This review contains spoilers
r-ran off with ur shit 🤭🤭🤭. trickster archetypes its time 2 speak ur truth, they finally made one of them imsim joints in which flexin & finessing is the name of the game. a persistent world with npcs who actively seek out their own bags is the sell here--there's a couple of Key Items scattered throughout the world and its up 2 u to deduce where they are, who's gonna gun 4 em, and how to assassinate folks who happen to have the Key Item u need for your particular goal. it certainly takes a bit of exploring for the project to unfurl from its cup sippin esotericism to smthn more compelling...but when it does, there is a real hobbesian joy in relieving these anhedonic poetry dispensers of their treasured "property" so you can spin the block on some pill-poppin bird/ex-lover/divine being and other corrupted seraphs while geeked off disassociates. why start ur own hero's journey when you can just hijack somebody else's. requires an overactive imagination maybe too is the other thing...i certainly had my fun fillin in theories & narratives where i felt the sparse dialogue or interactions weren't giving me much to chew on or contextualize. i remember in one playthrough i walked into the mall and saw this wizard with the buss down gucci chain airing the bitch out with meteors vs. a bunch of mall goth-cultist-vampires for control of the Key Item in the basement; my first thought was "damn ts crazy" but my second thought was that to a more critical eye this probably just looks like a bunch of random shit you'd see after loading up Skyrim with them Faction War mods. didn't stop from me giggling as i entered my shiesty negro era & smoked the wizard's nose off n looted all his shit like it was 06 runescape. o so u say tht your hoe??? dam then yk i hit it 😂😂😂
i do think i'd much rather see this shit than the other shit tho...iirc this hexcraft series from the dev represents a forward improvement into games drawing more explicitly from her own design inclinations & fondness for sir-tech and ultima and 80-90s TTRPG design systems than like, the crop of "personal" and readily identifiable "queer" shit that gets played up in the indie sphere. the roughness & rigidity here is an admirable comfort 2 me, seriously...
i do think i'd much rather see this shit than the other shit tho...iirc this hexcraft series from the dev represents a forward improvement into games drawing more explicitly from her own design inclinations & fondness for sir-tech and ultima and 80-90s TTRPG design systems than like, the crop of "personal" and readily identifiable "queer" shit that gets played up in the indie sphere. the roughness & rigidity here is an admirable comfort 2 me, seriously...
3 Comments
ive seriously missed the simondedalus reviews. eager to try this... this description is going to have me pacing around the room like a dog waiting for dinner
@jobosno much love brodie ❤, feels good to be back. missed ur reviews too!! def check it out, i do think its smthn special even if i wasn't onboard fully at the beginning or even now. glad folks check it out tho the vision here is impressive
@poisonpink predicate the read, and yea ianeen gon hold u i thought this shit was like omega ass within my first hour or so, the esotericism air was comin off more like gasoline fumes to me. but after sticking with it, pokin round in the manual, and seein some other folks play it i was able to tap into the vision--the emergent design shit is a lil oversold by the acolytes i think, ur still the catalyst and active agent 4 alot of the cool shit to spark off in this game, which takes away from the allure and places it in more traditional imsim terrority a bit tbh. and without great signposting or dripfeed of info the shit can be molasses as u plot around from location to location waitin for smthn cool to happen. and when the cool does happen its like 30 seconds of pretty bare action and then its back to pilfering around. it wasnt until i was able to turn an average run of this from like a 2-3 hour endeavor to smthn i can do in 30-90 minutes that it clicked w/ me. definitely get why the tease/catharsis cycle of this can feel empty. apparently the expansion pack for this unlocks the ai machinations from the "babymode" its in here to smthn crazier, which maybe bridges the push/pull balance here towards smthn more consistently engaging? havent played it yet but could just b another case of "they tryna gas it up"
@poisonpink predicate the read, and yea ianeen gon hold u i thought this shit was like omega ass within my first hour or so, the esotericism air was comin off more like gasoline fumes to me. but after sticking with it, pokin round in the manual, and seein some other folks play it i was able to tap into the vision--the emergent design shit is a lil oversold by the acolytes i think, ur still the catalyst and active agent 4 alot of the cool shit to spark off in this game, which takes away from the allure and places it in more traditional imsim terrority a bit tbh. and without great signposting or dripfeed of info the shit can be molasses as u plot around from location to location waitin for smthn cool to happen. and when the cool does happen its like 30 seconds of pretty bare action and then its back to pilfering around. it wasnt until i was able to turn an average run of this from like a 2-3 hour endeavor to smthn i can do in 30-90 minutes that it clicked w/ me. definitely get why the tease/catharsis cycle of this can feel empty. apparently the expansion pack for this unlocks the ai machinations from the "babymode" its in here to smthn crazier, which maybe bridges the push/pull balance here towards smthn more consistently engaging? havent played it yet but could just b another case of "they tryna gas it up"
poisonpink
11 months ago