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Lady Kestrel

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Spontaneous CPT of Strangeland

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Hi everyone,

Fellow Adventure Gamer Dcast and myself will be starting to play Strangeland together-apart this weekend. If you’d like to join, just jump on in. I’ll only be able to play an hour between tonight and Monday night, so there isn’t much of a rush to get started. Monday night onward, I’ll be able to play at a brisker pace, 30-45 minutes or so most evenings. Happy to slow down if anyone can’t keep that pace going.

Since this game is new to (almost) everyone, please use the spoiler feature if discussing, well, spoilers. Not sure if the game goes in chapters or not, but try and find non-spoiler indicators to let folks know how far you are, they know whether your spoiler-protected text is ‘safe.’

I know this is all very loose and uncoordinated, but hey, let’s give it a shot and see how it goes. Hope some folks will jump on board to try this new game and support the developers of the much esteemed Primordia.

     

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I’ll play for an hour today and post later. And I’ll be able to add another hour or so over the weekend. Excited!

     
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It’s pretty short (I played it in two sits, and that was mostly because I just wanted to stop and relax as it was quite disturbing), so this seems like a good strategy. I would’ve joined, just don’t feel like replaying Strangeland now, even though I’m interested in hearing the dev’s commentary. But it would be curious to read other people’s impressions - especially those who loved Primordia. There are many similarities in game writing/design.

     

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Hi!

Nice initiative! As I was betatester of Strangeland, I won’t participate (I can’t remember the times I have replayed the game), but I will happily comment your posts.

I loved Primordia (we translated it into Spanish).

     

Currently translating Strangeland into Spanish. Wish me luck, or send me money to my Paypal haha

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There are no spoilers in this post.

I just finished my first session with Strangeland. Solved what I guess were a couple of minor puzzles and put a coin in a machine. Seems like the game is pretty open ended, so this ought to be interesting. I’m trying to role play it insofar as doing what I think makes sense for my avatar to do next, rather than just going around and solving things in random order.
So far, I am really enjoying it. It is dark, but so far not as oppressive as some have said.
Reminds me very much of both Sanitarium, which I really like, and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, which I like a lot about but overall don’t think is a very good game. Also, having *just* played Disco Elysium, there are some themes that, at least on the surface, both games share.
The game definitely got off on the right foot, with the highlighted ‘How To Play’ option on the main menu. Clicking it reveals that there are no dead ends, and that while the game has multiple paths through it, there are no better or worse ones, so just play. I like that; it removes a lot of that optimal choice anxiety or analysis paralysis. I am free to just play.
The writing so far is excellent -high caliber and intelligent without being obnoxious. I hope that keeps up. I don’t know if I’d be able to tell it’s written by the guys who did Primordia without knowing so in advance, but I definitely see the connection of both games taking place in miserable environments, with your characters in dire circumstances, but they are still decent ‘people’ despite this. That said, Strangeland dude definitely seems like he’s got a sordid past. But then again, so did Horatio in Primordia.
I *loved* the the incidental mention of an ‘oleaginous bird’ (it was a specific type of bird mentioned, but I forgot which). I wonder if I will eventually find said oily bird and stick it to something. If you were following our conversation about Primordia last month in the ‘currently playing’ thread, you’ll get it.
The voice acting has been interesting. The monologues and cutscene acting is good, but the conversational acting is sometimes very stilted and overly dramatic. I Have No Mouth…had a similar problem. It seems lots of games about disturbed, frustrated, and confused people have this problem of overacting. I wonder if it’s a coincidence or if it’s legitimately that much harder to do that sort of acting in a game.

Anyway, so far so good! I’m glad the game is so short (according to other users who have played it) because I can already see myself wanting to play again and try alternate routes, see what else might be in the cards Wink .
I regret not being able to play again until Monday night, because these first 45 minutes or so of game play have captivated me. Hope it keeps up—there’s still a ways to go!

     

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Baron_Blubba - 04 June 2021 09:55 PM

I *loved* the the incidental mention of an ‘oleaginous bird’ (it was a specific type of bird mentioned, but I forgot which). I wonder if I will eventually find said oily bird and stick it to something. If you were following our conversation about Primordia last month in the ‘currently playing’ thread, you’ll get it.

I was waiting for this moment.

I wonder if it’s a coincidence or if it’s legitimately that much harder to do that sort of acting in a game.

While I didn’t direct the voice acting, I will certainly take any blame in this regard as the writer. I think the voice acting reads the lines appropriately for how I wrote them. Many of the lines are more like aphorisms than natural conversation, and our dialogue system allows you to through topics in basically any order, so there’s not going to be the patter of a conversation for that reason, too. The character types probably lend themselves to over-acting, too—an animatronic fortune-teller, a giant clown head, a living furnace… these aren’t necessarily characters that the director or actor would think of as subtle roles. Grin

     
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Alright, I’m juuust slightly over an hour in - stopped after I got into an area which was previously guarded.

I’m really enjoying the game so far.

The visuals are totally up my alley, so I really like the combination of this dark desolate place with bright neon - it just makes everything even more otherworldly in a very cool “techno” way. I’m a big fan of surrealism, so all the bizarre, morbid bits are truly fascinating. I found myself just staring at the screen for quite some time before proceeding, and I wanted to freeze a few cut-scenes to look at things in detail (the moment where the woman took off her face was very eye-catching - I’d love to give it another look over!) Were there particular artists/visual mediums that served as an inspiration for the game’s look? Or maybe particular works?

I haven’t really warmed up to the MC (and not sure I’m supposed to). He seems kind of a grump with all his “yeah, yeah, I got the point”... It’s a tad strange that in such situation he doesn’t come across as particularly scared or sad or questioning his own sanity but more like irritated with everything, for some reason. I also agree with BB that his voice-over reminded me A LOT of “I Have No Mouth”. Have you played it recently Wormwood_Studios? It’s just this hard-to-explain similarity in the dramatic way the hero speaks and even the timbre. On the other hand - giant clown head? Yes, I am a fan. I can almost hear something “gangster-Italian” in it, and I keep picturing Jack Nicholson in the “IT” costume in my head when it speaks. I wouldn’t be able to say why - I know it’s weird.

The writing is intelligent and very cryptic. Despite loving strange visuals and off-kilter stories, I usually dislike when characters speak in riddles making everything unnecessarily complicated for no reason but to make it so, here, however, I feel it just comes with the territory, so it seems more organic. I like how the contrast of the clown head sort of pulls every other flowery statement back a little.
I had to Google one word already, so I learned something new as well - I always appreciate it.

I like how the puzzles are built so far (and I haven’t checked the “how to play” - I never do unless I get stuck), so I was wondering to myself if there are different ways to go about solutions. Right now and based of the shooting arcade - I’d say it’s a yes, because it definitely seemed like I could have done it straightforward way instead of the roundabout one. Wasn’t a huge fan of one particular puzzle that required throwing something - I just don’t like to do that kinda of thing even in games - but, I suppose, it was a part of showing the surrounding environment and added psychological layer to the situation. I’m getting the feeling there will be more of the kind that are supposed to bring about a certain mood in a player, so I’m readying myself for this.

Enjoyed the little glimpses of soundscape as well.

I stopped at the very interesting place, so I’m guilt-tripping BB into playing some more sooner here Tongue
I’ll be putting in another hour on Sunday, and then I’ll wait until my AG pal catches up.

It’s awesome to have a developer comment, thank you Wormwood_Studios!

     
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Okay, you got me. I’ll bring my home laptop to work today and play some more during lunch. But that’ll be it til Monday, especially since I think another forum fellow will be joining us and might need time to catch up.

     

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By the way, Wormwood, is it intentional that the game is selling for a very black deathian 13.49 on GOG?

     

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It is I, VP!

Thank you, Baron, for a cool gift. Smile I’m boarding this train and I’ll share my thoughts as soon as I can.

     
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good job, you really did that i was asking of the community here a long time ago to have a playthrough of an initial new adventure, but i never eventually been able to get any sorta agreement of the matter to start it, that why i think you have made the best initiative; that is to just push it ‘spontaneously yourself without any kinda waiting for agreement of pre-participation of anyone, good job.

lovely adventure quite dark and fun

     

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Any similarity to the voice acting in IHNAIMS has to be coincidental—I have no recollection of the voice acting (making me now wonder if I ever played the game or just read an LP), and it wasn’t in the notes to Abe. I suppose it’s possible that Dave directed Abe off of it, but I would be very suprirsed.

     
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Advie - 05 June 2021 10:51 AM

good job, you really did that i was asking of the community here a long time ago to have a playthrough of an initial new adventure, but i never eventually been able to get any sorta agreement of the matter to start it, that why i think you have made the best initiative; that is to just push it ‘spontaneously yourself without any kinda waiting for agreement of pre-participation of anyone, good job.

lovely adventure quite dark and fun

Hey Advie! From your avatar, it looks like you’ve already played the game. I’m going to try and do one of these every month. I’d like to try and support current adventure game developers a little more than I have been, so it’ll be a game from the past few months, maybe year at the longest. And yeah, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I figured I’d just kick this off, no questions asked, and see what happens.

VP: Glad you could make it. There’s a lot to talk about in this game!

And back to the game itself: I have already figured out what’s underneath the not-a-Valkyrie’s mask. It’s the secret of Monkey Island.

 

     

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My favourite character so far is the crow, who might also be a dove, or a raven, but is definitely a slam poet.

This is bleak, though. Adam Jones of Tool going through a bit of a dark spell, Giger having an existential crisis, that level of torment, right off the bat.

It’s interesting, though. I am hoping for a stronger sense of direction, so far I have a noisy shadow, a woman plummeting down a well and just.. a massive amount of emotional desolation.

edit:

Baron_Blubba - 05 June 2021 12:52 PM

I’d like to try and support current adventure game developers a little more than I have been, so it’ll be a game from the past few months, maybe year at the longest.

Awesome.

     
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Wormwood_Studios - 05 June 2021 11:50 AM

Any similarity to the voice acting in IHNAIMS has to be coincidental—I have no recollection of the voice acting (making me now wonder if I ever played the game or just read an LP), and it wasn’t in the notes to Abe. I suppose it’s possible that Dave directed Abe off of it, but I would be very suprirsed.

The MC also sometimes sounds like the guy in Sanitarium, but with a little more variety.
The only real problem with the conversation voice acting is that, because you can choose what to say and in what order (which is nice), and because the game itself is pretty open ended, he will often begin a conversation at an escalated point. That might make sense if you are playing the game in a very specific way, but otherwise there’s no reason for that escalated tone in his voice. I think in general it is better to be 10% undercooked than 10% overcooked with these kinds of things—which is where I think Primordia’s voice acting was, a little more subdued than situations sometimes might have called for, but it went down smoother than the possible alternative of overly excited. Really not a big deal, it barely detracts from the experience.

Puzzles have been sweet so far, occupying that comfortable space where they are challenging enough to make me feel useful, but not so challenging that they keep the story from moving forward at a nice pace.

Just like in Primordia, like DCast said, the art is really good. The colors and textures smack of HR Giger, if he were to illustrate a hand drawn adventure game like this (wait…did he actually do this at one point?). Which is groovy, because I like his colors and textures and tones, even if his art typically home run or struck-out-swinging-on-three-consecutive-pitches for me.

So, was the oleaginous bird an actual reference to Primordia, or is it a coincidence?

     

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Advie - 05 June 2021 10:51 AM

that why i think you have made the best initiative; that is to just push it ‘spontaneously yourself without any kinda waiting for agreement of pre-participation of anyone, good job.

Well, technically there was a tiny bit of waiting and agreement. BB created adventure match-making thread here (kudos for that!), and asked if someone wanted to play this one. From there on we set up a date. It’s very minimal, but it did give enough of a base to start off a playthrough, even if there were two people who initially vocalized the desire to play.

Baron_Blubba - 05 June 2021 08:04 AM

Okay, you got me. I’ll bring my home laptop to work today and play some more during lunch..

Hell yeah! Eating in peace is overrated.

     

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