I like your work, both on Outer Wilds and on Shipbreaker! Looking forward to watching the rest of your videos I agree with you on most points, though to me, some death felt completely unfair (your clip at 12:58 is a good example of that, where you are in the middle of a space with no atmosphere yet splitting it via the lever sends you flying against the outer part, causing a death by trauma). It tended to break immersion and make me resent the game more than lynx, as a small impact would kill me where thrice the same impact beforehand only cracked my helmet slightly For the components to collect for old Betty, you can also find some free-floating in each new ship, so running from ship to ship lets you get money and components with no other drawback than missing on later deadlines that are a bit more valuable Another way (as mentioned in another comment) to add pressure without changing gameplay mechanics would be a lower initial debt but a far greater interest rate, pushing the player to make the most of this 15 minute shift and letting them ponder whether there is still enough resources on the ship and if they were valuable enough to warrant a second shift I really liked the yellow points to cut, because some ships (the Gecko, for example) make it harder to reach, especially with... *problematic decompressions*. What I did find a bit disappointing is that despite my best efforts, there is no way to get a no-loss dismantlement, no matter the time and effort you put into it. You can reach a virtual 100% (the game says 100%) but there will still be a slight loss. As I am a tad maniac on this, having the ability to reach that goal would lead to me trying to reach it every time, but knowing it was unfeasible, I just stopped trying to reach altogether and only aimed for the let milestone For the predictability problem, there are some ships with the AI nodes that will open door and decompress areas randomly, which adds a bit, and some atmosphere regulators can be found broken, forcing you to decompress violently (the auto-closing of the doors is a problem I have with the game too, as cutting them off de-activate the ability to use the atmosphere regulator). Having some cut point be harder on particular ships (not ship model) or simply be painted grey could have been a nice touch. For the story choice, siding with Lou or Kaito could cost you some money and privileges and/or equipment when Hal arrives. Betraying them could have gotten you some Lynx tokens, incentivising the player and leaning into this idea of Lynx turning it's workers against each others I loved this video, please keep up the good work ^^
Lynx *does* punish you for taking a ship apart too slowly, since you have to pay all the rental fees and interest every day regardless of how little you salvage. I think it's reasonable to argue that the daily costs are too low, since basic competence is more than enough to outpace them on any ship, but I think the biggest part of that is the interest rate. It's set absurdly low for our times, let alone an even more dystopic ultra-capitalist future. Given spoilery stuff that happens at the end of the story, I think it could have been better to set the interest rate high enough that all but the most skilled players would quickly be drowning in increasing debt rather than steadily chipping away at it.
I think a lower overall debt but a bigger interest rates would've matched what you say, but as I played, I just saw the absurd amount of money I owe and I didn't really care much for what I was paying, as repaying the full debt was not feasible short of a miracle. Having a hope to actually manage to repay it and see it slip away would have better worked to get the point across
@@eovius You can earn $40m from individual late-game ships, which means you need about 30 ships to be debt-free ignoring interest. Even if you take it slowly and use 5 shifts for each ship like that, that's 150 shifts. Less than half a year of work to get out from under what is supposed to be soul-crushing debt really isn't that bad. I agree though that it could have been cool if the principal was much lower (maybe only 100 million instead of $1.25b) but the interest rate was absurdly high, like 1000% per year or more compounding daily, and you got a teaser interest rate of the current in-game amount for the first handful of shifts. Just enough for you to think it's possible, before all hope is lost.
You make a bunch of great suggestions that would make the game much more challenging and engaging. But I don't think you're the target audience. Lots of people find the game relaxing rather than boring. They listen to the music and chuckle at the story without thinking about it too hard.
Perhaps you're right, but of course I can only analyse a game from my own perspective. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the game on a more relaxed level, and I myself enjoyed the music quite a lot. I don't get the impression that the devs set out to make a relaxing game, however - if they had, they wouldn't have made the player character a debt slave forced into dangerous labour. Again it comes back to a disconnect between player and character - the player might be relaxed, but the character surely isn't. That mismatch leaves me feeling like the game doesn't reach its full potential. Thanks for the thoughtful comment, and I appreciate the comments on my other videos too. It makes my day to know that someone finds the videos on my channel worthy of their attention.
There IS a mode to relax, and it is something that you CAN do, but if there is a story, it is reasonable to think that we can play the game for the story and have the game push us in that direction. What Erumore describes is the game working in perpendicular of the story, going it's own way and letting us choose between having fun and dropping the story or follow the story and loose some of the game's greatness
12:40 Did you and I play the same game? It doesn't matter if you have unlimited shifts. You're losing money every single shift. If you're not getting the premium parts loaded in fast, you're losing money. If you mess up and blow up parts of the ship, you're losing money. If you get yourself killed and have to pay for another body, you lost the rest of your shift and you're losing double money. And yes, there is an O2 meter right there. Yes, it will deplete. Yes, I've been caught too focused on trying to take the ship apart and die trying to rush out of my area and zoom into the store to buy more O2. Multiple times. One time I went so fast with my tether to buy some more O2 that I died from impact damage rather than a lack of oxygen. I think Shipbreaker has the perfect balance of having the time to meticulously pick a ship apart and having a clock that forces you to optimize your time. It's a tough balance, and it could have gone at either extreme and just been not enjoyable at all. A single shift for one huge ship? No thanks!
Good to see you uploading again my man. Not a whole lot of input I can make in regards to this one, as I'm really not big on sandbox games myself, nor Open World now that it's become a dead horse in modern games, but I enjoyed this nonetheless.
Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment! While most of my videos have a single game as their focus, I usually try to draw some lesson or conclusion from them that can be applied when thinking about other games as well, so (I hope) they will still be interesting to someone who hasn't played that particular game. As always, I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed the video.
I like your work, both on Outer Wilds and on Shipbreaker! Looking forward to watching the rest of your videos
I agree with you on most points, though to me, some death felt completely unfair (your clip at 12:58 is a good example of that, where you are in the middle of a space with no atmosphere yet splitting it via the lever sends you flying against the outer part, causing a death by trauma). It tended to break immersion and make me resent the game more than lynx, as a small impact would kill me where thrice the same impact beforehand only cracked my helmet slightly
For the components to collect for old Betty, you can also find some free-floating in each new ship, so running from ship to ship lets you get money and components with no other drawback than missing on later deadlines that are a bit more valuable
Another way (as mentioned in another comment) to add pressure without changing gameplay mechanics would be a lower initial debt but a far greater interest rate, pushing the player to make the most of this 15 minute shift and letting them ponder whether there is still enough resources on the ship and if they were valuable enough to warrant a second shift
I really liked the yellow points to cut, because some ships (the Gecko, for example) make it harder to reach, especially with... *problematic decompressions*. What I did find a bit disappointing is that despite my best efforts, there is no way to get a no-loss dismantlement, no matter the time and effort you put into it. You can reach a virtual 100% (the game says 100%) but there will still be a slight loss. As I am a tad maniac on this, having the ability to reach that goal would lead to me trying to reach it every time, but knowing it was unfeasible, I just stopped trying to reach altogether and only aimed for the let milestone
For the predictability problem, there are some ships with the AI nodes that will open door and decompress areas randomly, which adds a bit, and some atmosphere regulators can be found broken, forcing you to decompress violently (the auto-closing of the doors is a problem I have with the game too, as cutting them off de-activate the ability to use the atmosphere regulator). Having some cut point be harder on particular ships (not ship model) or simply be painted grey could have been a nice touch.
For the story choice, siding with Lou or Kaito could cost you some money and privileges and/or equipment when Hal arrives. Betraying them could have gotten you some Lynx tokens, incentivising the player and leaning into this idea of Lynx turning it's workers against each others
I loved this video, please keep up the good work ^^
I bet it took a lot of restrain not to say "ludo-narrative dissonance" a single time in 30 minutes!
Lynx *does* punish you for taking a ship apart too slowly, since you have to pay all the rental fees and interest every day regardless of how little you salvage. I think it's reasonable to argue that the daily costs are too low, since basic competence is more than enough to outpace them on any ship, but I think the biggest part of that is the interest rate. It's set absurdly low for our times, let alone an even more dystopic ultra-capitalist future. Given spoilery stuff that happens at the end of the story, I think it could have been better to set the interest rate high enough that all but the most skilled players would quickly be drowning in increasing debt rather than steadily chipping away at it.
I think a lower overall debt but a bigger interest rates would've matched what you say, but as I played, I just saw the absurd amount of money I owe and I didn't really care much for what I was paying, as repaying the full debt was not feasible short of a miracle. Having a hope to actually manage to repay it and see it slip away would have better worked to get the point across
@@eovius You can earn $40m from individual late-game ships, which means you need about 30 ships to be debt-free ignoring interest. Even if you take it slowly and use 5 shifts for each ship like that, that's 150 shifts. Less than half a year of work to get out from under what is supposed to be soul-crushing debt really isn't that bad.
I agree though that it could have been cool if the principal was much lower (maybe only 100 million instead of $1.25b) but the interest rate was absurdly high, like 1000% per year or more compounding daily, and you got a teaser interest rate of the current in-game amount for the first handful of shifts. Just enough for you to think it's possible, before all hope is lost.
You make a bunch of great suggestions that would make the game much more challenging and engaging. But I don't think you're the target audience. Lots of people find the game relaxing rather than boring. They listen to the music and chuckle at the story without thinking about it too hard.
Perhaps you're right, but of course I can only analyse a game from my own perspective. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the game on a more relaxed level, and I myself enjoyed the music quite a lot. I don't get the impression that the devs set out to make a relaxing game, however - if they had, they wouldn't have made the player character a debt slave forced into dangerous labour. Again it comes back to a disconnect between player and character - the player might be relaxed, but the character surely isn't. That mismatch leaves me feeling like the game doesn't reach its full potential.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, and I appreciate the comments on my other videos too. It makes my day to know that someone finds the videos on my channel worthy of their attention.
There IS a mode to relax, and it is something that you CAN do, but if there is a story, it is reasonable to think that we can play the game for the story and have the game push us in that direction. What Erumore describes is the game working in perpendicular of the story, going it's own way and letting us choose between having fun and dropping the story or follow the story and loose some of the game's greatness
12:40 Did you and I play the same game? It doesn't matter if you have unlimited shifts. You're losing money every single shift. If you're not getting the premium parts loaded in fast, you're losing money. If you mess up and blow up parts of the ship, you're losing money. If you get yourself killed and have to pay for another body, you lost the rest of your shift and you're losing double money.
And yes, there is an O2 meter right there. Yes, it will deplete. Yes, I've been caught too focused on trying to take the ship apart and die trying to rush out of my area and zoom into the store to buy more O2. Multiple times. One time I went so fast with my tether to buy some more O2 that I died from impact damage rather than a lack of oxygen.
I think Shipbreaker has the perfect balance of having the time to meticulously pick a ship apart and having a clock that forces you to optimize your time. It's a tough balance, and it could have gone at either extreme and just been not enjoyable at all. A single shift for one huge ship? No thanks!
Good to see you uploading again my man.
Not a whole lot of input I can make in regards to this one, as I'm really not big on sandbox games myself, nor Open World now that it's become a dead horse in modern games, but I enjoyed this nonetheless.
Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment!
While most of my videos have a single game as their focus, I usually try to draw some lesson or conclusion from them that can be applied when thinking about other games as well, so (I hope) they will still be interesting to someone who hasn't played that particular game. As always, I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed the video.
Another amazing video.