Time Played: 24h 51m
The early stages of gaming is one I like to refer to as the era of “notebooks & secrets”. A time where people would get together and share tidbits of information with one another. Information that came in the forms of either a cool easter egg, an exploit of some kind or general tips. It was this sense of community that has unfortunately been lost with the rise of the internet. Long gone are the days of getting the latest issue of a game magazine to read on a game’s secrets, or sneaking a pen & paper into a book fair to quickly note some cheats codes from strategy guides. No more were people naive enough to take rumors at face value and attempt out ordinary secrets like the likes of unlocking Luigi in Super Mario 64 by running around a statue several hundreds of times. In the past, a game’s secrets could be kept hidden for years, only for those willing to go the extra mile to uncover them.
Nowadays, with the internet and the rise of data miners. Game secrets are often revealed within days, sometimes even hours, after being released, leaving no room for long-lasting mysteries to discover. This has made it increasingly harder for developers to include cool secrets or easter eggs that are reminiscent of old school games. This is particularly frustrating for developers who put a lot of effort into creating secret content, only to have it immediately revealed to the public. Many developers have given up on hiding secrets altogether, instead opting to sell extra content as DLC. Stuff like additional characters, alternative outfits and even entire modes have been repackaged just to get some quick extra bucks, selling content that at one point was simply a neat little bonus for anyone spending time playing the game. A practice that has unfortunately plagued the industry with no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Despite this, there are still developers who strive to create games with a sense of mystery and discovery. Where triple A companies have lost touch with their roots, indie devs are there to pick up the slack, taking up the mantle of preserving the integrity of what it meant to create a video game back in the day. As one of the lead developers of “Binding of Isaac” states, “I’ve learned there is no point in doing that stuff. And the best way to hide a secret is to just lock it in a challenging area”. And that’s exactly what many modern indie games ended up doing. Celeste, Hades, and Hollow Knight being some prime examples. While it doesn’t completely repel data miners to go digging around, it’s by far a much better solution than selling it additionally while maintaining its roots to past games. However, in the case of Tunic, instead of hiding its secrets behind a challenging area, it decides to hide behind a set of difficult puzzles.
At a glance, Tunic looks like another Zelda clone, and while it wears its influence on its sleeve, it’s anything but that. Sure, the early hours may follow familiar traditional Zelda beats, with players navigating dungeons, collecting items and finding the magical macguffins to progress through the story. However, it’s in the second act of the game where Tunic really starts to set its own unique identity.
Throughout the game, players come across scattered pages that form a manual for the game, gradually providing hints to some of its hidden mechanics. Using illustration and cryptic hieroglyphics, the manual teaches players about the game’s world and its inner workings. What was once a jumble of nonsensical symbols progressively starts to make sense as the player uncovers the truth one page at a time. And that’s the beauty of this game, its secrets aren’t locked behind challenging obstacles, but rather hidden within an encrypted fictional language that is spread across the entire map.
As players learn more about its language, symbols and its meaning, they begin to realize just how cleverly the game’s secrets are hidden in plain sight. The world itself becomes one massive puzzle that the player must piece together through their own knowledge and exploration. No amount of data mining will be able to reveal Tunic’s secrets by digging around. The only way to uncover its mysteries is to simply sit down, grab a controller and play the game the good old fashioned way.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt such a great sense of mystery in a game. Tunic successfully captures that nostalgic feeling of being completely immersed in a game where you feel utterly completely lost, something that many modern games fail to deliver. I often found myself reaching for a pen and paper to decipher its secrets. While I managed to figure out some of its puzzles on my own, it was the endgame puzzles that really left a lasting impression on me. The complexity of the final puzzles pushed the limits of one’s knowledge and understanding of the game’s mechanics, to the point that the fanbase had to come together as a collective force to share information in order to fully unravel the final puzzles that no one sane person could ever do on their own. Seeing the collaborative efforts of the community reminded me of the days of “notebook & secrets”, where people would get together, driven by their passion for discovery, to complete a game. It reminded me of the joy and euphoria that came from solving a mystery either alone or as a group, and the craziest part is that after everyone’s efforts to solve the final puzzles, we’re not entirely sure if we’ve even discovered everything the game has to offer. There’s still countless unanswered questions that continue to drive the community to this day
Tunic is a one of a kind experience, a rare gem that is hard to come by within modern gaming. It stands out as a shining example of what games can achieve, and I can only hope that future devs take note and learn from its uniqueness. Tunic pushes the boundaries of what a game can truly offer and that there is so much untapped potential waiting to be explored and expanded on.
The early stages of gaming is one I like to refer to as the era of “notebooks & secrets”. A time where people would get together and share tidbits of information with one another. Information that came in the forms of either a cool easter egg, an exploit of some kind or general tips. It was this sense of community that has unfortunately been lost with the rise of the internet. Long gone are the days of getting the latest issue of a game magazine to read on a game’s secrets, or sneaking a pen & paper into a book fair to quickly note some cheats codes from strategy guides. No more were people naive enough to take rumors at face value and attempt out ordinary secrets like the likes of unlocking Luigi in Super Mario 64 by running around a statue several hundreds of times. In the past, a game’s secrets could be kept hidden for years, only for those willing to go the extra mile to uncover them.
Nowadays, with the internet and the rise of data miners. Game secrets are often revealed within days, sometimes even hours, after being released, leaving no room for long-lasting mysteries to discover. This has made it increasingly harder for developers to include cool secrets or easter eggs that are reminiscent of old school games. This is particularly frustrating for developers who put a lot of effort into creating secret content, only to have it immediately revealed to the public. Many developers have given up on hiding secrets altogether, instead opting to sell extra content as DLC. Stuff like additional characters, alternative outfits and even entire modes have been repackaged just to get some quick extra bucks, selling content that at one point was simply a neat little bonus for anyone spending time playing the game. A practice that has unfortunately plagued the industry with no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Despite this, there are still developers who strive to create games with a sense of mystery and discovery. Where triple A companies have lost touch with their roots, indie devs are there to pick up the slack, taking up the mantle of preserving the integrity of what it meant to create a video game back in the day. As one of the lead developers of “Binding of Isaac” states, “I’ve learned there is no point in doing that stuff. And the best way to hide a secret is to just lock it in a challenging area”. And that’s exactly what many modern indie games ended up doing. Celeste, Hades, and Hollow Knight being some prime examples. While it doesn’t completely repel data miners to go digging around, it’s by far a much better solution than selling it additionally while maintaining its roots to past games. However, in the case of Tunic, instead of hiding its secrets behind a challenging area, it decides to hide behind a set of difficult puzzles.
At a glance, Tunic looks like another Zelda clone, and while it wears its influence on its sleeve, it’s anything but that. Sure, the early hours may follow familiar traditional Zelda beats, with players navigating dungeons, collecting items and finding the magical macguffins to progress through the story. However, it’s in the second act of the game where Tunic really starts to set its own unique identity.
Throughout the game, players come across scattered pages that form a manual for the game, gradually providing hints to some of its hidden mechanics. Using illustration and cryptic hieroglyphics, the manual teaches players about the game’s world and its inner workings. What was once a jumble of nonsensical symbols progressively starts to make sense as the player uncovers the truth one page at a time. And that’s the beauty of this game, its secrets aren’t locked behind challenging obstacles, but rather hidden within an encrypted fictional language that is spread across the entire map.
As players learn more about its language, symbols and its meaning, they begin to realize just how cleverly the game’s secrets are hidden in plain sight. The world itself becomes one massive puzzle that the player must piece together through their own knowledge and exploration. No amount of data mining will be able to reveal Tunic’s secrets by digging around. The only way to uncover its mysteries is to simply sit down, grab a controller and play the game the good old fashioned way.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt such a great sense of mystery in a game. Tunic successfully captures that nostalgic feeling of being completely immersed in a game where you feel utterly completely lost, something that many modern games fail to deliver. I often found myself reaching for a pen and paper to decipher its secrets. While I managed to figure out some of its puzzles on my own, it was the endgame puzzles that really left a lasting impression on me. The complexity of the final puzzles pushed the limits of one’s knowledge and understanding of the game’s mechanics, to the point that the fanbase had to come together as a collective force to share information in order to fully unravel the final puzzles that no one sane person could ever do on their own. Seeing the collaborative efforts of the community reminded me of the days of “notebook & secrets”, where people would get together, driven by their passion for discovery, to complete a game. It reminded me of the joy and euphoria that came from solving a mystery either alone or as a group, and the craziest part is that after everyone’s efforts to solve the final puzzles, we’re not entirely sure if we’ve even discovered everything the game has to offer. There’s still countless unanswered questions that continue to drive the community to this day
Tunic is a one of a kind experience, a rare gem that is hard to come by within modern gaming. It stands out as a shining example of what games can achieve, and I can only hope that future devs take note and learn from its uniqueness. Tunic pushes the boundaries of what a game can truly offer and that there is so much untapped potential waiting to be explored and expanded on.