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Anyone here play Outer Wilds?


best3444

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Based on your tastes, it's probably not a game for you.

 

It's essentially "Groundhog Day: The Game".

 

It's an exploration game where you have 22 minutes to get off a planet before its sun goes supernova.  Your objective is to replay this 22-minute sequence until you gain enough knowledge from the repeated playthroughs to leave the planet.

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1 hour ago, SFLUFAN said:

Based on your tastes, it's probably not a game for you.

 

It's essentially "Groundhog Day: The Game".

 

It's an exploration game where you have 22 minutes to get off a planet before its sun goes supernova.  Your objective is to replay this 22-minute sequence until you gain enough knowledge from the repeated playthroughs to leave the planet.

That DOES sound interesting and like you, I have it downloaded and have yet to play it :p

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There was an earlier thread about the game.

 

I really enjoyed it. I generally don't do well in games that lack a strong direction and make you find your own way, but there was something about the mystery of Outer Wilds and how you explored it yourself that I found captivating. It's really a game more focused on exploration than any I can think of. There's no combat, very few puzzles in the Zelda dungeon style, and no real progression other than what you've learned. It's very BotW like in that you can "finish" the game on your first go if you know exactly what you're doing, but unlike BotW, the only thing you gain by playing more is a better knowledge of the solar system and the mysteries it contains. It's a unique setup that I'm surprised worked so well for me.

 

I have my issues with the game, gameplay issues that I really wish they would have sorted out, but overall it was a great experience that I'd encourage to nearly everyone to try.

 

I do have two things that I would specifically recommend to anyone playing. First is to give it a decent shot. Especially if you're getting it on gamepass, it could be easy to play for 30 minutes and decide you're not getting anything out of it. Go out into the world and set your sights on a specific thing: a building you want to get into, a question you want answered, a thing that keeps killing you, whatever. Find something to focus on, but don't stick to it dogmatically, because in the course of trying to solve one mystery, you'll run into a bunch out of necessity. If that progression doesn't grab you, the game probably isn't for you. The second thing is to remember that there is a computer in the back of your lander that keeps notes for you. I had a bunch of hand written notes before I figured out the computer was there. Basically everything you scan gets uploaded and it does a good job of piercing the threads together and pointing you towards things that you might want to look into and ensuring you don't overlook crucial pieces to the puzzle.

 

 

One last thing that I think really enhanced my playing of the game is cheating a little bit. Outer Wilds is wonderful in that you can access most areas in a number of ways, especially the "hub" areas on a couple planets. If you know the right route, it might only take you 2 minutes to go from take off to the center of one of these hubs. When you're starting out, if you don't find one of these quick entries (one in particular is very well hidden) you might spend half your loop trying to get in. I think it was fun to try a bunch of things to find my way in, but if you're in the middle of exploring a mystery, or trying to get through each nook and cranny in a hub, the travel time is unacceptable. Go on youtube, find a non-spoiler video that shows the fastest way in, and take it from there. I really think the game should surface these shortcuts to you once you have found your way in, but it doesn't really do that, so if you're like me, a little bit of cheating can make a big difference. 

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6 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Hell yeah I do.  @best3444 It's basically a first-person adventure/puzzle game with light survival elements.  I'll try to explain without spoilers: you explore a small solar system with the goal of figuring out how to prevent a cataclysmic event.  The game is completely self-guided, and there are no explicit objectives.  That might sound overwhelming, but the game does a fantastic job of helping to guide you non-intrusively by using a log to record everything that you find and experience.  This log takes the shape of a cloud-map or flow-chart of sorts that helps to link seemingly disconnected discoveries.  As you explore more and more, you start to piece together what's happening, and slowly start to learn how all of the different pieces are connected.

 

The sense of discovery, and sometimes terror and anxiety, that it provokes is unlike anything that I've experienced in a game.  Once I started piecing things together, it became impossible to put down.  It's the best game that I've played all year, and I would put it at the top of my generational best-of list.  It's beautiful, moving, and brilliantly designed, and I really hope more people give it a shot.  If you're at all interested in adventure or sci-fi games, I can't recommend it highly enough.

 

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25 minutes ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Hell yeah I do.  @best3444 It's basically a first-person adventure/puzzle game with light survival elements.  I'll try to explain without spoilers: you explore a small solar system with the goal of figuring out how to prevent a cataclysmic event.  The game is completely self-guided, and there are no explicit objectives.  That might sound overwhelming, but the game does a fantastic job of helping to guide you non-intrusively by using a log to record everything that you find and experience.  This log takes the shape of a cloud-map or flow-chart of sorts that helps to link seemingly disconnected discoveries.  As you explore more and more, you start to piece together what's happening, and slowly start to learn how all of the different pieces are connected.

 

The sense of discovery, and sometimes terror and anxiety, that it provokes is unlike anything that I've experienced in a game.  Once I started piecing things together, it became impossible to put down.  It's the best game that I've played all year, and I would put it at the top of my generational best-of list.  It's beautiful, moving, and brilliantly designed, and I really hope more people give it a shot.  If you're at all interested in adventure or sci-fi games, I can't recommend it highly enough.

 

 

Played 2 hours and was as bit overwhelmed at first. Thanks for explaining how the game works. It's definitely unique and mysterious for sure. I plan on playing again tomorrow but it hasn't gotten it's hooks in me like it has you. I know I need to give it more time. Love the music.

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5 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Played 2 hours and was as bit overwhelmed at first. Thanks for explaining how the game works. It's definitely unique and mysterious for sure. I plan on playing again tomorrow but it hasn't gotten it's hooks in me like it has you. I know I need to give it more time. Love the music.

I agree with @TwinIon about giving the game a fair shot.  It doesn't really reveal how deep it is for a few hours.

 

I could be wrong, but I think that the game sort of nudges you towards a planet called Brittle Hollow at first.  Either that or the Moon around Timber Hearth are good starting points.  Just explore and see what you find!  I will mention that towards the end I had to look up one or two things because I got stumped.  For the most part, I would say be patient and if you get stuck, do something else.  If you need specific help, I'm happy to give small hints to help you progress without hopefully tainting the experience.

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Minor spoilers ahead. 

 

When I first started I went to Giants Deep first and everytime I reached the end of the cycle the music played and the screen turned white after a while but I never saw any animation. After punting around on Giants Deep for a while I went to Brittle Hollow and the first time I actually saw the sun explode it was through the center of the planet and it was a pretty mindblowing experience since I had gone through a bunch of cycles but didn't know there was more to it than the screen suddenly turning white.

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7 hours ago, Moa said:

Minor spoilers ahead. 

 

When I first started I went to Giants Deep first and everytime I reached the end of the cycle the music played and the screen turned white after a while but I never saw any animation. After punting around on Giants Deep for a while I went to Brittle Hollow and the first time I actually saw the sun explode it was through the center of the planet and it was a pretty mindblowing experience since I had gone through a bunch of cycles but didn't know there was more to it than the screen suddenly turning white.

 

How far did you get into the game?

 

@ShreddieMercuryRising is there an actual ending to the game?

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8 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

How far did you get into the game?

 

@ShreddieMercuryRising is there an actual ending to the game?

Yes, there are actually multiple endings, though they are ultimately the same.  It's a longer game that I anticipated.  It took me probably 15-20 hours to finish it and I definitely hadn't done everything.

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18 hours ago, best3444 said:

I played 2 more hours. I don't think this game is for me like @SFLUFAN nailed.

 

It's just too lifeless with dated visuals. It's not keeping me interested at all so I'm moving on. I gave it a good 4 hours or so. 

 

Despite the campfire, marshmallows, and banjo, the game's atmosphere feels vacant almost to the point of haunted. Something about how wide open the game is leaves me feeling tremendously exposed while playing it. I remember the first time I got flung into space on Giant's Deep feeling very uneasy about the possibility of just drifting off the planet. I think this feeling is one of the most interesting things the game has going for it, but it also keeps me from coming back and finishing the game despite my generally positive opinion of it. 

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I've played a fair amount of it on PC. It's a really cool concept and I had fun playing it but it also didn't really hook me. Some of the controls I found a bit frustrating, but they also fit the game really well (different atmospheres affect movement differently).

 

Like others have said, it's Groundhogs day with a quest log that maintains it's memories. So as you go along and are at different places at different times you get more info on the story and what's going on. 

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