Proteus

[agentwiggles]

So I just got Proteus in Humble Bundle 8 (god I love Humble Bundle), and went into it with basically no knowledge of what it was.

That was fucking awesome. My first playthrough lasted 49 minutes, and I consider it time extremely well spent.

I really recommend this, it's very interesting and totally worth an hour of your time. And you should buy the Humble Bundle anyway, because it's awesome.

Don't want to spoil it much, but here's the general gist of the gameplay:

Spoiler

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You arrive on a randomly generated island, and walk around it. The graphics are lo-fi but the landscape is pretty nice to look at. The soundtrack seems to go along with the gameplay somehow. Scattered around the island are all kinds of little creatures, plants, and structures, and they all make different noises. The magic of this game is that they somehow managed to make this awesome and not obnoxious. The game's very immersive, you'll be pretty much zoned into the screen unable to do anything. Something about this game's design really taps into you, and you'll feel excitement when you crest a mountain, fear when you approach some ancient statues at night, sadness when you realize the summer dragonflies have died off in the fall. It's really weird, and really excellent at the same time.

[FlowerChild]

Meh. I actually picked it up a couple of weeks ago, and was not particularly impressed. It's interesting for a few minutes as an experimental interactive thingy, but I wouldn't recommend it. I saw lots of praise for it being innovative etc. etc. but I really didn't see anything I'd consider new or really thought provoking in it.

At best I consider it slightly different in a way that doesn't really work.

[agentwiggles]

Well, I thought it was pretty cool, but hey! Differing opinions and all that. Be interested to hear some other takes on it. I'm just about to start up Hotline Miami and check that out, enjoying my new Humble Bundle very much.

[Lars]

I also got Proteus with the Humble Bundle, and tried it out right away. It was fun at first, discovering that different objects make different sounds. When I found one of those little hopping mushrooms or w/e they are, I was hoping they would lead me somewhere, but the thing just led me in a circle, which kind of annoyed me. The gravestones and the obelisks on top of mountains were fun, but other then that, there seemingly wasn't much else to explore. I stopped playing a short while later. It's a funny little gimmick, sure, but it gets old pretty quickly imo. I enjoyed Little Inferno a lot more =D

[FlowerChild]

Yeah...that's the thing for me I think. You rapidly realize that next to nothing does anything.

I'm all for minimalist control schemes, but if you're going to take the ballsy decision to make moving the only thing the player can really do, then I think you really need to have things actually respond to that in meaningful ways.

Over and over while playing I had "hey look...it's a foo!" moments followed by "oh...it doesn't actually do anything" let downs. I found the game to be more of a constant cycle of disappointment rather than being particularly engaging as a result. Like seriously, what kind of genius puts a lone cabin on a deserted island only to have it do absolutely *nothing*? It's like hanging a big sign up saying "come over here and explore me!", so unless you want the player to feel jipped in the bargain, you need to make damn sure they get a little bit of candy out of it. Failing that, it's better to just leave it out entirely IMO.

If your entire gameplay experience lasts about an hour, the least you can do is make that hour interactive. It felt more like I was wandering through an hour long video as a passive spectator rather than as a participant.

[MrLemon]

Proteus isn't really a game, it would make an awesome screen saver though.

[Thorium-232]

I played Proteus when it was in "early dev" like a year or so ago, and was really impressed with it, so when I saw it come up in the bundle I immediately looked into it. My problem was that, despite a year or so passing, the game was still exactly the same as when I played the early beta of it. I thought they were going to go with at least some form of subtle narrative; the stones had promise of being tied into some lost civilization or something, but they chose to just go with a "walking in the woods" sim, which while cool at the outset is really only good for an hour or so.

I was hoping they would do something super innovative with it, but really they just left it as is. It has (in my opinion anyway) a lot of wasted potential. Still a fun idea though.

[agentwiggles]

I think it's the kind of thing you play once, for the hour it lasts, and say "hey, that had some cool moments" and then you're kind of done with it. I can't really see it being fun the second time around. I have to admit - I was more than a little stoned when I tried this thing out for the first time, which, judging by the difference between my experience and those of the rest of you guys, may be the optimal way to enjoy this game.

[jorgebonafe]

That's probably the optimal way to enjoy any game...

[FlowerChild]

Except Silent Hill 2. I don't recommend it :)

[jorgebonafe]

Wow... That would be awesome! Thanks for the advice, I'll try this right now.

[FlowerChild]

Wow... That would be awesome! Thanks for the advice, I'll try this right now.

See you in the psych ward :)

If you want to play something a little more modern, or that you might not have played before (which is kinda crucial here), I suspect Amnesia would likely generate the same result.

Doing that is on my big list of mistakes not to repeat in life, but maybe you'll enjoy it ;)

[jorgebonafe]

I did play Amnesia. It was probably the scariest game I ever played, more then Silent Hill imo. Silent Hill scares you with all the nightmarish monsters and environments, but the way Amnesia does it is genius.... The feeling of "oh fuck, there is something behind me and I have to fucking RUN!" and the fact that you don't really know what the fuck is chasing you and you can't fight back makes it much, much scarier. I think the worst part was on the flooded area, with the fish monster lurking, and you know that the thing is right there, and you have to jump on that box, and OH FUCK, I MISSED, JUMP AGAIN JUMP JUMP JUMP

Oh, good times... This game I won't play high.

Very much looking forward to the sequel.

[FlowerChild]

Well, I specifically said Silent Hill *2*. I think that one did a great job of freaking the shit out of you. The progression from foggy day into darkness with *something* skittering around out there was excellent IMO.

I think when I truly lost it was when the clacking of the nurses started.

Anyways, it's very dated by today's standards, but back in the day I'd say it freaked me out just as much as Amnesia, if not more so.

Honestly, I think Amensia felt a little too scripted for me, whereas SH2 being a bit more "open world" contributes to the freak-out factor.

[jorgebonafe]

Oh yeah, the hospital in SH2 was creepy... But my favorites were SH1 and SH3. I just liked the story of those two games more, I think. That cutscene when they imply maybe the monsters you are killing are not really monsters and you are just crazy is just perfect XD "Just joking, hehe". Riiiight...

The ghosts in SH4 though are probably the ones that freaked me out the most. I'm not sure why, they don't really attack you, its just the way they float toward you and start... sucking your soul or whatever it is they are doing.... I guess the fact you don't really understand what's happening its what makes it scary for me...

Then I played SH Homecoming, and that was it for me. The amount of fan service of the movie was what killed it for me. It felt like they were tired of trying to be original and instead chucked the game full of references to movie and previous games instead, and it failed miserably, just felt cheap...