Hello, in the recent years I find myself willing to spend much less time and energy on games, but I do still enjoy them. Oftentimes I end up quitting a new game I tried out relatively early on, because I’m encountering some block, grind, non-optional boring side quest, empty open world, uninteresting clutter or details that I have to manage, or similar. Like, I just wanna play the actual game play, see how the story continues, and visit those areas that were designed with care. Not worry where on the map I can sell the glimbrunses I collected so I can buy a 37% stronger glarpidifice that I’ll need to beat the next glutrey after which I’m allowed to continue the main story.
Sorry if this turned into some kind of a rant, but I hope it’s understandable what I’m looking for and what I meant by fluff. Some games that have fulfilled this for me during the last years:
- Stray
- Skyrim (there’s a lot of fluff you can worry about in Skyrim, but the thing is you don’t have to worry about it, you can also just walk in any direction and see what situation you wind up in, at least for the first 10-20h of a playthrough, which IMO is enough time for a game anyway)
- Life is Strange
- Some Pokémon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh
Looking forward to hear your suggestions :) Games where there is some fluff but you’re allowed to just ignore it are also fine, but not having any fluff is preferred. Bonus points for anything on the Xbox game pass.
I couldn’t bring myself to finishing it because “the timer” stressed me so much :( I loved everything else about it so much.
Timer? Can you elaborate a bit? I was thinking of getting it but I fucking loathe time limits in games.
Trying not to spoil too much, there’s a timer but it doesn’t really matter, you will almost never run out of time and retrying is encouraged. There’s almost no time pressure in this game, and the amount of time in that timer is over 20 minutes, which should be plenty of time to do what you have to, and if not you can reset the timer and try again.
i don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this because you learn very early in the game - physically everything in the worlds goes back to square one after 22 minutes (or if you die).
you do get to keep a log of everything you learn about the worlds and story but that’s all that persists. the log is actually helpful, so follow that if you get lost.
slight spoiler:
Tap for spoiler
also the 22 minute reset is not an arbitrary design choice, it’s part of the story and puzzle.
Oh okay. Thanks for the explanation that really helps. I was envisioning something more permanent from the initial description. That didn’t sound bad at all.
without spoiling the details, it’s a bit like groundhog day, or majoras mask.
i always encourage people to take it slow and drink in the world with ow, and that applies because of the “limit”. which isn’t a limit, you can play as long as you’d like. think of it more as a pomodoro timer. it’s also very well signposted.
understandable, it took me a few times for it to click. i have the same problem with games that count days; i can’t get myself to finish disco elysium or blue prince because the counter going up makes me think i will run out of time, even though you never do.
Its so interesting how different people perceive these things. Disco Elysium was so stress free for me, I didn’t really think the day counter did anything. With Outer Wilds I think its really the anticipation of what I know is inevitable to come. And then I nervously wait for all those cues that tell me how much time has passed already… And yeah, very stressy for me, haha. Still, I should really push myself to finish it sometime because I’m really curious how it all ties up.
It didn’t bother me at all, because I felt like I did about everything I could every day.
maybe it’s reflective of the personality of the player. i can never get to bed at a reasonable hour and i’ve heard a theory that some people have that problem because the mind thinks that the sooner the next day begins the less time they have to themselves.