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[Fancy Clown]

Nitpicking little plausibility details for something to maintain the tension and mystery is missing the Forest for the trees (yuck yuck). Game does so much right with its storytelling that those things so overlookable.

And people complaining that Henry and Delilah make bad descions and don't act like adults? That's the point. They both ran away from becoming adults. Every narrative choice in the game, from the reveal of Brian's death, the truth behind the mystery, the visual symbolism of the fire raging out of control, to never seeing Delilah in the end is centered around getting these two fuck ups to embrace the realities and traumas of life, get over their selfishness, and face their problems.

 

[GhostInTheAttic]

Just thought I should put this out there. I was very disappointed with the game. Bought it fresh out of the PS-store on release. In the beginning I was very optimistic, I managed to look past the frame rate issues and focused on the story. Once I finished the game, the phrase "that's it?" kept on echoing in my head. I felt like there was no character building for the boy found dead. In fact when I found him and they told me his name I was like "who?". Shame that Delilah was the only character who I ended up caring about the most, completely turns apathetic and leave me and Henri in disappointment, after the romantic dialogue, she just plainly leaves.

I know its a $20 game but considering all the hype surrounding it, I felt like the game is overrated but also had a lot of potential in terms of story.

In the end the character is the same as he started out, a broken-hearted husband trying to cope/get away from the drama in his life, except now he has a cool story to tell. "hey I got a job as a firewatch and i found some spooky shit that ended up being an example of bad parenting"

Spoiler

Too bad his wife wont be able to remember it

But damn it's dynamic theme rocks!

 

[Fancy Clown]

The game gives you lots of info on Brian before you find his body, granted you take the time to call Delilah and ask her about him when you find stuff pertaining to him. And the emotional crux of that scene isn't you being sad about Brian becuase he's some character you have a deep connection to (although it is a sad thing), but rather the emotion rests on you telling Delilah about it. This moment is for her character, and since she is someone you know a lot about and care about, it feels kinda bad when you have to tell her that the kid she was friends with died in large part because she didn't take her responsibilities seriously enough.

And of course Henry didn't become a completely different person by the end of the game, that would be silly. But like Delilah, the whole experience has allowed him finally maybe have the courage to face his life and his descions rather than running away from them....which you may have noticed is what the whole Ned/Brian plot was about.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

yeah, I mean, whether or not you begin to care about it is one thing

but not sure how you could not know his name... it's like only thing Delilah talks about not related to fires or the mystery lol

i guess maybe if you don't do every radio conversation... maybe if you skipped through his fortress pretty quick, too. i mean, that was like 10 minutes of brian brian brian just moments before going back into the cave

 

[FlyinJ]

My thoughts:

It was a fun ride, relaxing, I enjoyed it.

I hated both characters. Their cliche bantering "humor" was just awful. Especially the coying schmarm. Ugh... it was almost cringe-core.

I loved how in the end it really tried to push me to want to meet the woman. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to have to have to hear another one of her terrible quips. Then again, the guy was almost as bad. Maybe I should have role-played them to get together, but I just wanted to get her off the radio ASAP.

Whew.

Yeah, still enjoyed it though!

 

[Fancy Clown]

How specifically were any of the conversations and jokes the two characters had cliche?

Or are you saying they shouldn't have joked with each other...or gotten to know each other...or emoted to one another....because that would be cliche? Hmm yes, better that they just talk about only the job like real human beings would have done.

 

[GhostInTheAttic]

Yeah I was sort of expecting a psychological thriller-narrative, since it was giving me those type of vibes early in the story. Unaware that the entire story would've been centred around the other people in order to achieve its emotional effect. It was still unclear what the game was trying to be while I was playing, for me at least. Thanks for clearing that up a bit.

 

[Shredderi]

The game gives you lots of info on Brian before you find his body, granted you take the time to call Delilah and ask her about him when you find stuff pertaining to him. And the emotional crux of that scene isn't you being sad about Brian becuase he's some character you have a deep connection to (although it is a sad thing), but rather the emotion rests on you telling Delilah about it. This moment is for her character, and since she is someone you know a lot about and care about, it feels kinda bad when you have to tell her that the kid she was friends with died in large part because she didn't take her responsibilities seriously enough.

And of course Henry didn't become a completely different person by the end of the game, that would be silly. But like Delilah, the whole experience has allowed him finally maybe have the courage to face his life and his descions rather than running away from them....which you may have noticed is what the whole Ned/Brian plot was about.

Finished the game five minutes ago and agree with your post. I loved the story and the dialogue. I mean holy fuck this is how you do dialogue that sounds like actual people talking to each other. The game also succeeded tremendously in making me care about the characters.

The ending isn't this happy, fulfilling one full of closure, but in a good way I think. It has some closure with the revealing of what really happened to Brian, but there isn't this big happy closure for Delilah and Henry. As a player who learned to care about them, the typical ending is propably what I wanted for them in that moment when I was playing but looking back I think the way it ended fits the story better.

 

[Inferno313]

I loved this, and I think the ending totally works. I love that this game is really the first I've played in the medium to explore the "paranoia thriller" sub-genre that films like Coppola's The Conversation belong to, and it seems like a trope of that sub-genre is that, if something bad happened, it's never quite as bad as the paranoia makes you believe. So the "anti-climatic" ending so many have complained about, felt earned, expected, and natural to me.

I gotta say, the one tiny aspect that broke for me is that I made sure to carry the teen's stereo all the way up into my lookout, because, hey it's a nice stereo. So to see it vanish the next day, and then end up in Ned's bunker at the end was a little odd. That's totally just a minor nit-pick though, the devs can't factor for every possibility.

 

[FlyinJ]

How specifically were any of the conversations and jokes the two characters had cliche?

Or are you saying they shouldn't have joked with each other...or gotten to know each other...or emoted to one another....because that would be cliche? Hmm yes, better that they just talk about only the job like real human beings would have done.

I just really disliked the characters. I found them both to be extremely vapid people with awful senses of humor. I guess they were supposed to be that way... I just really didn't enjoy their banter in the least.

However, I think the whole presentation was top notch.

Like I said, I really liked everything else in the game.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Yeah I was sort of expecting a psychological thriller-narrative, since it was giving me those type of vibes early in the story. Unaware that the entire story would've been centred around the other people in order to achieve its emotional effect. Thanks for clearing that up a bit.

Yeah the game is very self aware about the kind of expectations it is setting up. Pretty much every prediction you can think of in the moment for what is happening is an actual dialogue choice Henry can use. From "its all in his head" to "Delilah's in on it", which is sort of a metacommentary as on Ned's reports he notes that Henry is very susceptible to manipulation, just like we as players are. I can see where the dissapointment can come from, but if you really consider the story, the way it plays out is much more true to its characters and themes than any pulp mystery twists and contrived drama ever would have been.

It just really disliked the characters. I found them both to be extremely vapid people with awful senses of humor. I guess they were supposed to be that way... I just really didn't enjoy their banter in the least.

I found the refreshingly flawed and nuanced. They did shitty things, but they behave in very human ways, and are both clearly good people deep down that have to come to terms with the bad things they have done which makes them likable. And I didn't always like Delilah, sometimes she pissed me off. But that was great, because like a human she can sometimes do that. But at the end of the game, I still wanted to meet her because I empathized with her and grew to like her.

But if the humor and wonderful voice acting doesn't work for you, then yeah, it would be tough to like them.

I loved this, and I think the ending totally works. I love that this game is really the first I've played in the medium to explore the "paranoia thriller" sub-genre that films like Coppola's The Conversation belong to, and it seems like a trope of that sub-genre is that, if something bad happened, it's never quite as bad as the paranoia makes you believe. So the "anti-climatic" ending so many have complained about, felt earned, expected, and natural to me.

I gotta say, the one tiny aspect that broke for me is that I made sure to carry the teen's stereo all the way up into my lookout, because, hey it's a nice stereo. So to see it vanish the next day, and then end up in Ned's bunker at the end was a little odd. That's totally just a minor nit-pick though, the devs can't factor for every possibility.

Lol I almost took the stereo back as well, but instead I tossed it in the lake and was flabbergasted that they wrote quite a few lines throughout the game around me doing that. So, in a lot of ways they have a lot of attention to detail but probably didn't have the time or budget to account for everything ( I ran in to some instances of dialogue where Delilah is rexplaining things we already talked about in another optional convo a few minutes ago), esepically something that requires the persistence of hauling the stereo back haha.

Another great example of attention to detail is that when you are having that heart to heart with Delilah when the first fire breaks out, I was actually looking at her lookout and when she asked "are you looking at the fire?" Henry said "I'm looking at you". Thought that was very cool.

 

[RealMeat]

I did a second run through the game, and you can make it super short and kind of break it by playing like a crazy person. For example, I didn't tell Delilah about Ned when I saw him in the canyon, but I could still suggest him as the one who trashed the tower. Also, I didn't tell her about Brian's fort, but she just started talking about him anyway after leaving it. It's a pity there isn't more variation in the ending. I took pretty much the opposite choice this time, and things still played out pretty much the same.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Another great example of attention to detail is that when you are having that heart to heart with Delilah when the first fire breaks out, I was actually looking at her lookout and when she asked "are you looking at the fire?" Henry said "I'm looking at you". Thought that was very cool.

cool, that's a nice touch... I noticed that also after you get the axe and cross the tree bridge.. my game crashed when I was loading the next Day, and when they talk right before that (anyone following you, did you cough), the conversation was slightly different... basically the same but when she asks where you are, he said something a tiny bit different. totally inconsequential (like, he described the trees differently or something) but it was different, showing that the game really does recognize where you are during those where are you//are you look at//etc moments

i think i'm going to replay again tonight and really try do as many different things as possible; not just conversations or responses but also items, where i am standing, etc. like, i wonder if you get back to your tower fast enough when she says she is looking at someone in there, if you can at least see a figure run around or something. i tried to get back pretty quick but i think i took the 2nd most direct route, not the best one, and he said "i got turned around." i'll try do a few things like that, or where I'm standing/looking during certain calls differently, maybe save more often to experiment a bit.

other thing was curious about, around day 10 or 30 or something... before the mystery, there was a moment where D sort of asks if you're ready, ready to start your job. seemed like a moment where you could just free roam. i wonder if you free roam long enough, anything happens or if there's is any natural day progression haha. probably not but i'm going to try maybe ignore the story and free roam a bit, too. see if i can find any tangents.

I did a second run through the game, and you can make it super short and kind of break it by playing like a crazy person. For example, I didn't tell Delilah about Ned when I saw him in the canyon, but I could still suggest him as the one who trashed the tower. Also, I didn't tell her about Brian's fort, but she just started talking about him anyway after leaving it. It's a pity there isn't more variation in the ending. I took pretty much the opposite choice this time, and things still played out pretty much the same.

i just read a good post on reddit that sort of tried to 'break the game' by not talking or purposely saying 'other' things, and it the summary seemed to suggest D would still say or know about some things. sounds like it's not all that dynamic for certain things. still gonna mess around myself one more time tho.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

other thing was curious about, around day 10 or 30 or something... before the mystery, there was a moment where D sort of asks if you're ready, ready to start your job. seemed like a moment where you could just free roam. i wonder if you free roam long enough, anything happens or if there's is any natural day progression haha. probably not but i'm going to try maybe ignore the story and free roam a bit, too. see if i can find any tangents.

That's actually a frustrating segment of the game. While you can free roam to your heart's content it locks you out of radio conversations. So if you find something in the world you won't have the option to talk to Delilah about it because the only radio option is "I'm ready to start my job", even if the item is tagged to have other conversation options. Takes a lot of the joy out of the exploration.

 

[Moss]

That's actually a frustrating segment of the game. While you can free roam to your heart's content it locks you out of radio conversations. So if you find something in the world you won't have the option to talk to Delilah about it because the only radio option is "I'm ready to start my job", even if the item is tagged to have other conversation options. Takes a lot of the joy out of the exploration.

This actually sounds like a bug and I'm going to investigate it tomorrow.

 

[Wanace]

Just beat it, 3 hours. My impressions overall are negative.

Pros:

Soundtrack is lovely, very nice.
Graphics and environments are nice to look at.
Radio interactions were brilliant

Cons:
Story is a bunch of crap. The girls are supposed to have carried like 2 24-packs of beers with them, beat me back to my tower to vandalize it and escape without me noticing, and then hike all over with no ropes, drunk off their asses?

What the hell is Ned's endgame?

Should've just built on the emotional connection between Delilah and Henry instead of shoehorning in some drama. You could even have kept the Brian story in without the unnecessary Ned shit.

Meh, I give it 5/10, should've watched a YouTube playthrough.

 

[PlatypusDude]

After finishing overall enjoyable aside from the PS4 performance issues, but the story did have some major problems. Some of the stuff Ned and to a lesser extent Teenage girls do seem borderline improbable without you ever bumping into them. Also it might vary on the dialogue choices you choose throughout the game, but I like how its ambiguous whether Henry and Delilah ever meet face to face or get together after Julia eventually passes.

 

[Emarv]

Nitpicking little plausibility details for something to maintain the tension and mystery is missing the Forest for the trees (yuck yuck). Game does so much right with its storytelling that those things so overlookable.

And people complaining that Henry and Delilah make bad descions and don't act like adults? That's the point. They both ran away from becoming adults. Every narrative choice in the game, from the reveal of Brian's death, the truth behind the mystery, the visual symbolism of the fire raging out of control, to never seeing Delilah in the end is centered around getting these two fuck ups to embrace the realities and traumas of life, get over their selfishness, and face their problems.

Spot on.

 

[Death Metalist]

I hope more people that give this a chance, give SOMA a chance as well. It's in my 2015's GOTY list and man, does it go places with the two main leads. I know that a horror game wouldn't thrill anyone to give it a try unless they want to be scared and shit but its story is so damn good. Literally just below Silent Hill 2 levels for me.

 

[Fancy Clown]

I hope more people that give this a chance, give SOMA a chance as well. It's in my 2015's GOTY list and man, does it go places with the two main leads. I know that a horror game wouldn't thrill anyone to give it a try unless they want to be scared and shit but its story is so damn good. Literally just below Silent Hill 2 levels for me.

Yeah I'm definitely gonna buy this soon

 

[Aenima]

I just did a silent run. So all i did the entire game was ignoring Delilah all the time and never report nothing to her. Only times i had to report was to make the game advance. It was funny cuz she really tries to pull info out of Henry and in the ends she does not even knew Henry was married.

Nothing really changes, but some of the dialogs are diferent and kinda funny. Go for the "anti-social" run, if u want to squeeze a little more out of the game.

 

[carlsojo]

Just finished. What a let down. The "reveal" just sort of happens and it's pretty weak. I guess I was expecting more. If I had to compare it to anything, it's exactly like Gone Home but longer.

Fuck Delilah.

Spoiler

"Come to Boulder."

"Nah."

"K GREAT BYE."

I hope more people that give this a chance, give SOMA a chance as well. It's in my 2015's GOTY list and man, does it go places with the two main leads. I know that a horror game wouldn't thrill anyone to give it a try unless they want to be scared and shit but its story is so damn good. Literally just below Silent Hill 2 levels for me.

Soma wasn't scary at all, so I hope that isn't a barrier to anyone wanting to play that mediocre game.

 

[Sir Garbageman]

It's ultimately quite sad that the majority of those that enjoyed the game AND the ones that were disappointed could still have used MORE of what Campo Santo advertised : Adults having adult conversations.

They could have cut the ultimately completely failed mystery and intrigue and made it 100% about loss and love and fires and I think more people would've been satisfied.

Just wrapped up the game and this is pretty much where I ended up. The mystery angle showed up too late into the narrative and I didn't give two shits about Ned or his son unfortunately. Last hour just fell flat.

Does the little subplot between Ron and the other Ranger go anywhere? I think I missed a note or two.

 

[FunkyPajamas]

By the way, can you die in this game? I did a bit of exploring at the end while going to D's tower in the middle of the fire and I was a bit apprehensive thinking I might die in the fire, but it never happened. I liked the tension even if I survived in the end.

Also, as a guy that loves hiking I couldn't help but thinking that I would have died from smoke inhalation while running through the burning forest. I feel like H should have been coughing a bit during that part.

Also, I threw the boombox in the lake. Noisy teenagers with their fireworks and loud music *shakes fist*. I'm glad they landed in jail.

 

[rbanke]

I decided to go through the game again and not talk or answer any Julia related questions and towards the end of day 2 Delilah just starts talking about her anyway. Really breaks the illusion as I've not said a single thing regarding any relationship stuff. Think I'm gonna call this one done. Enjoyed playing through it once, really liked it but wish there was more to it.

 

[Monogatari]

I really enjoyed the ride of this game. I spent about eight hours with it and still feel like I missed some things (like, for example, I ended up going back near the gate into Wapiti Station towards endgame but never checked to see if I could go back through the gate, I never found the Old Shoshone tape, etc). I also had a tendency to accidentally trigger scene/day endings before looking at everything or getting Delilah's thoughts on them. I definitely want to go back and play again, especially now that I know when and how things trigger so I know what kind of time I have to explore.

I took Ned calling Delilah "a record you never have to flip over" (or something to that effect) was just in reference to the fact that she was endlessly entertaining to him in the time he spent listening to her. I hadn't seen much discussion on that point so maybe it's as obvious to everyone as it is to me. He was always listening to her, but mostly because he was so damn bored.

I also quite liked the tonal shift between the characters at the end. I took a lot of Delilah's pull back from Henry after finding Brian to be more closely tied to how she feels about the situation as a whole. Henry didn't have the same emotional ties to Brian/Ned and his insistence and handling of Brian's body/death as a whole pushed Delilah away in a fundamental way. It was too much for her to handle, even if you (as Henry) try to approach it in the most emotionally sensitive way. Finding Brian really felt to me like the point where these characters became too different for one another and therefore totally incompatible. Because of this, I walked away feeling like they had to go their separate ways and so the ending wasn't at all unsatisfying because I think I would have been unhappy with anything else. Realistically, I don't know if I ever thought they were compatible; Delilah was always resistant to meeting Henry (like her dialogue with him if you ask about the cable car early on) and their relationship was more about being lonely together. It was a relationship of convenience at the end of the day.

Questions though:

• Was there a second turtle? I only found Turt Reynolds during the phone line mission but I've seen mentions of another one.
• Could you actually fish? The sequence where you have the fishing pole is kind of a blur to me, but all I remember is putting the fishing pole away and then the scene changing.

 

[Aenima]

I found 2 turtles. One is near the pole with the wire cut. The other one is more hidden in a dead end.

I tryed to fish but could not do it.

 

[Belfast]

Just beat it, 3 hours. My impressions overall are negative.

Pros:

Soundtrack is lovely, very nice.
Graphics and environments are nice to look at.
Radio interactions were brilliant

Cons:
Story is a bunch of crap. The girls are supposed to have carried like 2 24-packs of beers with them, beat me back to my tower to vandalize it and escape without me noticing, and then hike all over with no ropes, drunk off their asses?

What the hell is Ned's endgame?

Should've just built on the emotional connection between Delilah and Henry instead of shoehorning in some drama. You could even have kept the Brian story in without the unnecessary Ned shit.

Meh, I give it 5/10, should've watched a YouTube playthrough.

Weird, people who don't like the story typically don't make the appropriate (obvious?) connections.

 

[Death Metalist]

Soma wasn't scary at all, so I hope that isn't a barrier to anyone wanting to play that mediocre game.

I agree, it wasn't for me as well. Infact, I played it for the atmosphere, characters and story but some people may think it's scary or something which it could be because it doesn't try hard to scare you. It scares you in the way by the questions it asks, the things you see, read and the situation you're in.

I'm wondering why you found the game to be mediocre because apart from the annoying "hide from enemies" sections, it was an excellent game I thought. I don't have any other horror game in mind from the past decade that combined atmosphere, story and characters this perfectly especially since most horror games these days just want to scare you and that's that. So much so, that I went and bought the PC version after beating it on PS4 just so I could explore, read more and go through the experience again but this time without they annoying monster encounters(Thanks Mods!). I'm sure I missed a few things in the game because it's incredibly detailed in how the world you're in is fleshed out if you decide to read and look around.

 

[E-flux]

Wow, the ending came so quick. They should have ended the game the same way the game opened, choose your own adventure epilogue showing what happened later. I was also disappointed that when i found the camera i started to basically take crime scene photos with it and all it did was show me those pictures in the credits.

I liked everything up until the final 5 minutes and now i don't know if i would recommend the game to my friends thanks to that lackluster ending.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

I really enjoyed the story, it has some non sensical stuff in it that you can break down easily but for 17 dollars I really enjoyed the ride.

For me the start of the game up until the night of the first fire with D and H being flirty on the mic was the high point.

Like I would enjoy this game without the oh no who's watching us and killing people govt stuff.

Just doing the work of a firewatch and falling in love with D.

 

[Sir Blaming]

*snip

I don't recommend it on the basis of this current price point(forgot to mention my regional price: RM34.20. Not cheap). But in the end, this is my complete and total option on the story and ending. I did not like it, at all. Even after learning about everything(I looked at every thread and video I could find talking about this game) and how it played with human expectations, I still did not like it.

I cannot for the life of me put a finger on what the ending did that turned me off now that I have the answers. Was it because I felt let down but my own expectations? Was it because the reason was given to us in the most mundane fashion possible? Was it because I just did not care at all? Or was it because I thought the game was going to give me a reason that I could understand in that very moment I finished that tape?

 

[ryanofcall]

I loved it up until the point you find out who's behind it. It makes total sense but it's kinda disappointing after all that "ohhhhh it's a conspiracyyy! They're framing usssss!"-thriller stuff

 

[Caipirinha]

Firewatch is exactly my kind of game but I'm sorry, I've read through the defense of the ending and I just can't be anything but utterly disappointed in it.

The premise, the backstory, the scenario is all absolutely brilliant and had the potential to be legendary/iconic status if only it had a good payoff.

But after dangling the payoff of an elaborate conspiracy by unseen powers you get an ending that is not far off "oops nevermind it was all a dream", and that's even ignoring the massive improbability and plot holes of Ned's hoax.

Half way through the game I was wondering if D is really on my side, if I'm going to bust into her tower and find it derelict with a corpse at the radio, something involving Julie (the "sleep Henry" sequence was great but led nowhere, it didn't even continue to tease "is this real or isn't it"), trying to figure out if Henry is being punished for past transgressions and if so, by who, or if he is in fact the one with dementia and he is confabulating the conspiracy.

The Ned reveal basically felt like someone saying "hey you know all those cool things that could have happened? Nah forget all that, it's just something very mundane".

And no the payoff wasn't even remotely emotional enough to be worthy on those terms either.

If I seem harsh it's because I loved everything else about the game and think the Campo Santo guys are extremely talented and will continue to make awesome games, and precisely for that reason I thought the ending could have made this so so so much more.

 

[DKF590]

Wow, the ending came so quick. They should have ended the game the same way the game opened, choose your own adventure epilogue showing what happened later.

I think I would have much preferred this as an ending, even if it was a post credits sequence. I actually think the overall story is fine, but the pacing just makes the third act feel extremely underwhelming.

 

[sonto340]

yeah, I mean, whether or not you begin to care about it is one thing

but not sure how you could not know his name... it's like only thing Delilah talks about not related to fires or the mystery lol

i guess maybe if you don't do every radio conversation... maybe if you skipped through his fortress pretty quick, too. i mean, that was like 10 minutes of brian brian brian just moments before going back into the cave

And as soon as I saw that fortress I immediately thought "there is no way this kid is alive"
Hell as soon as Delilah said something about the kid and not hearing from Ned about it I assumed the kid was going to wind up dead.

In no universe did I ever expect that to be the main narrative thread by the end of the game.
I liked the game a lot, up until the end. As soon as I found the bunker I kept thinking "there's no way this is it. What's the next twist. Where is this going what's the deal going to be"
But nope just get on a helicopter the end.

I've grown to appreciate that for what it is after resting on it for a day, but I felt a huge emptiness after finishing.

I get that not all stories have to be grand unrealistic fiction, and sometimes the point of the story is the realistic interaction between two humans, and that can be okay but I feel robbed considering everything leading up to this game's real ease purported to it being a mystery. There was no mystery. The mystery is what happened to the ending of the game. They just shoved a set up and resolution all in at the ending of the game and it feels wrong.

It's a shame because you can tell through the moment to moment interactions that there's a fantastic team(?) of writers on the game, and I would have loved to see things play out a bit more ambitiously.

I look forward to whatever campo santo does next with bated breath.

 

[Caipirinha]

And as soon as I saw that fortress I immediately thought "there is no way this kid is alive"
Hell as soon as Delilah said something about the kid and not hearing from Ned about it I assumed the kid was going to wind up dead.

In no universe did I ever expect that to be the main narrative thread by the end of the game.

Lol fucking this. I was just thinking, ok, so whoever is after me got to these guys too and made it all look like an accident?

Nope, there is no exciting conspiracy, just a guy whose kid died that concocted the most pointless, unlikely, elaborate hoax to hide it.

 

[Disguises]

Didn't love the game in the end. It wasn't the game I was expecting (I expected a lot more kicking out teenagers/watching fires)

Anyway, I'd like to share this moment that happened
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJJJ7vseT6I
I genuinely thought it was part of the game... for a few seconds.

 

[Wok]

Didn't love the game in the end. It wasn't the game I was expecting (I expected a lot more kicking out teenagers/watching fires)

Anyway, I'd like to share this moment that happened
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJJJ7vseT6I
I genuinely thought it was part of the game... for a few seconds.

This is hilarious.

 

[The Libertine]

I started playing this last night about 9ish and before I knew it, it was 2am and I had finished and I really enjoyed it. I can see why people wouldn't have liked the ending, but for me it was pretty spot on. The whole game is grounded in reality, from the setting, the interactions between Henry and Delilah to the story as a whole. If there had been some kind of huge conspiracy theory ending it would have felt completely at odds with what the game was trying to do. When we talk about video game stories being stupid or nonsensical, this feels like the counter to that. There have been multiple threads on this site stating "all games have terrible story telling" and to me this was a human story, which didn't need the huge pay off, in my opinion the pay off was the relationship that grew between the two main characters.

 

[TTG]

Didn't love the game in the end. It wasn't the game I was expecting (I expected a lot more kicking out teenagers/watching fires)

Anyway, I'd like to share this moment that happened
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJJJ7vseT6I
I genuinely thought it was part of the game... for a few seconds.

Best ending.

 

[Ferrio]

I started playing this last night about 9ish and before I knew it, it was 2am and I had finished and I really enjoyed it. I can see why people wouldn't have liked the ending, but for me it was pretty spot on. The whole game is grounded in reality, from the setting, the interactions between Henry and Delilah to the story as a whole. If there had been some kind of huge conspiracy theory ending it would have felt completely at odds with what the game was trying to do. When we talk about video game stories being stupid or nonsensical, this feels like the counter to that. There have been multiple threads on this site stating "all games have terrible story telling" and to me this was a human story, which didn't need the huge pay off, in my opinion the pay off was the relationship that grew between the two main characters.

This feels like a counter to being nonsensical? Ya maybe the first two days, but after that it's nothing but nonsense. That's the problem. It tried to have a human story but then shoved a mystery story that was so over orchestrated and full of holes that it's hard to take the overall story seriously. They tried to have it both ways, and in doing it made the human element be overshadowed by a silly mystery that could never pay off because it was trying to play it straight.

 

[Caipirinha]

This feels like a counter to being nonsensical? Ya maybe the first two days, but after that it's nothing but nonsense. That's the problem. It tried to have a human story but then shoved a mystery story that was so over orchestrated and full of holes that it's hard to take the overall story seriously. They tried to have it both ways, and in doing it made the human element be overshadowed by a silly mystery that could never pay off because it was trying to play it straight.

I think that's the crux of it. It started very character driven and emotionally centered, then it teased high conspiracy and mystery for the bulk of the game and made it the main motivation for the protagonists, then it threw that out at the last minute and asked you to to not be disappointed that all of that teasing was nothing more than a hoax but please be emotional for Delilah when she's sad and refuses to meet you.

For a climax to be a climax it needs to be either as or more surprising and exciting as what you had imagined leading up to it, not the "nevermind it was all a dream" kind of thing we got.

If you tease that you're being studied by an advanced, secretive group of researchers who have managed to create a undercover research centre in the forest and may be linked to the disappearance of 4 people, you then need a finale that is at least, if not more exciting than the anticipation you felt trying to discover what was going on.

If it's going to be a very down to earth, human story then don't tease it as being more than that.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Just finished, 3 hours on the clock. Liked it, didn't love it.

On the good side, the performances were excellent, visuals were nice and the story was able to build some good tension at times. Lots of funny, endearing dialogue too, and I enjoyed stuff like setting off to fix a wire or investigate a campfire.

On the bad side, the story just kinda left me a bit... nonplussed, I guess? I didn't feel by the end that I knew or cared an awful lot about Ned or his boy, and the revelation that Ned had been running around scaring me for... some reason, didn't click with me much. None of the personal stuff set up at the beginning seemed to really go anywhere either, which was a pity.

 

[semiconscious]

The wavefinder doesn't just track the trackers. It's tuned to do that primarily but as you see when you play the game, it tracks both the belt type of tracking as well as the small tracking unit that was in the tent... it's not far fetched for it to have picked up the electronic signal from the camera...

refresh my memory: who took the time, & had the ability, to rig the backback with the keys to an alarm, & why?...

Story is a bunch of crap. The girls are supposed to have carried like 2 24-packs of beers with them, beat me back to my tower to vandalize it and escape without me noticing, and then hike all over with no ropes, drunk off their asses?...

thank you. how is pointing out something as impossible as this 'nitpicky?...

This feels like a counter to being nonsensical? Ya maybe the first two days, but after that it's nothing but nonsense. That's the problem. It tried to have a human story but then shoved a mystery story that was so over orchestrated and full of holes that it's hard to take the overall story seriously. They tried to have it both ways, and in doing it made the human element be overshadowed by a silly mystery that could never pay off because it was trying to play it straight.

yep. as i've said already, the characters can only be as genuine/authentic as everything else that's happening around them. the more contrived the story developments, the more contrived their behaviors, & the weaker they become as 'realistic' characters...

unless, of course, in the name of enjoying henry & delilah's relationship, you're just dead determined to either ignore or just rationalize away all the peripheral nonsensical bullshit. which's fundamentally what the writers've done? ...

 

[Gbraga]

I started playing this last night about 9ish and before I knew it, it was 2am and I had finished and I really enjoyed it. I can see why people wouldn't have liked the ending, but for me it was pretty spot on. The whole game is grounded in reality, from the setting, the interactions between Henry and Delilah to the story as a whole. If there had been some kind of huge conspiracy theory ending it would have felt completely at odds with what the game was trying to do. When we talk about video game stories being stupid or nonsensical, this feels like the counter to that. There have been multiple threads on this site stating "all games have terrible story telling" and to me this was a human story, which didn't need the huge pay off, in my opinion the pay off was the relationship that grew between the two main characters.

See, but that's the issue here. I feel like a lot of people defending the game's story are missing the point (or at least my point).

I wasn't disappointed because it wasn't a huge conspiracy, I was disappointed because it's still too big of a conspiracy in the first place. When they started teasing with the whole government experiment thing, I wasn't excited and thinking OH BOY LET'S GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!, I was thinking "what the fuck is this garbage?", and when the truth is revealed, it's just a bit less stupid. I was wondering why they were pushing so hard that Brian storyline, it was by far the least interesting part of the game, and I never really got a solid reason on why I should care about them, I was more interested in the two rangers than this, but once the story started to reveal itself, it made sense.

Even the exploration aspect suffers during the final stretch, I was just sprinting back to places I already uncovered to be done with it already, didn't bother to go out of my way and explore anymore, because it was just so stupid.

It's not about expecting a huge mystery and being disappointed at how grounded it is, it's about expecting what the game gave us on the first half and being disappointed at how not very grounded it is. Ned living in the woods with his home made high tech shit stalking Delilah? What.

I don't think it does a very good job at putting the player as one of their equals, so I also can't share the feeling some expressed about the player being disappointed reflecting the characters' urge for a huge mystery, and realizing at the end that they can't run from their problems anymore. I didn't take the job, Henry did. I wasn't running away, Henry was. I mentioned his wife every chance I got, I also rejected Delilah. I told her "sure, go ahead" when she mentioned leaving earlier, but I was supposed to be surprised when she wasn't answering her radio?

The game does a good job if you put yourself in that situation willingly, but if you're just going with the flow and respecting Henry as his own character, the "twist" is just as dumb as the bigger mystery would be.

I don't agree with everything people are mentioning as plot inconsistencies, though. For example, I've seen people mentioning on youtube Delilah's "he doesn't know anything" dialogue as a hole. That was (or at least my interpretation of it) just to show the paranoia that starts to get to you in this lonely environment. To me, that dialogue was entirely justified the moment we find out she has a boyfriend, and also explains why she didn't want to tell you what it was about.

My first reaction to people saying it should be a few hours longer was "hell no, I couldn't stand it anymore near the end", but I kinda see where they're coming from. Maybe if we had more time with that setting to really let our imaginations flow about what's going on, and that feeling of slight paranoia take over and make us think of all kinds of crazy shit, maybe the reveal would feel grounded, instead of silly. Maybe a day where Delilah doesn't talk to you until the very end, and is being really vague, just to make you suspect her as a player, not just the character, or something like that.

Just finished, 3 hours on the clock. Liked it, didn't love it.

On the good side, the performances were excellent, visuals were nice and the story was able to build some good tension at times. Lots of funny, endearing dialogue too, and I enjoyed stuff like setting off to fix a wire or investigate a campfire.

On the bad side, the story just kinda left me a bit... nonplussed, I guess? I didn't feel by the end that I knew or cared an awful lot about Ned or his boy, and the revelation that Ned had been running around scaring me for... some reason, didn't click with me much. None of the personal stuff set up at the beginning seemed to really go anywhere either, which was a pity.

Yeah, the dialogue and performances were really really good, and the main reason why the story was so disappointing to me. It was so good until it started to actually take form. What a waste.

and asked you to to not be disappointed that all of that teasing was nothing more than a hoax but please be emotional for Delilah when she's sad and refuses to meet you.

That's a very interesting point. I personally didn't even try. Henry's married, I just told her that maybe she should be a shrink or whatever. When I read you saying this, I instantly think back of Emily is Away, a free dialogue based adventure game. It's a very nice experience, I really liked it, but it can send a wildly different message if you don't play the role of someone trying to get the girl. If you just treat her as a good friend all the way through, as I did on my first playthrough, she comes off as fucking insane. My experience with Emily is Away was about a friendship being eroded by some conflicts, distance and time itself, it was sweet because it's something that happened to everyone, losing someone we were close with just because of life stuff. But when I played it again immediately after, now trying to be her boyfriend, it made a lot more sense. I realized it was a friendzone simulator, and she's not supposed to be fucking insane, she's supposed to be right when she's accusing you.

If it's going to be a very down to earth, human story then don't tease it as being more than that.

With that I disagree, there's another similar game that I won't mention by name for spoiler reasons that does this, and I think it does it much better. I don't mind teasing it as being more if both the tease and the reality are interesting and make me want to know what's going on. In Firewatch, both the conspiracy and the Ned storyline were bad.

 

[Wok]

I wasn't disappointed because it wasn't a huge conspiracy, I was disappointed because it's still too big of a conspiracy in the first place. When they started teasing with the whole government experiment thing, I wasn't excited and thinking OH BOY LET'S GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!, I was thinking "what the fuck is this garbage?", and when the truth is revealed, it's just a bit less stupid. I was wondering why they were pushing so hard that Brian storyline, it was by far the least interesting part of the game, and I never really got a solid reason on why I should care about them, I was more interesting in the two rangers than this, but once the story started to reveal itself, it made sense.

Yeah, I was eager to know more about the romance between Ron and Dave. It was going to go Brokeback Lookout.

 

[colinp]

See, but that's the issue here. I feel like a lot of people defending the game's story are missing the point (or at least my point).

I wasn't disappointed because it wasn't a huge conspiracy, I was disappointed because it's still too big of a conspiracy in the first place. When they started teasing with the whole government experiment thing, I wasn't excited and thinking OH BOY LET'S GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!, I was thinking "what the fuck is this garbage?", and when the truth is revealed, it's just a bit less stupid. I was wondering why they were pushing so hard that Brian storyline, it was by far the least interesting part of the game, and I never really got a solid reason on why I should care about them, I was more interesting in the two rangers than this, but once the story started to reveal itself, it made sense.

Even the exploration aspect suffers during the final stretch, I was just sprinting back to places I already uncovered to be done with it already, didn't bother to go out of my way and explore anymore, because it was just so stupid.

It's not about expecting a huge mystery and being disappointed at how grounded it is, it's about expecting what the game gave us on the first half and being disappointed at how not very grounded it is. Ned living in the woods with his home made high tech shit stalking Delilah? What.

I don't think it does a very good job at putting the player as one of their equals, so I also can't share the feeling some expressed about the player being disappointed reflecting the characters' urge for a huge mystery, and realizing at the end that they can't run from their problems anymore. I didn't take the job, Henry did. I wasn't running away, Henry was. I mentioned his wife every chance I got, I also rejected Delilah. I told her "sure, go ahead" when she mentioned leaving earlier, but I was supposed to be surprised when she wasn't answering her radio?

The game does a good job if you put yourself in that situation willingly, but if you're just going with the flow and respecting Henry as his own character, the "twist" is just as dumb as the bigger mystery would be.

I don't agree with everything people are mentioning as plot inconsistencies, though. For example, I've seen people mentioning on youtube Delilah's "he doesn't know anything" dialogue as a hole. That was (or at least my interpretation of it) just to show the paranoia that starts to get to you in this lonely environment. To me, that dialogue was entirely justified the moment we find out she has a boyfriend, and also explains why she didn't want to tell you what it was about.

My first reaction to people saying it should be a few hours longer was "hell no, I couldn't stand it anymore near the end", but I kinda see where they're coming from. Maybe if we had more time with that setting to really let our imaginations flow about what's going on, and that feeling of slight paranoia take over and make us think of all kinds of crazy shit, maybe the reveal would feel grounded, instead of silly. Maybe a day where Delilah doesn't talk to you until the very end, and is being really vague, just to make you suspect her as a player, not just the character, or something like that.



Yeah, the dialogue and performances were really really good, and the main reason why the story was so disappointing to me. It was so good until it started to actually take form. What a waste.



That's a very interesting point. I personally didn't even try. Henry's married, I just told her that maybe she should be a shrink or whatever. When I read you saying this, I instantly think back of Emily is Away, a free dialogue based adventure game. It's a very nice experience, I really liked it, but it can send a wildly different message if you don't play the role of someone trying to get the girl. If you just treat her as a good friend all the way through, as I did on my first playthrough, she comes off as fucking insane. My experience with Emily is Away was about a friendship being eroded by some conflicts, distance and time itself, it was sweet because it's something that happened to everyone, losing someone we were close with just because of life stuff. But when I played it again immediately after, now trying to be her boyfriend, it made a lot more sense. I realized it was a friendzone simulator, and she's not supposed to be fucking insane, she's supposed to be right when she's accusing you.



With that I disagree, there's another similar game that I won't mention by name for spoiler reasons that does this, and I think it does it much better. I don't mind teasing it as being more if both the tease and the reality are interesting and make me want to know what's going on. In Firewatch, both the conspiracy and the Ned storyline were bad.

I agree and had a similar experience. Well said!

 

[Tak3n]

so finished it up, I enjoyed it, but I find the Henry part perplexing and perhaps over thinking it, I am based in the UK and there is no way a teenage boy could of vanished like that without someone somewhere reporting it (especially as the father stayed missing as well) Did Henry have a mum (can not recall) why did his school not report him as gone when school resumed...

The state of his decomposition it had been many years since him and his dad went of the radar, I just find it unlikely in the extreme, also the locked gate that hid his body, not one camper has in the subsequent years asked for the key, been told it is missing and a replacement was never filed for?

 

[The Libertine]

I think that's the crux of it. It started very character driven and emotionally centered, then it teased high conspiracy and mystery for the bulk of the game and made it the main motivation for the protagonists, then it threw that out at the last minute and asked you to to not be disappointed that all of that teasing was nothing more than a hoax but please be emotional for Delilah when she's sad and refuses to meet you.

For a climax to be a climax it needs to be either as or more surprising and exciting as what you had imagined leading up to it, not the "nevermind it was all a dream" kind of thing we got.

If you tease that you're being studied by an advanced, secretive group of researchers who have managed to create a undercover research centre in the forest and may be linked to the disappearance of 4 people, you then need a finale that is at least, if not more exciting than the anticipation you felt trying to discover what was going on.

If it's going to be a very down to earth, human story then don't tease it as being more than that.

Again in my opinion I feel like the story would have been too over the top if it had gone down the "super secret agency" route. I like the fact that the characters were made to feel that way however as it played into the fat that Henry was struggling with his wife's dementia whilst feeling like maybe it was also happening to him.