Board 8 > I didn't get my son's favourite video game - but it got me [article]

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/nov/25/i-didnt-get-my-sons-favourite-video-game-but-it-got-me

I very much enjoyed this. Not a very long read.

Basically an account of a dad trying and failing to play Outer Wilds, and how gaming affects how he sees his son

Parts of it reminded me of playing games with my own dad. Anyway, I thought one or two might enjoy.

Honestly I tried to play Outer Wilds a couple times over the years and the constant fighting of the controls drove me off it too because I wasn't actually having fun trying to play it.

I did watch an LP who really took their time exploring things because I still wanted to experience it and I'm glad I did, it was still a pretty good experience for me. So I kind of identify with this a little.

really good article, thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing-- enjoyed reading that

Great read

supports my hunch that the game can only be enjoyed if YOU want to enjoy it, you can't enjoy it if someone's asked you to.

Honestly I don't think this has much to do with being 50. Outer Wilds just has incredibly difficult controls, especially when you're first learning them.

I wouldn't say "incredibly difficult" but it's a bit tricky at first for sure

didn't read it out of fear of spoilers but this is probably the first negative commentary I've seen about OW

My dad loved Thief 1 and 2 on pc but struggles with fps on console, though he did play dishonored so he might have improved there

But I think Outer Wilds' controls are beyond him. He loved Myst and Riven (as well as Broken Sword - likes puzzles), but I don't think he'll have the level of investment in the story he normally would. So I've never pushed hard for him to play it.

Anyway, he's been slowly working his way through Horizon Zero Dawn for like 5 months and has still got quite a way to go, so he'll be on that for a while yet. He had the full edition, and accidentally played the Frozen Wilds without realising it was dlc.

SeabassDebeste posted...

didn't read it out of fear of spoilers but this is probably the first negative commentary I've seen about OW

I've had a similar experience, at least where piloting is concerned. It's not terrible, but it's certainly not fluid and intuitive. I also felt like I was just bumbling around, not really doing anything, even when I found something new.

I am also notoriously negative on Myst, though, and Outer Wilds felt like "better Myst" to me...which wasn't enough to keep me playing it.

SeabassDebeste posted...

didn't read it out of fear of spoilers but this is probably the first negative commentary I've seen about OW

It didn't motivate me at all

The Guardian?

azuarc posted...

I've had a similar experience, at least where piloting is concerned. It's not terrible, but it's certainly not fluid and intuitive.

As somebody who lives on a planet with gravity, I tend to disagree.

I think there's an element of wrapping your head around movement with less gravity, but I'm never sure what people who don't cotton on to the OW control scheme would want differently. I don't think there's a way to improve the general control layout.

It's essentially the "underwater controls in 3D video games" problem. There's not really a great way to solve it, or at least I haven't seen one yet.

One thing OW could definitely have done though is make auto-pilot not crash you into stuff if you rely on it. It seems like tons of people have this same first experience of auto-pilot flying them straight into the sun or whatever and while it's funny, it's also easy to go "wow, fuck this broken game" in response.

Kenri posted...

It's essentially the "underwater controls in 3D video games" problem. There's not really a great way to solve it, or at least I haven't seen one yet.

One thing OW could definitely have done though is make auto-pilot not crash you into stuff if you rely on it. It seems like tons of people have this same first experience of auto-pilot flying them straight into the sun or whatever and while it's funny, it's also easy to go "wow, fuck this broken game" in response.

I disagree with this, partly because controlling in OW is easier than swimming in underwater irl.

There will always be an element of discomfort to people starting the game with controlling it - not because the controls are bad, but because we as people don't move in the sort of zero-g environment people are put in. Like, nobody has ever really explained the controls of the game being bad in a way that puts the onus on the controls - every time I see anything about it, it's either amorphous or it ignores concepts such as momentum.

Some people take a little longer to wrap their heads around zero-g 3D spatial navigation, which is totally okay, but the controls are just "left, right, back, forward, up, down, and turn with stick". That's really basic.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

I disagree with this, partly because controlling in OW is easier than swimming in underwater irl.

There will always be an element of discomfort to people starting the game with controlling it - not because the controls are bad, but because we as people don't move in the sort of zero-g environment people are put in. Like, nobody has ever really explained the controls of the game being bad in a way that puts the onus on the controls - every time I see anything about it, it's either amorphous or it ignores concepts such as momentum.

Some people take a little longer to wrap their heads around zero-g 3D spatial navigation, which is totally okay, but the controls are just "left, right, back, forward, up, down, and turn with stick". That's really basic.

this must be it

I mentioned in another thread that I was showing up my friend who'd beated the game twice within a few minutes of picking up the controller because of my Kerbal Space Program experience... a game I played on keyboard with an entirely different control scheme. The skills didn't actually transfer, just the ability to think about how you want to move did

HanOfTheNekos posted...

I disagree with this, partly because controlling in OW is easier than swimming in underwater irl.

There will always be an element of discomfort to people starting the game with controlling it - not because the controls are bad, but because we as people don't move in the sort of zero-g environment people are put in. Like, nobody has ever really explained the controls of the game being bad in a way that puts the onus on the controls - every time I see anything about it, it's either amorphous or it ignores concepts such as momentum.

Some people take a little longer to wrap their heads around zero-g 3D spatial navigation, which is totally okay, but the controls are just "left, right, back, forward, up, down, and turn with stick". That's really basic.

That also describes the Atlantica controls in KH and people famously have an issue with those! Having designated "up and down" buttons isn't intuitive when you move all other directions with a stick (but ultimately you have to put something on buttons/triggers or it becomes a problem in itself). Having forward and back relative to where you're pointing instead of where you're looking, or vice versa, is confusing if you expect the reverse. Some people would want forward on a button or trigger, like how you accelerate vehicles in racing games. Etc.

And then you're trying to master all of this while dealing with gravity, landing on a moving object, probably looking straight down instead of forward, and if you do it too fast you die.

I'm not saying the control choices are bad per se, but I do think it's a lot to throw at people all at once. And I agree that part of it is just unfamiliarity navigating in space.

As for the complaints being amorphous -- it took me about 10 tries to do the Sun Station space walk and gun to my head I could not tell you what the issue was, it just felt like my guy freaked out the instant I attempted it, regardless of what I did or didn't do control-wise. Wish I could give more specific feedback here!

(And I think swimming underwater IRL is way easier, unless you count physical exertion. Just point the direction you wanna go and kick. If you have fins it's even easier!)

It's a 3-DOF movement which is always going to be tricky to play. I think people generally prefer zero-gravity movement where up/down on the stick corresponds to moving up and down in space, instead of forward/backward like in OW. Then a button for forwards (like "accelerate") makes movement pretty intuitive. That wouldn't work at all for OW though.

The thing with OW's controls isn't the difficulty though, it's that people don't expect a puzzle game like that to have controller difficulty as part of its challenge. I think it's crucial to the feeling of speedrun-style mastery that you build up, so on your 100th loop you're whizzing around the place like crazy compared to your slow plodding movement in the first loop. Every timeloop story has that kind of element of mastery (Edge of Tomorrow is a good example) and it's brilliant that the game can evoke that with gameplay.

But if you just liked the puzzles, which are 90% of the game, then it's fair to complain about that frustrating 10% that you don't care about.

Outer Wilds controls are absolute ass. You should not have to fight unintuitive controls + wonky physics and 'get used to them' to enjoy a game. Could I have? Yes, probably, but I'm not going to spend multiple hours repeatedly dying to things with little or no progress each time when I'm not even that invested in the game experience yet when I could just go play something else that doesn't have a learning curve to even get to the fun part instead.

The rest of the game is super imaginative and well thought out, though.

tcaz2 posted...

Outer Wilds controls are absolute ass. You should not have to fight unintuitive controls + wonky physics and 'get used to them' to enjoy a game. Could I have? Yes, probably, but I'm not going to spend multiple hours repeatedly dying to things with little or no progress each time when I'm not even that invested in the game experience yet when I could just go play something else that doesn't have a learning curve to even get to the fun part instead.

The rest of the game is super imaginative and well thought out, though.

Did you spend multiple hours on the game?

Outer Wilds was a game I really wanted to like. I tried it twice for a few hours each, months apart. I also simply couldn't get into it because of the controls. Some of the puzzles (the few I could interact with) and the story seemed neat, but playing it just wasn't fun.

I remember what made me finally quit. I really wanted to see what the deal was in Sun Station so I looked up how to get there and finally managed to get past the first obstacle after over a dozen deaths. Then I needed to make a short trip through space and I promptly blew it and careened off into the void instead. I was so angry and had no desire to try again.

tcaz2 posted...

but I'm not going to spend multiple hours repeatedly dying to things with little or no progress each time when I'm not even that invested in the game experience yet

I know people who feel the same way about Mario because they die too much on 1-1. Obviously that game controls like ass too.

You know it's weird. I felt like I was very bad at Outer Wilds, but I have never failed the jump across that chasm in the sun station. I was very surprised to see people had trouble with it.

One thing I keep forgetting is that the recommended way to play is with a controller, but I'm not really clear on why. I played through with keyboard/mouse, and I feel like it might have been harder with a controller.

First person just feels more natural with keyboard/mouse, even with the funky orientation in Outer Wilds.

foolm0r0n posted...

It's a 3-DOF movement which is always going to be tricky to play. I think people generally prefer zero-gravity movement where up/down on the stick corresponds to moving up and down in space, instead of forward/backward like in OW. Then a button for forwards (like "accelerate") makes movement pretty intuitive. That wouldn't work at all for OW though.

I feel like this is weird though - when you control a first person character on land, forward goes forward and left and right strafe. OW keeps that the same - just when you're off-land. To me, that is wayyyy more intuitive. And if you ignore thrusting downwards, then the game is just normal 3D controls, look around with stick, and RT to jetpack. It's like, playing any first person game, just the RT makes you jetpack up.

Mobilezoid posted...

I remember what made me finally quit. I really wanted to see what the deal was in Sun Station so I looked up how to get there and finally managed to get past the first obstacle after over a dozen deaths. Then I needed to make a short trip through space and I promptly blew it and careened off into the void instead. I was so angry and had no desire to try again.

This is actually an awesome experience and I wish I had it instead of doing the boring route there.

It's a good point though. If you don't like experimentation and failure and discovery and build up to payoff then you definitely won't like the game. It's all about delayed gratification.

foolm0r0n posted...

I think it's crucial to the feeling of speedrun-style mastery that you build up, so on your 100th loop you're whizzing around the place like crazy compared to your slow plodding movement in the first loop. Every timeloop story has that kind of element of mastery (Edge of Tomorrow is a good example) and it's brilliant that the game can evoke that with gameplay.

Honestly the big thing I had learned by the final loop is that you have plenty of time. Just slow down and do things carefully, you don't really need to rush at all.

foolm0r0n posted...

If you don't like experimentation and failure and discovery and build up to payoff

I generally don't. At least not when there's no progress being made.

I suspect if I had pushed a little more on the game, I'd at least start to get some kind of internal map of where I'm going, but nothing felt connected to anything anywhere.

azuarc posted...

I suspect if I had pushed a little more on the game, I'd at least start to get some kind of internal map of where I'm going, but nothing felt connected to anything anywhere.

Did you use the rumor mode in the ship's log? That does a pretty good job of laying out what you've discovered and potential connections

Kenri posted...

Honestly I don't think this has much to do with being 50. Outer Wilds just has incredibly difficult controls, especially when you're first learning them.

This. I gave the game a try last year and couldn't get the hang of the game at all. Outer Wilds has such a brutal start in terms of both having tricky controls and having no idea what you're really even supposed to be doing.

OrangeCrush980 posted...

This. I gave the game a try last year and couldn't get the hang of the game at all. Outer Wilds has such a brutal start in terms of both having tricky controls and having no idea what you're really even supposed to be doing.

? you go to a planet and explore and you find secrets i played for like two hours and it was pretty apparent. there's like six right in the sky

The only thing in the game that controls like ass is the RC ship at the very beginning. It's weird that's one of the first things you can interact with considering how bad it is.

The "difficult controls" debate really fascinates me with this game. It's gotta be over 50% of players, who have this opinion. Meanwhile for me, it was the most intuitive controls I could imagine.

(It's literally just standard dual-analog FPS controls, along with some 100% optional buttons you don't need--but are nice, once you eventually want them, like the RTrigger thrust, and the A button "match velocity of target/crosshair").

So, my guess is, it's NOT the controls at all, but it's the momentum--specifically these two features:

1. There is no maximum speed: If you keep pressing forward, you'll keep going faster and faster.
2. You cannot stop on a dime: If it took you 30 seconds to reach your current speed, it will take you 30 seconds to stop!!

As a result, to reach any destination without crashing, you have to begin to stop when you're only halfway to the destination.

That's the stuff is very unlike other first person games. It's also the part they do not tutorialize. They do tutorialize the controls in the zero gravity cave, but they don't tutorialize how to stop!

DeepsPraw posted...

The only thing in the game that controls like ass is the RC ship at the very beginning. It's weird that's one of the first things you can interact with considering how bad it is.

Oh i hate that thing

Epyo posted...

The "difficult controls" debate really fascinates me with this game. It's gotta be over 50% of players, who have this opinion. Meanwhile for me, it was the most intuitive controls I could imagine.

The controls aren't *difficult*. I get how they work just fine. (And I also understand that with real physics, deceleration needs to start at the halfway point.) However, they're not like any controls I'm accustomed to, so yeah, working with the momentum is decidedly uncomfortable. There's also a matter of getting impatient and overaccelerating, or ending up off course, or landing harshly, or trying to set down on something that's not a flat (spherical) object.

NFUN posted...

? you go to a planet and explore and you find secrets i played for like two hours and it was pretty apparent. there's like six right in the sky

It can be confusing if someone is going in blind because it's not really structured like other games. In other games each of the planets might represent its own self-contained "quest" and you'd get some item, fight some boss, or get some other signpost saying you're making progress. Outer Wilds explicitly does not do this, and the only progression is the knowledge you gain about the solar system, which is not the kind of progression most gamers are conditioned to expect.

i went in blind. Like I guess if I looked around a couple of planets and didn't find any scrolls and the rumor mill I'd be confused but the ones I found were clearly an important puzzle to solve

I went in blind and didn't get confused about shit, I really don't understand what there is not to get (I can't see the original post in question though)

To be clear, I am not saying it is confusing to everyone, just that it can be for someone with no context aside from other games they've played. I didn't struggle with it, but I know someone who bounced off the game because they were trying to "complete" a planet before moving on to the next one.

I can't say I understand why, but somehow people do get confused by just the basic structure of the game--Jeff Gerstmann of all people somehow did not understand how to translate the foreign texts you find despite the game forcing you to do so before you take off on the rocket, and also claims that he found "nothing" at every planet he went to and was thus completely turned off by the whole thing

I just beat Outer Wilds literally 15 minutes ago. It really shouldn't be a game I like. Small tutorial and they tell ya to just go like what am I supposed to do!? Tell me! And I absolutely sucked at the controls. And yet...something clicked when I went back to it after a couple days. By the end of it I was loving it and the controls were easy. Was a fantastic experience!

Where I understand Outer Wilds not clicking with people is that it does require a degree of patience and a willingness to absorb some text - it's not a super text heavy game but when it talks, you have to listen and try to encapsulate what it's talking about. You have to be open to understanding the world and the premise the game is trying to lay down. I can imagine it being a bit overwhelming to travel somewhere and translate some text that's talking about what FEELS like some random shit to you at the time, and trying to comprehend all of that when you're taking it all in in random pieces.

But I don't get when people just like... fundamentally aren't capable of engaging the concept of having to explore different places and try to piece together the mystery little by little. It's one thing if all the mystery solving is too much for you but it's bizarre to me when people just don't understand the fundamental principles the game is working by. I played the game blind and had no problem figuring out what it was the game wanted me to do. It's not hard.

NFUN posted...

i went in blind. Like I guess if I looked around a couple of planets and didn't find any scrolls and the rumor mill I'd be confused but the ones I found were clearly an important puzzle to solve

Why do you think the game didn't hook you?

Paratroopa1 posted...

But I don't get when people just like... fundamentally aren't capable of engaging the concept of having to explore different places and try to piece together the mystery little by little. It's one thing if all the mystery solving is too much for you but it's bizarre to me when people just don't understand the fundamental principles the game is working by. I played the game blind and had no problem figuring out what it was the game wanted me to do. It's not hard.

Unless they completely miss the rumor log I don't get it either. Like it basically gives you a quest list, but since they don't call it a quest list people don't get it? I struggled with the controls but not this.

MacArrowny posted...

Why do you think the game didn't hook you?

because playing at 5 fps on my laptop isn't fun and my friend wouldn't let me keep his PS4 which I first played it on

well this is all sad - probably gonna have to pass over this game even if it does every come to switch then!

my first time taking off I did a complete 180 and crashed upside down on the surface. I laughed so hard my face hurt

strange that people found it frustrating. it was hilarious

Setting autopilot to a planet behind the sun and watching as you realize that was not a good idea is hilarious as well.

There are elements of trial and error in the game, and in a game where you're meant to die many times, it's just... fine.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Setting autopilot to a planet behind the sun and watching as you realize that was not a good idea is hilarious as well.

Yeah, I can't even count the amount of times I just went "uh oh" immediately after making a decision.