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IMMORTALITY

bradigor

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CrichStand

CrichStand

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Posted
4 hours ago, Mortis said:

Well I pretty much finished it by clicking on faces and stuff until new bits appeared - often just clicking the same face in multiple reels pinged an achievement and advanced the game. 
 There’s no puzzle here outside of what people appear to project onto it themselves - I honestly think you can get the ending on this by just clicking mindlessly and occasionally rewinding until the credits roll. 


I’ve put another hr into this now and just been literally clicking on anything at the end of each clip, which has led to another random clip and another random clip and another etc. There’s been no deduction skills or anything involved at all, I still don’t know who anyone is or care. It’s totally mindless and is just playing itself out with no input from me, other than repeatedly rewinding at obviously designated markers now and again. After an hr of doing this and sitting through even more absolute bollocks an achievement has popped saying “you have found out what happened to Marissa”. Have I? Literally nothing at all has happened and the clips have contained no plot or anything of interest at all. 🤣 

 

It almost feels like it’s been made by A.I. like one of those really bad A.I Beatles or Nirvana songs. Only here they’ve fed in some David Lynch stuff and BLAM......there’s ya interactive film! 
 

What the actual fuck?!?! I’ve been playing this for 5hrs now and the achievements are telling me that I’ve only seen about 20% of the footage?!?!? Surely that can’t possibly be right? 

 

 

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BitterToad

BitterToad

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Still not reading the thread but holy hell this is just absolutely incredible and getting deeper and deeper every time I load it up. I’ve not played a Sam Barlow game before but the level of connection and complexity here is staggering. 
 

THIS is what storytelling in this medium can be. It feels simple in the moment to moment and clever as a whole at the same time and is making me think more and more about what we consider “good writing” in video games. 
 

Im not at the end but I love that EDGE gave this a 10. And the review, like many of the threads in the game itself, is making more and more sense the deeper I go into the experience. 
 

Yes please and thank you very much, basically.

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Popo

Popo

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I’m finding this to be absorbing, and I hated Telling Lies, which I found to be impenetrable. The simple act of being able to click on something visual, rather than typing keywords, is so immediate and natural, it makes a huge difference.

 

There really is so little you can say without spoilers. I don’t think I can even talk around the spoilers, because it would still be a spoiler. But the thing about the thing is so thingy, very impressive. You know what I mean. 
 

Anyway, I’ve now seen footage from all three movies and had a penny drop moment. Totally intrigued. Cant wait to see where this is going. 

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Skull Commander

Skull Commander

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I just sat down to play this and I'm seeing the credits within an hour and a half. Not too sure if I have broken the game or what, but 

 

Spoiler

It claims I know what happened to a couple of characters (achievements popped) although I have no clue what has happened to said characters. I have figured out the gist of the "twist" but feel like half the game was missed or something. I enjoyed what I "played" but right now I'm quite confused how I managed to finish it. 

 

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Popo

Popo

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Errr, right. After witnessing an obvious plot point in the story of this game I am no longer sure if what’s going on is deliberate or a bug. I’ve been playing for about an hour, so I really don’t think this will be a spoiler if you’ve played a similar length, but obviously click at your own peril…

 

Spoiler

None of the footage plays properly anymore, I can only use the dpad to frame forward and back - but the subtitles still display. 

 

Have I hit a bug?

 

Edit - I think it was a bug! Restarted the game and all seems to be fine. 

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CrichStand

CrichStand

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50 minutes ago, carlospie said:

Spent another hour on this. It's still shit. 


How long have you been playing for? I must be on 8-9hrs now and it’s implying there could be another 10+hrs of footage to go. 🤣 There’s still been nothing of interest happen (other than rewinding shit which got dull after the 2nd or 3rd time) and there’s still absolutely fuck all story! It’s insane! 
 

Someone needs to post why this is such a monumental achievement for storytelling and interactive films and back the claims up with clear examples from the game itself. Otherwise I’m 100% calling bullshit and this is the Emperor’s New Clothes.

 

50 minutes ago, Skull Commander said:

I just sat down to play this and I'm seeing the credits within an hour and a half. Not too sure if I have broken the game or what, but 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

It claims I know what happened to a couple of characters (achievements popped) although I have no clue what has happened to said characters. I have figured out the gist of the "twist" but feel like half the game was missed or something. I enjoyed what I "played" but right now I'm quite confused how I managed to finish it. 

 


Do you not see what it means? Look harder! Do you see now? No. Try again! Watch 10 more clips. Are you there yet? Got the connection? Stand on one leg whilst rewinding a scene with your eyes closed but at the same time open. This might help. Or it might not. Still nothing? Hmmmmm, maybe you are not yet ready for the consciousness shifting enlightenment that this game will ultimately bestow on you, when you finally see the ultimate beauty and universal truth of Sam Barlow’s masterful craftsmanship and unparalleled genius.

 

Yeah, same thing happened to me. It’s bollocks mate! 🤣

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CrichStand

CrichStand

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5 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I’ve just seen the credits, although I definitely need to see more. 
 

My immediate thoughts are that I still don’t know what happened to Marissa Marcel :lol:


I do! She disappeared up her own arse! 🤣

 

This is such a Lynch knockoff it’s unreal. No substance to it at all though, just uses loads of his ideas and techniques poorly. I’m guessing the truth is..........you  ultimately create your own narrative based on your own interpretation of stuff. Basically, it’s one big cop out. If it’s not that then it’s GCSE level English storytelling and the plot fits on the back of a fag packet. Not sure which will feel worse at this point! 

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therearerules

therearerules

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20 hours ago, Mortis said:

Well you can but neither her story or your novel have that functionality as a central mechanic. 
 There’s very little linking pieces of this together other than objects and faces that open new clips of objects and faces - the story plays itself and gives you the illusion of control but it’s smoke and mirrors. 
 

It's just a VN in which you choose the order of the paths. The comprehension of what you're watching is the important part. Not really understanding the criticism here.

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Ravern

Ravern

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7 hours ago, therearerules said:

It's just a VN in which you choose the order of the paths. The comprehension of what you're watching is the important part. Not really understanding the criticism here.

 

I did feel less control compared to Her Story, where the player input - video clip output mechanism was deterministic rather than the slightly more random feeling nature of this.

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CrichStand

CrichStand

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Finally got to the end credits after around 10 hrs. Achievements are claiming I have 50% of the footage still to uncover!?!?!? 😧

 

For me, it just doesn’t work. I ended each clip by clicking on a random face/item. The next clip auto played. Rinse repeat for almost the entire game until it decided I was finished. During that Achievements popped telling me I’d discovered important stuff when I had no idea what I’d supposedly discovered, because it was out of sequence and so didn’t make any sense. 

 

There was no feeling of investigation or solving a puzzle. No feeling of really interacting with or having an influence over the story. No feeling of having to work anything out. No character development. No real story. The game didn’t at any point feel like I was seeing anything different or achieving a different outcome to other players. All things that Telling Lies did brilliantly and excelled at. Especially that last part, which made it feel like a big step forwards for these kind of games. This just felt really on rails, linear and restrictive. It was like the whole thing was running on auto-pilot.
 

I picked up on the main idea and “plot” within the first hour or so. After a further 9hrs nothing really advanced or changed. The only thing that kept me playing was believing there had to be something more to it all. Even now, 10hrs in I’m thinking “maybe if I watch a few more clips there’ll be huge revelations and it’ll all kick into gear and some amazing ideas and groundbreaking gameplay and a cool mystery to solve will be revealed”. It feels very Emperor’s New Clothes because of that.
 

Positives - The main mechanic is really cool whilst the novelty lasts. There are a few nice scenes that only work within the context of a game. Some of the acting is decent. Other than that I’m struggling. Will be interesting to see how this does, especially on Netflix at it feels very, very, very niche. 
 

Edit - Watched a few more clips and was right about the “story” after the first hr. There IS a literal straightforward narrative if anyone is wondering. It’s a right load of old cobblers though. How the fuck it took 4-5 people to come up with it is beyond me?!?!. And why they felt it was worth folk sifting through 10-20hrs of incredibly dull and pointless footage to tell, is absolutely insane. If they’d bought me a pint I could have come up with something better whilst I was sat drinking it in the pub. Thrown a Greggs in and I could have knocked up a sequel too. 😂

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Escape

Escape

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On 01/09/2022 at 11:07, Mortis said:

I get it’s going to be a forum darling for some - one of these “art over mechanics” things but honestly trying to say there’s any kind of “game” or “puzzle” here is massively exaggerating what the game is.  

 

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was widely criticised for lacking mechanics, but it's one of my favourite games on purely visual terms. All you do is ramble a couple of scenic miles (bloody slowly!), listening to voices from a tired narrative. But that's the difference for me: if you didn't care for its story and still played it, you were there for its world. A hauntingly beautiful slice of textures.

 

I've spent more time with it after completion than during, preferring to wander unimpeded by nuisance lights. The only thing I miss is Jess Curry's astounding music.

 

This doesn't have exploration as a fallback if you don't care for its story, coupling fixed footage with minimal interactive agency, relying on your interpretation to facsimile the latter. Obra Dinn's similarly noninteractive, but that's a puzzle game you can explain the appeal of without spoilers. Would anyone rate the interactive side of Immortality if they didn't care for its story, or likewise watch it as a TV series?

 

(It's auntie-had-bollocks to view it that way, I know, but I'm wondering which side is doing the most lifting...)

 

As I said before, if this or Night Trap or any other game makes you feel good, criticism can just fly over your head, same as Rapture's does mine. (I also loved Castlevania II. GOOD GAME)

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Wiper

Wiper

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What a great game, but sincerely.

 

Had a fantastic (sometimes disturbing) night with it, and it made a great... Whatever the opposite of a palate-cleanser is, after watching the entertaining fluff that was The Rings of Power. Looking forward to rolling around its footage over the next few evenings!

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