and because of that and where I was at in my life when I played it, it resonated deeply.
This is a very interesting analysis, I really liked the video. Although I must say, until very late game, creepers in minecraft still give you the chills when you randomly hear that tssss sound next to you in a dark cave lol
Maybe, fortunately even iron armor is enough to make them mostly survivable from when you hear the hiss to jumpimg away. (But they will prestart their timer before dropping on you to immediately explode, and if you are inside its hitbox even full enchanted diamond might not save you)
Personally the drowned are the most dangerous hostile mob. But the scariest thing in the game is cave ambience noises.
This essay was so engaging. I put it on while grinding Destiny, and set my controller down and listened to the whole thing.
I think a hostile world that does its job really damn well is Don't Starve's. The game has a lot of standard survival mechanics but it sometimes doesn't really uses a lot of typical video game iconography so you're not sure about how things will turn out until you actually try them. As a new player a lot of events have seemingly random triggers, like how the heck are you supposed that cutting trees would spawn a treeguard? And it's impressively systemic in the ways some mechanics interact with each other interact sometimes. It's basically designed in a way that requires your constant attention or things could go south incredibly (and hilariously) quickly
"...Understand an enemy's inner workings."
*Gaping Dragon*
Can we all just appreciate the time he spends on visual gags?
i feel pikmin 2 does an amazing job of making me uncomfortable, the bulbear for example is a big threat because its unpredictable, it could run around gathering children, it could eat all your pikmin carrying something. the boss arenas are great too like the long legs bosses having web shadows cast onto the floor, the whole submerged castle, the bulblax queen having many crushed insects. the sheer quantity of traps always keeps you on edge too
The pikmin games are masterpieces, and pikmin 2 is my favorite. The submerged castle was terrifying as a kid and still give me permanent anxiety when i go through it. (5 min timer for an unkillable and very hostile boss to spawn).
These games could definitely be the star of a video on level design and building atmosphere. (Or general silent world building)
There’s this fancy little VR horror game that I adore called Into The Radius that exemplifies pretty much everything in this (minus having a cat so far). Theres just enough mundane human activities that you need to do to keep you grounded as a regular person within the fiction, and that completely juxtaposes with the terror of the unfathomable cosmic events happening around you, and makes you feel even more powerless and alone in an environment that used to be familiar but is now warped beyond comfort
Rain World!
I literally finished my daily session of suffering 5 minutes ago.
Love the Rain, love the slimecat. Simple as
You know what? I feel like I am just a tad bit more grateful for bees, now. Thank you.
The STALKER games seem to fit this mold. It's a game that is not afraid to let you bleed to death under a bridge. And you'll never be safe, no matter what you achieve, in The Long Dark
Yo! Glad to see a mention of Lorn’s Lure! I’m a big fan of the works it’s inspired by, BLAME!, and am even on a related discord with the creator
Very insightful essay :D
NaissanceE is a game (I hope he talks about it, I'm commenting early) that is a master at the feeling of a hostile world.
I've beat it, twice, explored every secret little nook, every repeating, deceiving, humanity disregarding room. And... I don't know if the ways I've taken through some areas are intended. I genuinely feel like it wasn't meant to be played. The creator exists, but his inspirations we're large worlds that were never made for us, and despite fulfilling the brief perfectly, you can't see his fingerprints anywhere, it's like he was an afterthought.
It doesn't need me, it doesn't need you, it wasn't made for you, it's alien, and sovereign, and if that appeals to you, it won't care. But I will, go play it.
It's an older title, but NaissanceE is a great game for that alien feeling. Its spaces are large and mostly indifferent to the player, so it avoids the Mirror's Edge issue of making parkour paths super obvious.
NaissanceE's developer is working on another game. Somewhere in the far future it'll be done
Was not expecting anything on rain world but a realy good suprise, such a good game
I think this video taught me that what I've been trying to do with Minecraft for many years since I started playing was to recreate the initial sense of danger and fear that I initially had when I started as a wee child. I've had some success even, and have approached the task of making the game more difficult all over again dozens of times, but I think seeing my gradual shift towards playing more roguelikes in my free time demonstrates a point the video ends on, which is that we can either embrace the empowerment that follows mastery over these hostile worlds, or we can keep searching for new lands to tame and opportunities to pursue.
The darkness of mouldwood depths in ori and the will of the wisps made me uneasy. It feels so oppressive and is super threatening (oneshots you if you stay in the dark for too long) Combined with the absolutely gorgeous visuals and perfect soundtrack it remains my favorite level of any game ever made!
Fallout New Vegas actually has some areas that do this, and I wish it was stronger. When you start out, there are some things you absolutely have no choice but to run from, or certain enemies you simply cannot deal with. Modding it to make these themes stronger and extend to more enemies makes the game immensely better!
The vaults in New Vegas are also immensely unsettling, to the point where New Vegas Vaults would be a top 10 horror game
Whether hostile worlds are fun for me to explore greatly depends on what quality the save havens have.
It's fun to overcome challenging environments, but worlds which have no space to (reasonably) retreat to when you're done feel overwhelming and exhausting.
I have a strong preference with games that have good hubs that (ideally) contain friendly NPCs, allow for the restocking and reorganizing of resources and provide a place for meaningful parts of the story to play out.
When playing Minecraft, the the first thing I usually do is to locate a village and make that my base of operations for a while.
The parts of World of Warcraft I'm most fond of are the capital cities and memorable quest hubs/settlements. Returning from an extended trip in the wilderness, turning in a bunch of quests, selling off collected junk, storing collected resources and restocking on critical supplies is at least equally as satisfying as overcoming said wilderness.
Sometimes, when all the fighting and killing starts feeling like work, it's a nice fallback to just hang out with a bunch of friendly NPCs for a while, to explore their dwellings and to plan, organize and improve your character or operation in a protected environment.
Part of the point of some hostile worlds without safe spaces is that overwhelming and exhausting struggle of fighting to stay alive. (But they should have a pause option so you can take a break to do something like eat dinner or go to the bathroom. Otherwise you have to save and quit to the main menu which is annoying for small breaks)
Minecraft is a game with 0 built in safe spaces, you have to make your own. Sure some areas are fairly safe but if you stand still long enough you will die to something (ignoring hunger). The 2 mobs most responsible for this are phantoms and drowns, phantoms made mushroom islands dangerous and drowns eliminate the old trick of getting in a boat and waiting out the night in the ocean. And while villager houses are safe to wait out the night zombies can bust down the doors and will kill all the villagers.
If you want to be safe you must sleep every night to keep the surface mobs away.
Granted Minecraft's world isn't exactly out to kill you and its fairly easy to survive.
I guess that's a bit of a preference but it's good to kinda challenge yourself, like rainworld even still has safe spots basically everywhere, usually in forms of rooms without any enemies, literally shelters, and high ledges it's not like there's any need for a base as you couldn't do anything with one anyway, and the game shouldn't give you a safe spot every other room anyways. But some enemies are built to counter you just camping, some lizards can climb, vultures come from the sky, but can't fit in pipes, and also travel pipes can be used to pass lizards chasing you if they enter the same pipe while you're going through it.
The After The Video (tm) section hit hard, and hit home. lol
Fantastically written video!
Hope you have a great day adam and that your video performs well. Best wishes :)
Great video, rain world is an awesome game it’s ai is extremely complex and cool, it has a great difficulty system as well. Btw did you know that it’s animations for all its creatures are procedurally generated.
this is part of why modded minecraft is so important. just throwing a bunch of new rules into minecraft can make the game feel new again for a time
I fondly recall an old Flash game called "Depict One", which was a platformer deliberately designed to break your standard assumptions of how platformers worked. Shiny collectible gems hurt you while spikes help you, for instance. I found it very effective at creating a disorienting experience.
Bro the half snail half dog joke had me dying, I don't know why it was so funny, but I swear that is the hardest I have laughed all week
I think the new deep dark biome in Minecraft fits your CAT model really well:
-In true Minecraft fashion, it is as challenging to explore as you allow it to be. You can of course just retreat every time you get shrieked at, but if you go in too deep or you run into hostile mobs, things can get messy fast.
-It introduces the vibration mechanic, which is a completely new threat to the player and messes with your ability to mine and place blocks, limiting the tools at your disposal. Plus, the dedicated soundtrack for this biome really gives the feeling that the biome is alive and hostile to you.
-Since the cave generation is random, it is always posible that there is a shrieker in a nearby cave, even if you cannot see any skulk, which means the only way to truly be sure if the area is save is to cause vibrations and check if you get shrieked at. The formations of shriekers and sensors you will run into can also be very akward and challenging to pacify.
TLDR: The deep dark biome is nightmare fuel and I love it.