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Why You've (probably) Never Heard of Rain World
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- Опубліковано 16 сер 2024
- DISCORD: / discord
TWITTER: / htwogamedesign
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Games like Rain World, Hyper Demon, Devil Daggers, and even TF2 Jump and CS Surf. They're not unpopular because they're not good, far from it actually. They're unpopular because of their tremendously high skill floors. Their new player experiences...
Hyper Demon WR (at the time of writing): • Hyper Demon | Former W...
0:00 Intro
0:43 Hyper Demon
4:48 Source Movement
7:27 Rain World
youtube compression really does Hyper Demon dirty, doesn't it
Yeah a little
holy shit i was wondering how anyone played the game when it looks like a drug trip and not in a good way... it's always damn youtube compression
@@42carlos Oh no, it DOES look like a drug trip even in the game. It just looks like a really ugly drug trip with youtube's compression
can i point out that your name is Htwo, but your prof pic is Double H to the second power. which would mean Hfour
this is an interesting video and it kind of reminds me of games on the opposite end of the spectrum with the exact same problem. which if i had to give a name to would be "open world survival sims." games like Dwarf fortress, Kenshi, and project zomboid to name a few. games that have comprehensive tutorials but are so big that they can be overwhelming to new players who just want to jump in and enjoy the game without having to research how not to die for 5 hours. all before they even get what's so fun about the game.
that’s why rain world is the best survival game i’ve played. it literally tells you how to jump, move, and pounce. the rest is to be found out by yourself. 11/10 game
anybody remember *that* feeling you got when you accidentally backflipped for the first time and tried replicating it for just so long?
@@znoopsy yes!! i remember when i accidentally whiplashed😭
@@znoopsy Back flipping was like the first thing I did when I first got control over my slugcat for the first time. I couldn’t do it again until the wiki taught me.
@@znoopsy YES. i lost many minutes until i figured how i did that.
I can consistently do back flips, but struggle so much with wall jumps......XD
Rain World is something special. I think the main problem is that the barrier to entry is quite high due to the nature of the game's difficulty and people who just want cool, fast action aren't willing to put in the time to learn all the mechanics. It's just the way things are, but atleast it's getting appreciation here.
As someone who wants cool fast action, i agree. But this game still has a chair in the committee of my heart.
@@mythmakroxymore1670 Nothing wrong with that, there's a reason why games like Doom are so popular. I meant that it's difficult to attract most people to your game when your game is difficult to access for someone unfamiliar with it.
I am planning to get into rain world, it seems really fun
Rainworld doesn’t completely feel like a game but like a Buddhist exercise honestly. It’s a test of perseverance and patience. Work really really hard and get little reward, or just straight have that progress erased.
@@stoneforest2639 Indeed, and if you've learned at least 20 movement strats, you become a god.
Rain World is frustrating, but it taught me a lot about patience and perseverence when playing games
"Games that will never get popular!" *Makes the games popular*
If I could make Rain World a popular game I would truly be a happy man
@@htwo1 Go for it lad lol
if devil daggers and hyper demon become popular from this video, I'd be happy
@@htwo1 wait is it not? I haven't gotten around to playing it yet but I've seen quite a few videos talking about it and how it has some of the best ai in gaming so I always assumed it was relatively popular for an indie game
@@htwo1 same dude, I've been looking for new gameplay during 3 years and I'm seeing the same gameplays, and still waiting to own a pc to buy it
Rain World's actually gonna get a free update to coincide with the upcoming DLC, which adds a ton of quality of life options to give the game more of a broad appeal.
I couldn't finish it because of how long, frustrating and punishing it was, but this update might get me to finally pick it up again, maybe even buy the DLC.
As a rain world fan, I would say a big reason that the game isn’t more popular is that it isn’t quite fair. You can near the end of a cycle in an area such as sky islands that has very far apart shelters, and a gang of vultures just decide to chill in a room that you need to go through. Some people are into this though. It’s definitely a flawed game and nowhere near perfect, but it’s a pretty damn good ecosystem sim.
I was told to play the game blind, that there's "Nowhere in specific you have to go", just to end up in drainage early and be told "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO THERE", and that apparently this happens to a lot of players. There was a part in sky islands where, if I went as fast as I could, I could reach a 3-way split that, no matter what, I'd only have enough time to explore one of before it would rain. Several attempts later, I learn the hard way the third path I took is the one with a shelter. Felt like I was playing Mario Maker and I was presented with a level you can only beat by picking the right door and praying you got it right.
I think I made it pretty far into the game (where gravity starts turning on and off), but spending 20+ hours exploring and feeling like you haven't been rewarded for it yet, only punished, is very exhausting. I'd have loved to finish it, if not for the fear of sinking more hours in only to be rewarded with a dead end because I didn't know any better.
Thankfully the game is actually getting a free update alongside the DLC that adds a ton of QoL settings to customize the experience. So at this point, I think sweeping these problems under the rug by saying "It's just not for everyone, that's the appeal of the game" is just silly.
@@delaneyelekes8660 it’s a great game tho. I recommend exploring that zero gravity area that you are in a bit more. That’ll give a much better understanding of what you should do. Just be prepared for quite the struggle.
@@cryobyte2170 Nah I'll just wait for the QoL update to drop, I think it'll make the game nicer for me lol. I don't have a deep appreciation for the unfair design like some people do, I'm more interested in the world and exploration, so I don't mind the game being easier.
@@delaneyelekes8660 probably for the better. The area after the zero gravity area is an absolute hell
Also I always figured that the game had a very set path it wanted you to follow. That path for me was always outskirts, industrial, wastes, shoreline, citadel, exterior, pebbles, chimney, sky islands, farm arrays, and subterranean. This places sky islands very far into the game, which I think explains why it’s so difficult. I won’t lie, I actually love the challenge of sky islands, the only issue is the karma gate into it.
The fact I never heard of rain world until one of my friends (who has been into the fandom for a long while) basically dragged me into playing the game in co-op with her. We also made me a puppy-sized slugcat and oh boy... thats exactly how I felt like. A helpless child following my parent and constantly bringing myself in danger.
I was so incredibly lost and if I had not had my friend with the knowledge I would have given up on the game due to it being too frustrating for me. But after we finally reached the end of the game I kind of was down this rabbit hole and two years later now I am still in this rabbit hole called rain world.
Since this day we kinda invite all of our friends into the game this way and our small sluggie friend group has turned pretty big by now.
If I'm gonna be honest, I was in this same similar situation about 7 months ago. My friend introduced me to rainworld with having slightly higher knowledge than me of the game. When we began playing together, we had a blast. But once we beat survivor, we sorta drifted off into our own thing. She slowly drifted away from rainworld, while I stuck to it like the grapple worms from underhang sticking to you. I guess once you actually get the mechanics down, it's only by that time you truly admire the game only after the fact that the one that introduced you to it has long moved on to another...
Seen you comment on other rain world videos and recognised you profile pic
@@monkymode2777 u mean me or sleepyboi?
@@boizer4399 sleepy boi, do you also comment a bunch?
@@monkymode2777 kinda, maybe soon you'll see me in other rw vids
Hi! Ex World Record holder here, thanks for showing Hyper Demon to more people!
On the topic of why some games are niche is due to target audience - all games shown are made for very specific type of people who enjoy challenge and improvement through experimentation and discovery. Especially with Sorath titles, the games are inherently arcade titles, with no story nor clear goal - the gameplay loop revolves around trying to improve your score, so do source movement games where the goal is to get the best times. But I usually think the games being niche works in their favour; HD and DD communities are small yet dedicated it's always exciting to check the leaderboards whenever someone gets a new PB, and in case of HD, the top is REALLY contested with new scores being set in top 10 almost daily.
In the end, good games don't have to be popular, rather, good games will easily amass dedicated yet small playerbases. And their size even works in their favour, where every community member gets to know eachother, and in case with HD it makes the competition that much more exciting considering everyone from the top knows one another. I recon the same magic wouldn't be here were there too many players to count. It applies to many communities, even the mentioned Source movement games and Rain World, where people share their progress, experiences and discoveries in their enthusiastic circles.
The niche titles will remain niche since they weren't made with intent of being a hit or an approachable experience, but rather something one-of-a-kind that's targeted to a very specific group.
Thank you for showing both DD and HD to more people, I can't wait to see more people join the cult of the dagger :)
👍
I did a community service by getting four younger children into rainworld and they loved it! Somehow they got over the difficulty and one of them that was seven years old got to shoreline by himself without my help.
Oh boy wonder what their reaction to a leviathan was
@@VoidWorldGaming that's a funny question considering I walked in on that exact situation of them getting chased by a vulture, and then out of the depths came a leviathan that then ate the vulture barely missing them. they were screaming.🤣
@@jeremyfitzhugh2897 lol that must a wild first encounter I can imagine it already, getting chased by what you think it the biggest creature only for a bigger fish to show up and devour it leaving you speechless as you didn't know that thing existed and you could of been devoured alongside the previously thought to be biggest creature
@@jeremyfitzhugh2897 That sounds like the perfect inroduction to a leviathan you could have, other than getting eaten by one as you cross a screen border
Rain World and Noita are the perfect examples of why sometimes it's better to let your players struggle and suffer in the short term to give them a better pay off later.
Yes, noita is also SUCH a good example of this philosophy. I love noita so much, like the fact tha most people probably never see farther than kolmi and might not even know the orbs exist
Rain world will forever live rent free in my brain regardless of popularity
Jan 19th is gunna be a hell of a day tbh
@@htwo1 that damm orange fat cat
Rain world will forever live rent free in my heart regardless of popularity, too! 👍
It already lived rent free in my head and now with the dlc ill be paying it to stick around.
@@htwo1 you should make a video on the DLC after you play it
I like my games to be hard to learn. When I play a triple A title, 9 time out of 10 I just turned my brain off like I'm watching TV.
Thanks Rain World for helping me to take care of these 2 neurons I've left.
it also helps by allowing you to eat more neurons from other people, too!!!
@@MinhNguyen-ti5yb "Double your neurons today with this simple trick! Moon hate him!"
There are games that have a sort of progressive tutorial. It Steals is probably the best example, because while it gives you an objective, it remains vague about how to play against the monsters. You have to either rely on clues in the map itself or, after dying a few times, resort to the “hint unlocked” page, which gives a detailed explanation. It’s a step in the right direction, made by a horror game which got some massive popularity after its first year of quiet existence. It doesn’t always tell you outright, not if you don’t want the help. You can figure it out for yourself if you want, but it also allows you to stumble through figuring the game out on your own. It Steals is a game that will try to respect your decision to stay as blind as possible, and i highly recommend you give it a shot.
I disagree with the take about the barrier to entry being part of the charm. I think games like Outer Wilds, Portal, and Antichamber do a great job of not explicitly teaching players mechanics, but placing them in a controlled environment where they can learn about them. I played Rain World, and learning mechanics either felt incredibly obvious, like spiders being stunned by flash plants, or hidden to the point where it should have been told, like throwing an object in the air violates newton's second law and gives you forward momentum. When you learn about the storms on Giant's Deep in outer wilds, you're not only placed in an environment where you can focus your attention on it, but you're also able to recover from dealing with it incorrectly much easier.
Rain World is also getting a QoL update too, so people who keep saying "The unfairness is part of the appeal" can finally stop saying that. Like sure, maybe it's part of the appeal to SOME people, but you can 100% fix that for others.
The barrier to entry doesn't give the charm, it's that the methodology of not teaching both gives the game charm and creates a barrier to entry. While the games you mentioned (and The Witness) are about executing teaching better, the games in the video are about games that don't teach at all, and still choose not to compromise by lowering the difficulty. They're two different types of games for two different tastes, of which a person might possess both, none, or one.
Rain World is a unique case where the people who originally got into the game liked it for the latter appeal, but as the game spread via word of mouth and countless artworks, the game became "indirectly accessible". Now the game will introduce a QoL update which internalizes the information that surrounded the game, begging the question, will the de facto new player experience actually change? Is it possible to have an experience that appeals to people who prefer to teach themselves for more than a few years?
(and, for what it's worth, I'll specify that I enjoy both niches, and even games that do teach directly sometimes)
About rain world, i spend all day in the discord helping new players and there is something interesting about expectations.
These "hard games" games which let players figure things out by themselves are often experienced better by "non gamers" since they dont have expectations about how things should work or be taught, while "gamers" have experience with other games and generalize the way they should play in a game into the genre the game is.
The clearest example is the encounter whith LTTM which is a massive "attention check", everything is designed to be as confusing as possible while giving enough information to know what is happening if you stop to think for a second, this is the moment where rain world tests if you are playing the right way and observing reactions and behaviour rather than being impulsive.
-ppl who didnt harm moon saw the first check: shaking hand and making noises loud.
-ppl who just harmed moon didnt see the first check but saw the second: painful scream and violent seizures.
-ppl who just ate 4 neurons didnt see the 2 first checks but saw the 3rd (since you can only eat 4 before being full): retuned to the shelter and saw the stolen enlightment screen and overseer threats
-ppl who actually killed moon arent actually blind, they usually
A: play the game the wrong way by not having enough food even after finishing LTTM which is full of food and managing to have more than 4 hunger points
B: they are expecting "something" to happen, they came here and "there must be a reason" so they come back to eat the last one and see if they unlock some double jump skill or something, because they have the expectation that "there has to be something here, this cant be a dead end" very common if you played other metroidbanias and came thinking this was a metroidbania.
This is never the case with ppl who are starting to play videogames, they dont have much expectations about anything and are more willing to learn the rules and use common logic rather than following.
In fact, i must say i see lots of stupid behaviour, some ppl is extremely blind, after killing lttm i ask them if the overseer showed some images (the big ass red cross with dead slugcat images as a threat) and since they dont pay much attention to anything they often go like "ah yes yes, the yellow worm showed some random images, i didnt understand them".
Also saw ppl extremely stubborn, rain world is a game that rewards playing smart and punishes stubborness, but since they learnt from otehr videogames to "persevere" they spend 8 hours in unfortunate development even if you tell them than there is a different way which is safer, prettier and faster, same thing with the garbage wastes to drainage system gate, a gate designed to have all odds agains the player which ppl decide to bash their head agains for hours instead of catching the hint and leave, or the useless red pearl farm arrays room where i saw ppl thinking there must be something when is just a dead end.
New gamers usually just do whatever they want or think, while gamers very rarely want to actually learn and quit very early these types of games, or play it while blaming the game for "not teaching them how to do that" when nthey just didnt see the hint.
Remember when everyone/the media blew up about how hard the Souls games were/everything got compared to Dark Souls?
Then you play it and it's just a medieval combat sim; you get through 9/10s of it with common sense.
Common sense is rarer than gold in these times.
Drainage system is one of the only times where I'm like "fuck this game" because even the devs have said the area is hard as hell. I just question the placement of a 2 karma gate that leads there, especailly since thats where the game guides you towards. So many people i've seen on 1st playthru including myself getting stuck in drainage, not able to get past the flooded tunnel but not wanting to give up 'progress' because backtracking feels unintuitive.
Aside from that though it's a good game n one i absolutely love.
The thing is is that perseverance can pay off a lot. Yes, I was stuck in Unfortunate Development, but that showed me one of my key strategies for when I'm stuck: try this way a few times, now that way, and see what could work. That's gotten me out of a lot of places that got me very discouraged, and now that I did that basically *all on my own,* I'm not willing to give up again. And if the game rewards exploration, why not just try anyways? Bad things are expected to happen, although they are, well, bad. Sorry if this is a ramble its 1am and idk what I'm doing so I hope this made sense. This is just my take on the comment, everything about it is very good and thought provoking.
Agreed! I made the illustrations for RW and I noticed this a lot when we were demoing the game.
@@miimows Holy, is that Miimows, aka Del Northern, the great artist who made the rain world ilustration scenes and slugcat redesign? :0
your style is the best
I am currently playing Rainworld, and I have to say: it´s easily one of the best games I EVER played! The gameplay is absolutely unique, and you get addicted even when you just have little progress. You get better and better no matter how much you are stuck. And the further you get (you WILL get further, even at the hard places), the more you are fascinated by the incredible world! Poeple say its very hard, that is true - but its also very balanced, since there are ALWAYS noumerous ways to get further, you just have to EXPLORE! The game is an absolute MASTERPIECE!!! 😍😱🤯 (I even bought the soundtrack on Vinyl!)
To this date Rain World is the game that has ofered the most original and immersive experience. I wish more people knew the game because it is a true gem.
Another fun thing in Rain World is that if you master the controls you can get past more or less any creature, regardless of their position, spawn rng, etc. It makes mastering the game feel so rewarding because the movement rewards you by never showing you the death screen, and giving you some high adrenaline clutch escapes.
I tried to backflip a lizard and it catches me in the air
@@HYDROCARBON_XD yep we all do be like that 😂 youtube tutorial vs you do it
Coming back to it after the update and DLC I can say that the new player experience looks a bit better. For starters the prompts between hibernation cycles giving you hints about mechanics that would be hard to discover alone work really well without feeling like a huge dump of information. The way the yellow overseer works seems to have been tweaked too since the prompts directing you to the right regions appear more often and seem to immediately try to direct you out of an area if you're going the complete wrong way (hopefully less players wandering into wrong regions early on and quitting). I also noticed that the suggested path away from Moon to FB has changed entirely and is much nicer to follow.
Overall I'm not a fan of wiki games and having to search for answers online definitely takes away from a game for me. I'm glad to see that rain world has added QOL improvements while still requiring a lot of patience to work through. I'd be more hopeful of new people picking it up now than I was in the past.
rain world was one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had. The fluid gameplay and seeing the world and creatures interact with each other is incredibly satisfying and I honestly doubt Ill ever get so see something like that ever again. Cannot wait for the DLC
oh he is talking about rainworld again isn't he
Great video, I completely agree. I don't think my Rain World experience would have been as good if the game held my hand all the way through like a lot of other games do.
It just adds to the uniqueness of the game and the feeling of being lost in an unknown and hostile world.
Although I think a few accessibility options that didn't mess with the experience too heavily wouldn't hurt, honestly.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a free update called Remix coming out in February that does exactly that. It has a bunch of optional difficulty tweaks that can make the game easier or harder depending on what you’re looking for. I’m sure it still won’t be easy, but hopefully it’ll allow more people to enjoy the game.
@@B_Skizzle Yeah, I saw that, but I'm not sure of what these options will do exactly, I remember one of the toggles being something like "extended tutorial", maybe? Which is a bit vague.
Either way I'm glad there's efforts to make this incredible game more accessible to a wider audience!
@@sunx2d Yeah, that’s one of them. There’s an announcement on the game's Steam page that explains a lot of the options if you want to learn more.
I think another game falling into the “excellent and difficult game, but not too popular” genre would be Don’t Starve or Don’t Starve Together. It’s either you die countless times to learn how the game works, or you constantly peruse the wiki finding out what does what.
Devil daggers & Hyper Demon are two of my absolute favorite games. I love them so much, and I am so glad that I found them. Went out on a limb grabbing DD when I seen it on sale for like $5. I thought “Ah man, that looks kinda like the original quake, I’ll give that a try” oh boy was I wrong. Devil Daggers is one of the most hardcore shooter arena survival games I have ever played. Hyper demon, well, that’s a whole other game I have yet to wrap my head around. As for Rain World, I have heard of it but, I have yet to grab it and play it. It looks absolutely incredible, and like I could sink countless hours into it. This was a great video my man, keep it up! Stay gaming!
The reason why I won't beat Rain World (for now) is not because it doesn't hold my hand, it's because it's so gruesome and gutteral. It made me more paranoid of bugs than ever, it really feels like an ecosystem where there is no rest ever and it made me more stressed than any horror game, and I'm literally scared to play.
Oh gosh, I too share this feeling. Even baby centipede scared me before I learned of their nature. And that's just one creature, because when you catch sigh of a new not-gentle-looking creature, it's natural to be scared of them. The first time I crossed path with a monster kelp, it was one in the drainage system, guarding a couple of passages, I immediately turned back and didn't return; there was the jetfishes too who seemed very dangerous at first.
Then one area I got past, the Shaded Citadel... Oh gosh the nightmare. I somehow managed to get one lantern from a scarvenger (by pure luck, simply that. It passed there, I crouched and let go of my spear, he dropped one lantern, and left.), and even then it was incredibly, utterly terrifying. The spiders. Oh god. And the centipedes. I do not want, nor WILL come back there. It's dark. It cramped. It will awake your inner arachnophobia and turn it to eleven.
It scared me a lot at first but after I powered through it I got used to it
Literally prey animal simulator
I had that on my first playthrough. It kinda went away after I completed first playthrough. If you can make it to the end, I highly recommend it, the end is spectacular and the DLC game modes are awesome! Also, I recommend avoiding Shaded Citadel the first time around, it is a cool area but pretty tough. Chimney Canopy and The Wall are a lot easier.
@@big_sis_moon I think my first playthrough of Rain World was one of the wakiest of them all. I went everywhere BUT the iterators, to the point I didn't visit the wall (I upgraded my karma only with the echoes).
It went like this: outskirst > drainage system > garbage waste > industrial complex > shaded citadel > shoreline > subterranean > drainage system > outskirt > farm array > sky islands > chimey canopy > sky islands > farm arrays > subterranean
Rain world is genuinely one of my favourite games, I’m so happy I decided to get it when it came out despite all of the negative reviews it got! The movement took me about an hour to get used to the basics but when I noticed I could boost off of corners in pipes and would randomly do backflips when turning to run in a panic I began to realise how deep the movement actually was. Then when I started to catch onto what my goal was and seeing all of the new creatures I was completely hooked. The hardest thing I’ve ram into with this game is recommending it to friends and getting them to actually play it.
I also have devil daggers and found that quite fun.
Nice video!
I enjoy all of the games you have mentioned and I think part of the charm is the obscurity of the games. I started playing among us the week it came out in early access on mobile years ago and it was fun until it became popular. The community of smaller games is much better than the community of bigger games, imo.
The lack of a tutorial is also crucial to some games. If you need to learn how to get good, then you need to learn.
I would rather have no tutorial than a god-awful one (looking at you TF2, i have seen many many engies turtle and i know damn well they played the shitty tutorial)
I don't fully agree with the wording of the games "not telling you anything", because these games put a lot of effort into telling the player what is happening. The catch is that these games don't tell you what's going on in English or any other human language. They tell you how the game works through the language of gameplay, which is not a language everyone speaks fluently. I think Hyper Demon and Rain World are much more complex and nebulous with the way they present information to the player, perhaps not in a good way imo. There's dozens of tech in those two games you'd have no chance of understanding without reading a guide, watching footage, or stumbling upon it through experimentation. Devil Daggers, on the other hand, is simple and there's plenty of people who learn all the mechanics without any help. If you pay attention to the sound cues, visual cues, enemy behaviors, read the key config menu for controls, it's all there.
One thing I love about this design approach is that it forces players to talk to eachother. There's something very nostalgic about having to actually interact with other people to understand how to improve at the game.
Fans: "Rain World FUNDAMENTALLY cannot have mass appeal, the unfair design is what makes it great!"
Dev of Rain World: "'By the way I'm gonna add a quality of life options menu to go with the DLC, I understand the unfairness isn't for everyone and I hope this is a good compromise that lowers the barrier of entry."
Hollow knight introduced me to these kind of hard, single player 2D story games. I never really understood how much I cared about a games appearance until I was fascinated with hollow knights graphics. Recently got Rain world and it is the most beautiful pixel art I’ve ever seen.
I really like these games for how they just drop you in and say "good luck" makes me feel special when I figured out the mechanics
I paused this video so I could go buy Rain World without any more being spoiled. Everything about it sounded so intriguing. I'm enjoying it a ton so far. I actually found the beginning pretty easy to understand, now that I'm in the second zone it's quite a bit harder.
Are you in Industrial complex?
I play the game too. And to give a peace of my mind: I wanna explore, I love it when I find the new shelter, the cheer relief of it. But I'm also terrified of exploration. For how simple they look, to me, deaths are absolutely gruesome (even more for the carnivorous plants, and god forbid, the coalescipedes). The Shaded Citadel is, in its own way, worse that a AAA horror game.
And yet I continue to try.
@@lukasprazak7362 I thought this exact thing. I accidentally wandered back to industrial complex several times during my playthrough and the fact of the matter is that Industrial Complex is mf *fulla* lizards, it's a terrifying hellscape to be sure.
@@shoug6555 Actually, I was wondering that the op may have wandered into drainage system. That happened to me.
When I finally got back on track and to industrial complex, it was basically a cakewalk (the industrial complex (and garbage wastes and shoreline), not the game as a whole; in fact, I haven't finished it yet, I just don't have the nerves right now).
I assume you didn't have the displeasure of stumbling into drainage system, or you were already pretty skilled at the game. Believe me, if you are new, that place is the true hellscape.
you've actually sold me on Rain World now, i've known about it & watched your other vid on it but i actually do want to play now. time to wait a year so i forget all those mechanics spoilers
SURF
Also good take thnx for showing momentum mod some love
Rain World absolutely does not have a grueling or unduly punishing new player experience. You already know that the fact that it does not hold your hand through every single learning curve is an artistic choice, but I'm here to tell you that it's not painful if you aren't preconditioned to feel averse to such experiences. I've been playing it intermittently with a friend's daughter who isn't even 10 yet and lacks almost all of the fundamental gaming training that we all take for granted, so she's already lost and unprepared *just to play a game with a keyboard instead of an iPad on-screen-controller.* The magical thing is, Rain World *already knows* she's lost. It *expected* that. She can barely use the basic movement system, but she doesn't care. She's already hiding from lizards and watching them and making inferences about their thought patterns and behaviors based only on the simple audio-visual information the game provides about its world. Even as far as platforming is concerned, the best solutions in Rain World are almost always the easiest, most reliable platforming mechanic. It really never *requires* you to use anything more advanced than wall to wall jumping.
Most of the hardest challenges in Rain World only require the patience and creativity you could bring to bare if you weren't so bogged down with decades of assumptions and conditioning. The reason it will "never be popular" is not because of a barrier to entry, there is no barrier to entry really at all. You just enter the game, and if you're actually still open and inquisitive, it's instantly exciting and transports you to another world.
Rain world is exhausting, yes, and I’ve gotten really frustrated with it, yes. But it is a spectacular game. The nuances of the AI, the attention to atmospheric detail, the story, the layers of unlocking, the movement progressively getting more rewarding and second nature- y’all, listen.
It’s hard. Like you have to want it. You have to have that confounded gamer determination. If you’re not those things, then it might not be fore you. I wanna say “just try it!” But I know how hard it is, and don’t wanna sway people to try something they might hate.
But.
If it sounds remotely interesting?
Like even just watch someone else play on UA-cam then go get it yourself. Or get it partway through a play through. Or just jump in blind. Death isn’t a setback, it’s a chance to learn something new. To make it a few steps further each time and slowly become a master. And this game has also made me cry.
It’s rewarding when you finally get it, and my stars, I wanna be so good at this game. I’m gonna stick with it. It gets like 8.5/10 stars from me for real, deductions simply for that initial learning barrier being so hard. But it’s worth it.
on january 19th, there will be a free update with sort of accessibility settings like "extra turorials" or "loading screen tips"
i just hope they wont be toggled by default, but if not, it might just solve a part of the issue
I believe that's also the release date for the DLC
@@polytanksan5761 it is
Everything about Rain World is incredible. I highly recommend it to everybody. Even if you're not one for difficult games, I still recommend it, because you can at least play the Monk, which is the "easy" mode. If you have to look up some tips and tricks or guides or whatever, then do that. It's a one of a kind experience.
I like that Hyper Demon's leaderboard has motion blur lmao
when I saw rainworld AND hyperdemon in the same frame my brain throbbed a little at the idea that someone else on this crust had a sense of good taste
Clicked because of devil daggers left with the impression that rain world more than likely took inspiration from this one game called Tokyo jungle
Absolutely agree with the second point you made, about community content using one program to do something it's not meant for. As somebody who's (trying) to make a parkour map in Raft, an open-world survival game with not-so-great physics and basically 0 ground for writing text, teaching advanced tech that actually makes the gameplay fun is so fruiting to work around. Still fun to make though 👍
That hand went from demon fire to full psychedelic
Crypt of the Necrodancer is a game who could fit, but different from the games on the list, the game is not hard because you need to learn everything alone, but is because the game is just very hard. Most of the people who played it didn't played much, and said they recommend the game because the ideia is cool (almost half of the players haven't the zone 1 achievement). I still love it though, but sadly most people didn't got so far on the game
Hyper demon looks like it was designed to Trigger people's epilepsy. I don't have that but still it hurts my eyes and I can barely comprehend it at least devil dangers is comprehendable
Despite not being able to sink my teeth into these games, I adore them for being what they are. Hard arcade games like devil daggers showcase mastery at a level which i could only dream of achieving, and worlds such as rainworld are immensely fascinating. Yet despite that, when I tried those games I gave up rather quickly, and thats ok. Those games werent made for a casual audience like me, they where made for those who relish having a challenge. I think what I love most about them is that indie devs make these types of games knowing full well that consistent player counts will rarely ever go above double digits, and this really showcases the developers passions for their projects.
Honestly, fuck being kind to the player, you get a much better experience when you figure things out yourself. It's like cooking, it's fun to eat the cake, but it's more exciting to bake it.
I think Noita, although a very different game, has a very similar deal,
Its tutorial literally is: on this rock is written that awsd, also mouse,
Switch item slots like this, and this button does something, look its a kick,
What you got to curios, switched wands, shot and did not run from the bomb you produced, get gud scrub,
I like the fact that the game introduces itself this way, it is hard yes, but also rewarding when you figure something new out.
yeah i love how noita's tutorial is just three rocks
But in noita you can kill anything you encounter basically with the first "weapon" and in rain world i struggle with green crocodiles
@@funguy398 try killing the fire wizard with the starting wand,
Also I would argue that a lot of the danger in noita comes from the envoirment, fire hydrants and regular fire for example, deal a lot of damage, in addition, in noita it is really easy to be a danger for yourself, by for instance using any electricity or explosive spell its real easy to end your whole career.
I have like 3 hours on Rain World so far, and it has clapped my ass unfairly so many times already, it takes effort to launch it again. I remember leaving the outskirts, looking around at the new place I just discovered, and just before I went to sleep there, a lizard has dropped 3 stories, right onto my head, and killed me instantly. Ofc I had to go back grinding the Outskirts again.
10:44 Thank you SO MUCH for including that shot. I'm in this exact area right now and would have never figured out that I have to ride the deer to get across the plants.
Rock n Stone!!! I love your videos and would love seeing you talk about another unknown game deep rock galactic.
Rainworld couldve been Hollow Knight, both games got me into indie games in general and both captivated me with both gameplay and atmosphere but while games journalists chose to adore HK, treating it like the Dark Souls of indie games, they chose to say ''rainworld too hard'' and doom rainworld to be a niche game, its odd how sometimes difficulty makes people like a game ''its the dark souls of whatever genere'' ''this game doesnt hold your hand, it respects the intelligence of the player'', Rainworld couldve gone mainstream, thats what pains me the most, its not so wierd that its necesarily forced into being obscure.
Song name is "Out of Whose Womb Came The Ice?" By Chris Christodoulou. It's part of the OST for Risk of Rain 2. Another masterpiece of a game, this one is.
I like how more then half the video is not about rain world despite being in the title
I wanted to play rain world for myself, and im a very impatient person so i looked up longplays, and ignored spoilers just to see what the game was about. And i regret that decision so much, because now i know everything! How Karma works, what echo's are, how each slugcat plays, etc. I still plan on getting and playing the game one day, but the experience will be very simple now that I've ruined the challenge for myself. If anyone reading this wants to get into rain world, don't make my mistake and go in blind.
i feel like Dwarf Fortress fits into the category of "obscure complicated hard game that has little to no handholding" as well. I mean it has a wiki but it's not much help
You're a legend for bringing more attention to these wonderful games 👌
A game that would enter perfectly in the video, (and that i never see anyone talking about) is OneShot
The first time i heard rainworld is from game maker toolkit explaining about the enemy's ai
thanks for spoiling part of the discovery you were gushing about 🤣
for real though, great video, I just wish I hadn't clicked on it before finishing my first playthrough of Rain World
Another really great game like this that I’ve found is Noita. It’s a 2D pixel art rogue-like where every pixel is simulated. I only just started playing it with about ten hours, but it immediately caught my interest with its seemingly deep gameplay features that are really well designed for players to figure them out. It tells you about as much as Rain World does in its tutorial (basic movement and shooting/melee binds), leaving essentially everything to be discovered. In most rogue-likes/lites that I play, I can beat the initial difficulty in a few tries, but this game is sooooo much more unforgiving, and is more like a puzzle than anything.
I think a good compromise is the easy implimentation of mods into the game. The developers are very open about that and gives a lot of accessability-functions
Honestly, I think Rain world is really cool. I like the story a lot and I like it's design philosophy, everything. But I just can't play it myself. I don't have the attention span for it, and I'm just not good enough at games in general. I feel like it would frustrate or bore me long before I ever got good enough at it to make significant progress. But I still appreciate the game itself, and I REALLY like the story and the way the mechanics of the game tie into the interesting narrative the game tells.
hyper demon is just, epilepsy : the game. Yet i feel so intrigued by this puke of radiant colors
Please do more rain world content! It's such a fascinating game!
Why is it that almost every time someone makes a video with a title like "Why you've probably never heard of (Game)" the specific title they are talking about is usually not at all obscure, but actually extremely popular and basically everyone who is interested in the genre will have already definitely heard of it and probably have played it also? Rain World was published by the extremely popular Adult Swim. It came out on Steam, PS4 and Switch. It has sold to-date more than 232,000 copies on Steam with close to 92% positive reviews. While I don't have the confirmed stats for how many copies it also sold across PS4 and Switch, I would guess that (considering both of those platforms also comprise a larger percentage of the overall gaming market than Steam and also because the Switch is arguably the most popular console of the modern era for platformers) they sold at least twice as many copies as have been sold on Steam alone (but, realistically, probably more). Rain World is not obscure. It's a great game, yes, but not the "hidden gem" that you're trying to sell it to your audience as.
heres the thing
i used the wiki for rain world a lot to help me get into it, and while my it may have made the game worse overall, im very glad i did bc now i actully enjoying this game and play it and its a great game
That begs the question how league of legends became such a popular game. The tutorial is basically useless and if you don't have friends that explain the game to you, you have to learn over 160 champions with 5 abilities each, items, builds, combos, jungeling etc.
It also doesn't add much to the game, it just makes you lose more games than you should.
gotta love how half the video is about source movement (I FUCKING LOVE RAINWORLD)
So, I have to agree here, BUT there is one game(and it's in development sequel) that doesn't hold your hand, wants you to suffer, and will watch you cry, but still is somewhat popular. Enter My Summer Car. This game is basically a life sim revolving around a car(Location: Finland. Year: 1995) meant to be as hard as possible, and it is a sharp learning curve to use it, but if you look at twitch or youtube, this game basically has built up a massive community, and has become somewhat popular.
i never understood people saying rain world is hard
the game gives you infinite lives, most of the enemies can be either jumped over or dealt with if you have a spear/rock in your hand or if you just hide in a burrow or climb up a pipe(not to mention that you are faster than half of the creatures), you get a massive opening when you get caught that still lets you attack the lizards so you can escape them, the karma system barely is and actual ploblem depending on which character you play and can be ignored most of the time, there are some shelters that are at an absurd short range, the food mechanic is pretty much a pushover and its more so when you choose a carnivore slugcat, most surprise threats can be bypassed if you have good reflex and know about the colors in the pipes and do i even need to mention monk campaign?
tho the rot and shaded cidadel are really hard i agree with that part
Full disclosure, I came into the game on recommendation for a game to explore and get lost in, and I can only speak for myself since I dropped it around the halfway mark; the skill ceiling was not the hard part for me. All it took was doing some searches for guides to fix any misunderstanding.
My main issue with the game was the map was gigantic but had no incentive to explore it, the only things you got were unlocks for the Arena. Going off the beaten path was cool, but it was kinda dumb that the path they wanted you to follow was the first that had silkworms, something fun that used its silly physics to their advantage. It also didn't help that their version of a fast travel was locked behind in game achievements and was limited to like.. 8 uses; so you have a colossal map that you have to go through by foot. I get that it would lessen the harsh survival aesthetic but that also makes it less fun to explore personally.
A lesser gripe was that if you held a spear, other spears wouldn't be highlighted if you passed them which means you had to really pay attention to the pure black foreground for something that could just be a random pole shape and not a spear. It also means you'd have to go in to pick up and stab the creature you just hit with it, leaving yourself open to instant death, lowering your meditation level and having to grind that back up if you wanted to pass any roadblocks.
And the final nail in the coffin was that because the AI was either smart or so stupid it was smart, the damn things would camp tunnel exits. Or you'd come out of a Shelter to dreadfully get back to the new area you were figuring out just for a centipede to hog a narrow corridor to the quickest route. Or worse case, I'd have a big centipede in a Shelter. A Shelter.
I think the final nail in the coffin was getting to the top of The Leg just to get rained on, or it was reaching the very bottom of the map just to have no clear exit. I remember both of those experiences leaving me very defeated.
Personally I didn’t like how it pretty much tells me to go to drainage system because it is a lower cycle, I get all the way through it, get to subterranean, get all the way through it, get to depths, and pretty much the game just says this was all pointless and I need to go across the entire map to get more karma then go all the way back. That thoroughly killed the experience for me honestly
propsurfing in garry's mod
very very fun, and it provides a use for surfing mechanics in a competitive environment
I think there can be games that can't be popular but the "brand" they come from can be like Touhou where the games aren't that popular but the property is actually quite popular.
this video made me play rain world and now its my fav game. Thank you
I actually found Rainworld thanks to some artist i followed, and as soon as i saw how the game sort of worked, i decided to play it myself all blind.
I'm still on the learning but uff, gotta say this game was exactly what i've been looking for.
local AAA slave perplexed after discovering indie games and source gamemodes, more at 9
hyper demon could've just been an ultra seizure mode for devil daggers
As a person who was only able to enjoy rain world after some visits to the wiki, it didn't feel like "learning", but trying absolutely random things in hopes that one of in a million of them works. Like, if you don't want to rely on randomly discovering game mechanics with low chance of occurrence, you'd need to bang your head against a wall and hope that in 10 square kilometers you'll eventually find a hole. This is literally how discovering movement tech feels like. Is that really a rewarding learning experience?? I have platinum on downpour, so it's not that I'm bad or lack dedication to learn, I'll forever hate this absurd lack of clarity in some aspects that leads to massive wastes of time on the player's part (on my first playthrough i went outskirts - drainage - subterranean - depths and was stuck there for a while, yeah, SO fun)
Obviously I'm hard malding, but i don't think rain world should be praised for it's lack of accessibility. There must be a better way to implement the sense of discovery in a game than this
just got rain world today, and i want to watch this but i dont want spoilers
Pleasant surprise hearing some Rivals of Aether music in the intro
Haven't even watched the video yet, but if we're talking about Rain World, I gotta hand in my 63 minutes of playtime and say it. Too difficult, I've been raised on high-octane shooters so of course I like hack n' slash and light strategy games. Rain World attracted me initially due to it being a Metroidvania, but I never actually expected the game to have such a high skill floor that'd need a significant amount of time to actually get past to start properly playing. Controls were a bit annoying but isn't as big of a reason as what I already mentioned.
I'm still wondering if I should give it another try any time soon...
to be honest rain world really isn't a metroidvania; it doesn't share any of the common characteristics besides non-linear regions. Honestly I feel like the metroidvania comparison is detrimental to the game, because If you go in expecting that hollow knight-esque experience, you're bound to be disappointed. However, if you treat it as an exploration game, where you experiment and are rewarded for your own discoveries, it can be an incredible experience. Personally it's my absolute favourite game, the complexity of both the enemies and movement make it very rewarding to get good at.
there's a DLC coming out pretty soon, that will also include a free update which adds optional tutorials and other improvements to make the game more accessible to newcomers. So if you're still interested, maybe give it another try after Jan 19!
I had the worst experience playing the game, and I wanted to enjoy it. I entered Drainage and the Sky Islands early, and was told I was "going the wrong way." You're told to follow the yellow worm but, the yellow worm doesn't appear in EVERY room, and the second you veer off track as a result, it stops appearing, meaning you can go hours without realizing there's even a hint system at all. And complex movement sounds fun, but you're not gonna figure out speedrun strats without looking up all the complex moves you can do, so as cool as that is it's not something everyone can appreciate. The game also goes VERY long periods of time without rewarding you with anything, but it CONSTANTLY throws dead ends at you to waste your time.
Thankfully the game is getting a QoL settings menu as a free update to go along with the release of the DLC. So people can stop saying "The game being hard to get into is a good thing, it's the nature of the game and it can't be changed."
Immersion is the key, to enjoy Rain World you must act like a cat, stealth is your best friend and don't worry about dying!
@@vixian3127 Oh yeah, definitely not a Metroidvania. Instead, I like to think of it as a "Metroidbrainia" (not my term but I forget where I got it from). Basically, instead of gaining mechanical upgrades, you’re building up a base of knowledge as you progress. The end effect is similar in that you expand your toolset over time, but with a Metroidbrainia, you take that toolset with you into future playthroughs. It’s why you can only truly experience a game like Outer Wilds once.
Rain world holds a place in my heart, despite starting to play recently.
Also, i don't understand how people say that artificer's easier than Gourmand. i've litearly made no progress in artificer, while i litearly got to chimney canopy as Gourmand.
Also, my main food are lizards now...
I finished the survivor and hunter campaign and didn't know the bit about the centipedes. Thanks.
Rain World is indeed a wonderful game, but for newcomers there is a design problem : the map system.
As it is a 2D game, you can't see far away or look around, so you may have to rely on the map. But the map only shows you your track, and it is very complicated because it has 3 layers!
Although exploring and discovering is fun, but I personally thought it would be helpful if the map showed the rough location of the gates leading to different area.
Thank you for great video Htwo!
Rain World is great, I really love that game. The way the developers manage to simulate this dynamic, natural world is really great.
I love rain world! I just really really really suck. I would love to learn more about how to survive.
It's not that you suck, the game can just be really unfair. Don't listen to people who say it just requires mastery- A lot of the mastery involves techniques you wouldn't know unless you looked it up, and there's still a lot that can trip you up.
There's a reason the dev plans on updating the game to add QoL changes.
It teaches you skills that your can use and refine outside of the game.
Dwarf Fortress is a game that will NEVER be popular. It's too convoluted for most people to get any enjoyment out of.
dark souls exists tho and that game alone can make this entire video unvalid but i honestly agree with everything you said in this video, when i first got into rain world it was honestly the most confusing game ever but by time i got used to the mechanics and learned to adapt to the nature by watching the creatures intaract while i sit in a pipe and there was a time where i figured out that scavengers interact by hand signs in my first playthru and i thought i was so slick but turns out when they hold the spear up you shouldent approach :)) this is why games that throw you without holding your hands are so fun and this is why rain world is honestly the best survival game ever made
I mean, I compare rain world to darkest dungeon and subnautica to some point since I'm a new player, and I love both of them, learning, getting crushed because the AI and RNG didnt like you sometime in darkest dungeon, are experiences that make you learn how to deal with defeat, games now are just "win" to psicologicaly manipulate the player, they dont teach you about defeat, learning from your mistakes or deal with problems.
For example what is in the video about learning from the enemies in rain world, I compare it to subnautica when I started to learn how to fight and deal with reaper leviathans because I was afraid and angry at them.
Gotta admit the game has a very steep learning curve, like, in the beginning its really-really hard since you don't know nothing about: the surrounding location, what hazards are to be awared of, what enemies exist and what can they do, hell, even what your slugcat can do wont reach you from the start 😅
Once you get used to this dangerous world and what to expect from it, you really start to enjoy the game since you're prepared and have tools to manage your journey go on.
My problem with such games was always a fear for my character, too afraid to loose it - and that's why my progress at the beginning was thaaat slow, I was just scared to risk and learn stuff.
Tried to collect as much karma as I could in hopes to keep it like that. But a better strategy was to stay level 1 karma and just explore what are limits of my char and enemies, die a lot of times, but to learn not just about the game, but also to overcome the fear. Remember how I was scared AF those flying noodles but turned out those were just an easy prey 🙃
I mean, that's technically not true, because YT has already dozens (if not hundreds) of videos about Rain World, some of them contains few thousands views, other contains hundreds of thousands and few of them got even million of views, and videos about RW starts to poping out in my recommendations more and more recently, which means it's in fact becomes more and more known, same goes to Oneshot, which people still calling underrated and unpopular but their videos actually has hundreds of thousands and millions views. Comparing to 8 billions people living on Earth 1-2 millions are not much, but by itself, without comparison it's a damn huge amount of people, who actually know about this and other games.
You should have titled this video hyper demon... and rain world
Once I figured out how to play this it became the 1 survival game I ever enjoyed
i looked at the rain world wiki when i played
i remember that i still learned a lot by my self but still
this game "hyper demon" seems to fit my bill quite well
i might try something new and this time avoid my previous mistakes
Me and my over a thousand hours of this game in just a couple months (most played game ever for me, on Steam anyway) can confirm that Rain World is amazing lol
Rain world Is absolutely one of the best games ever made, but the argument is bonkers. High entry barrier is not what makes it good. Its emergent complexity and absolute freedom make it so memorable. The high entry barrier is merely a consequence of this complexity, and it's absolutely in our power to tune that down to humane levels.
The game could have taught you much better indirectly. Lots of mechanics rely on you grabbing things, yet things aren't universally grabbable. There's just too little stuff to grab to reliably establish "grabbing" as the main progression paradigm. That's why people routinely hit the wall with grappling worms or raindeer. Not because they're stupid peons afraid of exploration.
I like rain world, but I rarely touch it because the difficulty and risk and all that intimidates me too much ):
I feel you. I’ve completed the game multiple times and I still have to be in a particular mood to play it. If I can offer you an unsolicited tip, try to take your time and pay attention to the little intricacies of how different creatures behave, both on their own and around each other. You just might be able to use that knowledge against them.
@@B_Skizzle thanks for the tip! This video sort of gave me some motivation to play this game a bit, so I’m hoping to play more of it soon.
The new update, Remix, released a bunch of difficulty-altering and accessibility options, perhaps try playing around with those until the game feels more comfortable
Bro it hurts to know my favorite game wont be as popular as other games