fuck this game is nauseating.
This is... tough. But good. This game has some incredibly strong and also confusing aspects, and they overlap each other throughout. So maybe we should start at the beginning.
It starts out with something that I find very intimidating: an unstructured, cluttered world on a timer. You can interact with everything, often not making much sense. You can run around until you collapse on the floor exhausted. You better write down your objectives or you'll forget. But in hindsight, this is well done: it really feels like you've just arrived in a new town.
And that's where it opens up in the best way: You make friends, go to parties, talk to people, don't manage to do what you've set out to. Parties have another function: They show you how to navigate with sound and find interesting places just by noticing where the muffled beats are coming from. This might be the best part of the game, despite knowing what's coming next.
You can practically hack everything, and this is the biggest potential and the biggest downfall of the game. And with potential, I mean actual genre-defining potential, I'm talking Outer Wilds levels of potential here. You can do incredibly powerful things, and everything you try opens up even more possibilities. Everything in the city is interconnected, you're becoming some form of god, and it all works. But soon, you're becoming too powerful.
Maybe it's because I do know how to program and managed to try things out earlier than other players, but this omnipotence actually complicated things down the road, mainly by the game not knowing how to handle your complex progression. This is where the gamedev limitations show up - there are millions of parameters you simply can't account for, and it results in confusing situations. People explaining you basic programming concepts in the late game, not reacting to new info, and at some point simply not talking anymore, and most importantly for clutter games: if you visited parts of the city before just for exploration's sake, you're unlikely to return or give a second good look. But if those somehow later become relevant? Tough luck. Even when exploring an area for the first time, a lot of the clutter you can interact with is a copy. The need for it is understandable, but I have interacted with hundreds of computers at this point that displayed the same program - so I'm unlikely to keep clicking on others.
On another note, it's sometimes unclear if you've broken the rules in a correct way, circling back to the omnipotence. Not only is it unclear inside the game universe itself, as some of these hacks are very easy and extremely powerful (not having to sleep, teleporting everywhere, unlocking everything) but the world is still pretty much like ours and nobody seems to have used these powers. It is also unclear on the meta level, as you have a big toolkit to work with but could possibly skip entire sections or the 'intended path'.
And with this, the game kind of fades out and the bigger dramatic set pieces do not get resolved. The end is hasty. The side missions don't have any bearing. The reason for why you've come to this city in the first place got lost in only a couple days. It is sad that the final puzzle with a genius callback solution stands in a vacuum. The beginning sets the scene so well, but the ending fails to pull the curtains.
The potential is still there, lurking below the cluttered ground. You just need to balance the incredible power with an actual narrative. If you manage to recapture the feeling of the beginning, this might be one of the most atmospherically impressive games ever.
It starts out with something that I find very intimidating: an unstructured, cluttered world on a timer. You can interact with everything, often not making much sense. You can run around until you collapse on the floor exhausted. You better write down your objectives or you'll forget. But in hindsight, this is well done: it really feels like you've just arrived in a new town.
And that's where it opens up in the best way: You make friends, go to parties, talk to people, don't manage to do what you've set out to. Parties have another function: They show you how to navigate with sound and find interesting places just by noticing where the muffled beats are coming from. This might be the best part of the game, despite knowing what's coming next.
You can practically hack everything, and this is the biggest potential and the biggest downfall of the game. And with potential, I mean actual genre-defining potential, I'm talking Outer Wilds levels of potential here. You can do incredibly powerful things, and everything you try opens up even more possibilities. Everything in the city is interconnected, you're becoming some form of god, and it all works. But soon, you're becoming too powerful.
Maybe it's because I do know how to program and managed to try things out earlier than other players, but this omnipotence actually complicated things down the road, mainly by the game not knowing how to handle your complex progression. This is where the gamedev limitations show up - there are millions of parameters you simply can't account for, and it results in confusing situations. People explaining you basic programming concepts in the late game, not reacting to new info, and at some point simply not talking anymore, and most importantly for clutter games: if you visited parts of the city before just for exploration's sake, you're unlikely to return or give a second good look. But if those somehow later become relevant? Tough luck. Even when exploring an area for the first time, a lot of the clutter you can interact with is a copy. The need for it is understandable, but I have interacted with hundreds of computers at this point that displayed the same program - so I'm unlikely to keep clicking on others.
On another note, it's sometimes unclear if you've broken the rules in a correct way, circling back to the omnipotence. Not only is it unclear inside the game universe itself, as some of these hacks are very easy and extremely powerful (not having to sleep, teleporting everywhere, unlocking everything) but the world is still pretty much like ours and nobody seems to have used these powers. It is also unclear on the meta level, as you have a big toolkit to work with but could possibly skip entire sections or the 'intended path'.
And with this, the game kind of fades out and the bigger dramatic set pieces do not get resolved. The end is hasty. The side missions don't have any bearing. The reason for why you've come to this city in the first place got lost in only a couple days. It is sad that the final puzzle with a genius callback solution stands in a vacuum. The beginning sets the scene so well, but the ending fails to pull the curtains.
The potential is still there, lurking below the cluttered ground. You just need to balance the incredible power with an actual narrative. If you manage to recapture the feeling of the beginning, this might be one of the most atmospherically impressive games ever.
I've tried this game twice, and never got far through it, and I think that's entirely based on how useless the map is. I'll try it again some day, probably.
I would like to finish this before saying anything really real about it, but else heart break is truly something unique. its incredible main mechanic plus its wonderful vibes make it one of my favorite games. i hope to advance the story one day, I'm just an idiot. but despite my lack of progress I feel comfortable holding it in such high regard because of how bizarre, (sur)real, and freeing the hours I spent with it were. it would also be 2000 times better if I could use the arrow keys to walk instead of clicking holy shit
Il game design legato all'esplorazione e alla scoperta è la componente migliore, nonché cuore del gioco: più si esplora, più si può familiarizzare con lo strumento per la programmazione in-game, permettendo così di intervenire sempre più invasivamente sul mondo di gioco alterandolo a proprio piacimento - entro ovvi limiti. Per rendere il mondo più interessante, a ogni NPC è stata assegnata una routine: seguire/spiare determinati personaggi è ricompensato dalla possibilità di ottenere nuove informazioni (in particolare sotto forma di floppy disk, circa 140): l'esplorazione, quindi, diventa la base per aumentare le proprie competenze. Un punto positivo è il comparto musicale, consistente di tracce elettroniche diegetiche attivate in contesti specifici (party serali, discoteche, radio accese per strada). Il sound design è scarno, ma in modo da contribuire positivamente al senso di realismo restituito dal gioco: oltre alle musiche da festa provenienti dagli scantinati e dai palazzi, l'occasionale cinguettio di qualche uccello, lo sferragliare del tram al suo passaggio e il suono prodotto da oggetti elettronici difettosi. Originale il comparto grafico; modelli e texture possono rimandare a uno stile da PSX. Per poter ricordarsi tutto quello che è possibile fare, è estremamente consigliabile armarsi di fogli e penna, così da prendere nota. Muoversi all'interno della città è abbastanza semplice: la mappa è poco funzionale ma è facilmente sostituita dalla segnaletica stradale, dalla facilità con cui si possono memorizzare i vari luoghi (facilmente distinguibili tra loro, fatta un'eccezione) e dalla presenza di un tram che conduce a varie stazioni distribuite tra i vari quartieri.
Una merda la telecamera: i movimenti sono piuttosto limitati, non è possibile ricollocare il protagonista immediatamente al centro dello schermo se si compie un movimento che lo sposta in malo modo, e in certi luoghi più angusti, tra gli edifici, è facile perderne il controllo e finire col fissare un muro o la chioma di un albero. Fortunatamente, le strade sono ampie e questo problema si presenta raramente: all'interno degli edifici praticamente mai, grazie al fatto che non vi sono oggetti alti o di grosse dimensioni. I dialoghi, elemento che dovrebbe essere di punta per un gioco che si basa principalmente sull'interazione tra i personaggi e che si apre anche attraverso le loro narrazioni, sono estremamente scarni, noiosi e ripetitivi: la popolazione conta una vasta quantità di individui, ma pochissimi tra questi avranno una personalità ben definita e che vada oltre poche linee di testo distinguibili. Anzi, quasi nessun personaggio è in grado di fornire informazioni che possano quantomeno contribuire al wolrdbuilding; quasi nessuno di essi avrà una propria storia, ma sarà un avatar senza vita il cui unico scopo è quello di rispondere a un paio di quesiti posti dal giocatore. Ciò è peggiorato dal fatto che, nel corso della partita, saranno ben pochi gli incontri e gli eventi accidentali che capiteranno al giocatore: non ha importanza che siano tutti scriptati, ma il fatto che hanno luogo sì e no due avvenimenti imprevisti, e che tutto quel che può essere trovato consiste di floppy disk e dispositivi con uno schermo, contribuisce a restituire una noiosa staticità del mondo di gioco. Ancora peggio, sono previsti dialoghi ramificati in cui le opzioni molteplici saranno praticamente identiche tra loro non solo per quanto riguarda la risposta da parte dell'NPC ma soprattutto per la forma delle scelte ("No!", "Hm, no", "Hm..."). Ho letto che in lingua originale la scrittura dovrebbe essere più ispirata e di qualità migliore, ma non ho modo di saperlo.
Una merda la telecamera: i movimenti sono piuttosto limitati, non è possibile ricollocare il protagonista immediatamente al centro dello schermo se si compie un movimento che lo sposta in malo modo, e in certi luoghi più angusti, tra gli edifici, è facile perderne il controllo e finire col fissare un muro o la chioma di un albero. Fortunatamente, le strade sono ampie e questo problema si presenta raramente: all'interno degli edifici praticamente mai, grazie al fatto che non vi sono oggetti alti o di grosse dimensioni. I dialoghi, elemento che dovrebbe essere di punta per un gioco che si basa principalmente sull'interazione tra i personaggi e che si apre anche attraverso le loro narrazioni, sono estremamente scarni, noiosi e ripetitivi: la popolazione conta una vasta quantità di individui, ma pochissimi tra questi avranno una personalità ben definita e che vada oltre poche linee di testo distinguibili. Anzi, quasi nessun personaggio è in grado di fornire informazioni che possano quantomeno contribuire al wolrdbuilding; quasi nessuno di essi avrà una propria storia, ma sarà un avatar senza vita il cui unico scopo è quello di rispondere a un paio di quesiti posti dal giocatore. Ciò è peggiorato dal fatto che, nel corso della partita, saranno ben pochi gli incontri e gli eventi accidentali che capiteranno al giocatore: non ha importanza che siano tutti scriptati, ma il fatto che hanno luogo sì e no due avvenimenti imprevisti, e che tutto quel che può essere trovato consiste di floppy disk e dispositivi con uno schermo, contribuisce a restituire una noiosa staticità del mondo di gioco. Ancora peggio, sono previsti dialoghi ramificati in cui le opzioni molteplici saranno praticamente identiche tra loro non solo per quanto riguarda la risposta da parte dell'NPC ma soprattutto per la forma delle scelte ("No!", "Hm, no", "Hm..."). Ho letto che in lingua originale la scrittura dovrebbe essere più ispirata e di qualità migliore, ma non ho modo di saperlo.
Kinda got a bad ending on this game, I think, and I think I'm ready to put this game down. Not permanently, mind.
It's a very unique experience, this game. I often felt like there were no real stakes, like I could fail any mission and the story would move on. It makes the world feel more immersive and less gamey. The world of Dorisburg is something of a life simulator.
That said, because nothing feels mandatory it's hard to feel like you are having an affect on the game aside from your own mastery of the game's in-world coding language. I felt the most empowered when I mastered programming techniques. The story elements were pretty flat.
I will likely return to this game to see if there's more I can unlock. It's a curious toy and I want to see what else I can make it do.
It's a very unique experience, this game. I often felt like there were no real stakes, like I could fail any mission and the story would move on. It makes the world feel more immersive and less gamey. The world of Dorisburg is something of a life simulator.
That said, because nothing feels mandatory it's hard to feel like you are having an affect on the game aside from your own mastery of the game's in-world coding language. I felt the most empowered when I mastered programming techniques. The story elements were pretty flat.
I will likely return to this game to see if there's more I can unlock. It's a curious toy and I want to see what else I can make it do.
else Heart.Break() ticks so many of my boxes that it comes dangerously close to being my theoretical dream game. There's a simulated city with NPC schedules like in Ultima or Shenmue, there's creative freeform hacking with actual code, there's mucking around in places you're not supposed to be in, there are problems instead of puzzles, there are spacey-surreal vibes, there's hanging out with friends in clubs and cafés. All that from a dev team that's just too cool to sell themselves as an "indie studio" and instead answers the question of who actually made the game by just listing a bunch of awesome-sounding swedish names.
No, else Heart.Break() is not perfect. It's short, it's easy to break, and it's a little anticlimactic. But it's a game where I can walk back to my hotel at night while drunk, and then decide I'd rather hack myself a super coffee and spend the whole night sitting in a public park, listening to a lonely stranger play saxophone. I know I'm pretty alone in this, but that's exactly the kind of shit I play video games for.
No, else Heart.Break() is not perfect. It's short, it's easy to break, and it's a little anticlimactic. But it's a game where I can walk back to my hotel at night while drunk, and then decide I'd rather hack myself a super coffee and spend the whole night sitting in a public park, listening to a lonely stranger play saxophone. I know I'm pretty alone in this, but that's exactly the kind of shit I play video games for.
I loved the art style and of course that I could reprogram objects in the world... the story could have used some more polishing though...
Eu comecei a jogar esse troço não sabendo ABSOLUTAMENTE NADA sobre programação, e eu posso dizer que eu fiquei muito perdido no início.
Quando eu achei um Modifier, as coisas mudaram. Com esse item, eu consigo mudar o código de quase qualquer coisa no jogo e eu consigo fazer umas coisas bem bizarras, desde alterar os componentes de uma bebida a descobrir uma senha em um computador. Enfim, dá pra fazer muita, muita coisa; nem tudo útil, algumas só por diversão mesmo, mas acho que essa é também a proposta do jogo: ser uma espécie de sandbox de programação.
O jogo tem uma história, bem meia boca, mas qu te mantém minimamente interessado pra prosseguir.
Sobre o jogo em si, como eu falei, ele não é muito amigável no quesito dar informações. Você tem que ir explorando e falando com absolutamente todo mundo, e muito do que eu fiz foi só palpite mesmo.
A câmera do jogo às vezes dava uma desregulada e também meu personagem ficava preso "dentro" de uma mesa ou cadeira de vez em quando.
No geral, acabei me divertindo com o jogo e fiquei interessado em programação.
Quando eu achei um Modifier, as coisas mudaram. Com esse item, eu consigo mudar o código de quase qualquer coisa no jogo e eu consigo fazer umas coisas bem bizarras, desde alterar os componentes de uma bebida a descobrir uma senha em um computador. Enfim, dá pra fazer muita, muita coisa; nem tudo útil, algumas só por diversão mesmo, mas acho que essa é também a proposta do jogo: ser uma espécie de sandbox de programação.
O jogo tem uma história, bem meia boca, mas qu te mantém minimamente interessado pra prosseguir.
Sobre o jogo em si, como eu falei, ele não é muito amigável no quesito dar informações. Você tem que ir explorando e falando com absolutamente todo mundo, e muito do que eu fiz foi só palpite mesmo.
A câmera do jogo às vezes dava uma desregulada e também meu personagem ficava preso "dentro" de uma mesa ou cadeira de vez em quando.
No geral, acabei me divertindo com o jogo e fiquei interessado em programação.
A really, really fantastic open world hacking video-game. The main gimmick of this game is that you can interact with an abundance of objects in this game, anything from doors to robotic turtles, through a hacking interface where you can change the properties of something. So say there's an arcade machine that some dickbag who's dating the girl you like has a high score on, well you can hack it to where you can make the game incredibly easy to play and instantly gain a bigger score than his. Or find the central server for the bank and hack into it to give you infinite money. Or hack a door so that whenever someone touches it they get teleported somewhere else. All these things I mentioned are things I did in the game world and that's not even touching on the other things you can do.
Cus that's what this is, it's an open world hacking game where you get to really change objects. It almost sounds too good to exist and work and well...you're kinda right. The game gives you a LOT of freedom to do stuff but the game doesn't always react to the things you do, sometimes making them pointless. The game's story and ending are kinda threadbare too. I guess some sacrifices were made to make this whole thing work but I think the negatives of this game are negligible compared to the magic of interacting with the world in it.
Experiences may vary, the enjoyment of this game is pretty much based on how much you put into it. Also the game doesn't really hand hold you so it's easy to feel directionless in it, especially at the beginning. If you stick with it though, I feel like you get to play a truly unique experience unlike most other games.
Cus that's what this is, it's an open world hacking game where you get to really change objects. It almost sounds too good to exist and work and well...you're kinda right. The game gives you a LOT of freedom to do stuff but the game doesn't always react to the things you do, sometimes making them pointless. The game's story and ending are kinda threadbare too. I guess some sacrifices were made to make this whole thing work but I think the negatives of this game are negligible compared to the magic of interacting with the world in it.
Experiences may vary, the enjoyment of this game is pretty much based on how much you put into it. Also the game doesn't really hand hold you so it's easy to feel directionless in it, especially at the beginning. If you stick with it though, I feel like you get to play a truly unique experience unlike most other games.