• Log In | Sign Up

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top Games
  • Search
  • New Releases
  • Daily Deals
  • Forums

Adventure Gamers - Forums

Welcome to Adventure Gamers. Please Sign In or Join Now to post.

You are here: HomeForum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread

Post Marker Legend:

  • New Topic New posts
  • Old Topic No new posts

Currently online

diegoSpeedBo

Support us, by purchasing through these affiliate links

   

What game have you just finished?

Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

Ninth - 16 July 2019 08:51 AM
Karlok - 16 July 2019 05:56 AM

Okay, I’ll bite. Please tell me about all the ordinary, non-original stories about killer mermaids with magical shells who try to get a stolen shell back and call other seamonsters to help them when they are stunned by a magical chest and imprisoned.

Most of these ingredients can be found in the Odyssey as well as the genre Luhr mentions.

IMO the Obra Dinn and the Odyssey have absolutely nothing in common. Different bare bones, different flesh. Apart from the presence of mermaids. Totally different ones too.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 1353

Joined 2017-09-18

PM

Karlok - 17 July 2019 06:56 AM

How am I to detect some deep message aobut human nature in the bare bones of greed and revenge? I don’t think it’s fair to strip away all the flesh. Not fair to any game. Or Monkey Island would be a boring tale about two men lusting after the same woman.  Crazy

And so after putting back all the flesh, we end up with a game whose basic message is

Karlok - 17 July 2019 06:56 AM

don’t mess with fate and be very careful what you wish for.

I’m willing to go with that, but I’m not so sure it’s the sign of a master storyteller at work. Nor does it need to be, given all the praise the game’s had in all its other aspects.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

deleted

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 1353

Joined 2017-09-18

PM

I guess we just have different interests. I’ll always take a simple plot with a meaningful and original message over a complex, intricate tale with not much to say about anything in particular. Obra Dinn is that tale, and that’s okay. Since you didn’t find much meaning in it either I don’t see the point in discussing it and the motivations of every character in endless detail. Some might enjoy that; I don’t.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

deleted

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Total Posts: 221

Joined 2003-11-10

PM

Karlok - 17 July 2019 07:34 AM

IMO the Obra Dinn and the Odyssey have absolutely nothing in common. Different bare bones, different flesh. Apart from the presence of mermaids. Totally different ones too.

Sea voyage with fantastical ordeals, punishment of men for their sins (pride, greed, lust, jealousy), mermaids who pull sailors to their death, sea monsters (charybde/scylla = Kraken), whole crew dies except a few chosen ones (well, in this case one chosen one), etc
Also, putting extra pointy bits on mermaids doesn’t really make them that different…
Finally, apart from the similarities in the specifics, there’s the feeling of tragedy and inevitability and of the powerlessness of men faced with otherworldy powers that bring the two together in my mind.

Better this than Pirate of the Caribbeans, which also has a Kraken and curses and whatnot Smile

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

Sorry Ninth, but I don’t agree with a single thing you’ve posted about the Odyssee and Obra Dinn. What can I say… Frown

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

deleted

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 1353

Joined 2017-09-18

PM

Karlok - 17 July 2019 08:27 AM

Okay, I replied to your question, so please reply to mine: give me a few examples of adventure games with a simple plot but a meaningful and original message.

This was a difficult task, such games I think are rare and most are about saving the princess or becoming a pirate.

Nevertheless, let me give a few examples. Not all of these I like, but I think at least they have something to say.


Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
Stories Untold
The Sexy Brutale
The Cat Lady
I Have No Mouth and Must Scream

 

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

deleted

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 1353

Joined 2017-09-18

PM

I really wouldn’t be able to do justice to any of them since it’s been well over a year since playing them.

Besides, if you’re still not sure what I’m talking about, I’m not sure it would do any good to explain further. Certain games simply have stories I can apply to my own life. Obra Dinn didn’t, it just seemed to be a series of dramatic occurrences which the developer didn’t have much to comment on. If there was a rhyme or reason to what happened in the plot, about all the death and suffering, then I must have missed it. And without anyone willing to enlighten me further, I’m afraid I’m lost at sea.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more the game is undeserving of quite so much praise. To me it seems like the non-linear narrative, the numerous detours in what would otherwise be quite a simple story were there to add needless complexity to what would otherwise be a straightforward nautical fantasy thriller. Pirates of the Carribean doesn’t need to be Shakespeare or Chekhov or disguised as it, but what I’m seeing is that Lucas Pope has fooled quite a few of us.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

PM

deleted. all that effort, just to get insulted.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

Avatar

Total Posts: 1353

Joined 2017-09-18

PM

I read the link but didn’t understand what you were trying to say with it when I read it. If I understand correctly, by referencing that game (which I have not played) you are linking together “meaningful” with questions to do with the meaning of life, spiritual answers, and so on.

Those things are in my area of interest so I would also find them meaningful, although others might not. Unfortunately they are rare in a game, and even if they happen to go into spirituality or enlightenment, I would not necessarily call that original, especially if they are just describing Buddhist and Christian mystical concepts without much else to add.

But if you want me to go into examples, one game that comes to mind is SOMA. Without wanting to reveal too much in case you haven’t played it, it explores in a very direct way (as the title indicates) how we relate to our bodies, and our embodiment as living and thinking beings.  It is a theme which blends very well with an interactive game, because it allows that kind of direct, sensory experience, bringing you closer to experiencing what the protagonist is experiencing. Consciousness, memory and the search for happiness also figure into it, but for me the main theme is about the body. Why would I call this meaningful? Because I often question how important our bodies are to us, and why. What it would be like without them, and how different things would be with different bodies. Would things be different at all if our thinking processes and functions are unchanged, and why? Where does this attachment to our bodies come from, and how does it relate to other bodies and the environments around us? And if the body is not needed for what we call “life”, would we still desire it, require it to see ourselves as living? While I understand that this might be completely meaningless to someone else, an opportunity to explore these themes is meaningful to me.

     

Total Posts: 221

Joined 2003-11-10

PM

Karlok - 17 July 2019 05:00 PM

Sorry Ninth, but I don’t agree with a single thing you’ve posted about the Odyssee and Obra Dinn. What can I say… Frown

Laughing fair enough, I guess it’s a credit to Pope that his game can be loved through a whole range of perspectives and references.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 3200

Joined 2007-01-04

PM

Obra Dinn to me was a great game because it was so different. It was like being back in time back to 1985.

Heart

     

I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

You are here: HomeForum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread

Welcome to the Adventure Gamers forums!

Back to the top