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And the sun sets

46 pointsby panzaalmost 10 years ago

6 comments

ChuckMcMalmost 10 years ago
I found this user comment fascinating:<p><i>I am one such person. I am interested in Sunset and fully intent to play it, but have not yet purchased it, for the simple reason that there are many titles that I already own that I have yet to play; I am suffering from a massive backlog, and from what I can tell, this is the case for an overwhelming majority of RPS readers</i><p>Here is a person who likes the genre, but they <i>already own</i> so much product that they don&#x27;t have time to play a new game. What that says to me is that game publishers are doing themselves a huge disservice by charging so little for their games. If you could imagine a fine art store where everything was $0.99, you might have dozens of paintings in your collection that you don&#x27;t have wall space to put them on.<p>So rather than paying a lot of money for a game and valuing it such that it is played before the next one is purchases, people binge on a dozen different games which never satisfy and only a few are &quot;worth it&quot;.<p>It is a sad place for game developers (charge more but get few sales as people work through the crap) or charge less and get few sales because nobody knows which are good and which are crap.
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Udoalmost 10 years ago
After reading this, and having never heard of the game before, I checked it out and just spent 90 minutes playing it. It has some serious problems, and those are in my opinion the reason why it&#x27;s not selling very well:<p>The basic idea is great. This game has the kind of factors that <i>make</i> you <i>want</i> to like it: it&#x27;s experimental, it hints at a great story, it&#x27;s a period piece. However, the disappointments keep adding up as you interact with it.<p>Sunset&#x27;s graphics performance is abysmal on OS X. On a current, maxed-out iMac I had to keep lowering the settings throughout play and still wound up with intolerable choppiness. The game <i>does</i> look good, but not <i>that good</i> as to justify having these issues.<p>In the beginning, it&#x27;s fun to play. You discover the house, and the house keeps changing in interesting ways every time you visit. It&#x27;s atmospheric. The music is as stark and beautifully depressing as the apartment. I enjoyed doing the chores, and took great care of what I did in the house. But it soon dawned on me that my actions don&#x27;t really have any consequences. The &quot;plot&quot; keeps moving along, telling you of the results of your actions, whether you actually performed them or not (at least as far as I can tell, it&#x27;s kinda difficult to say).<p>The chores get old very fast, and you start to skip your work. Which doesn&#x27;t seem to be of any consequence at all. The more you play, the more you get the feeling that you&#x27;re moving on rails, pushing difficult-to-reach yet pointless buttons in the process.<p>The monologue put forth by the protagonist isn&#x27;t encouraging either. While at times poetic, it seems mostly banal and fake - which is astonishing considering the subject matter. Talking about banality, I played this on Steam, and you literally get achievements for zooming in on book titles and record labels, for no apparent reason.<p>More than anything, it&#x27;s a missed opportunity. Nobody involved in the process stopped and looked at basic factors like: the pacing, the graphics, the dialogue&#x2F;monologue, or the user experience overall. The game feels like something you&#x27;d expect to be still in development.<p>Although the game is most likely a labour of love, the jarring shortcomings in its implementation make it look like it&#x27;s coasting along lazily on the merits of its premise without any intention of actually delivering on it.
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staredalmost 10 years ago
They have made &quot;The Path&quot; (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tale-of-tales.com&#x2F;ThePath&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tale-of-tales.com&#x2F;ThePath&#x2F;</a>), for me on favourite example of something on the edge of &quot;a game&quot;&#x2F;&quot;a non-game&quot;. And playing with convention of a game (you need to fail to &quot;win&quot;) and a story (what is real, what is a metaphor?).<p>I love the analysis on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gamerdame.wordpress.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;08&#x2F;13&#x2F;in-depth-analysis-for-the-path&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gamerdame.wordpress.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;08&#x2F;13&#x2F;in-depth-analysis...</a> (ALERT: heavy spoilers and an interpretation that can affect your perception).
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roel_valmost 10 years ago
Indie game makes no money, news at 11.<p>Also, paying PR and marketing people to market some niche &#x27;art&#x27; game? WTF are these people thinking?
strangecastsalmost 10 years ago
I think their conclusion - that the advice they got just didn&#x27;t fit for <i>their</i> games - is a little too neat, and leaves out a couple of factors that were absolutely in their control (pricing, for instance).
benihanaalmost 10 years ago
I hate to be harsh. I read that whole piece and I&#x27;m on board. But despite that, and looking up the game [1] on Steam, I still have no freaking clue what the point of the game is. The description makes it seem like you&#x27;re cleaning some guy&#x27;s office. The trailer doesn&#x27;t show any gameplay footage. The screenshots look like a poorly rendered interior decorating catalog. What are you supposed to do in this game that is fun? I&#x27;m sure there&#x27;s something - I&#x27;m guessing it&#x27;s one of those graphical adventure type games, but I have no idea. And if I have no idea what kind of game this is, I&#x27;m not going to drop 10 bucks on it. And I can&#x27;t tell from any of the normal channels companies what this game is about, other than being artistic.<p>1) <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;287600&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;287600&#x2F;</a>
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