The Best Genre Still Has No Name
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- Опубліковано 21 чер 2024
- There are 10 hidden jokes you must collect in this video to get the true ending.
I'm a small, part time creator who would love to have more time in the day to make videos like this one. Liking, sharing, and subbing helps me to do that. Let me know what you think about this genre, or if you think there's a better name than "Metroidbrainia". Thanks for watching!
#animalwell #outerwilds #fez #tunic #thewitness - Ігри
I love the spoiler free real life footage when talking about the witness, where people who KNOW are seeing it instantly and everyone else is just seeing random outdoor shots
I was using my finger on the screen T_T
I really thought it was just randomly outdoor shots
Outer wilds legitimately changed the whole way I view video games. Truly incredible experience
It truly changed the way I look at game dev
Knowledge-based progression
'Research Action'
@@KillahMate wow that's a fantastic name. I like your play on "Search Action" given that that is the alternate name for Metroidvanias
When I first discovered TUNIC, I didn't see many people talking about it, or at least not as many people as I think should've been talking about it. I think that, at first, most people will brush it off as just a cute, cozy zelda-like. I, too, brushed it off like this. But the game stuck with me, it gnawed at my mind, and eventually I caved and got it. To this day, nearly a year after I first beat it, it is my favorite game I've ever played. Every moment is shrouded in this immaculate air (air, heir) of mystery, and when you finally unlock that last bit of knowledge that unclouds the mystery, and it feels soooo.... intimate. I can't recommend TUNIC enough to anyone who hasn't played it. And if you do, please go in blind.
was so hype for this game but it kicked my ass. maybe i should try it again
Agreed, the balance of the combat, adventure and puzzle aspects is just wonderful. I would also recommend Environmental Station Alpha in the same vein. It is a bit more demanding mechanically but I've found a very similar feeling as I progressed and eventually completed it.
Tunic has become my favorite game of all time recently. I first played it a couple of years ago, but I realized recently that I gushed about it continually.
It's such a beautiful combination of Zelda, Dark Souls, Fez, and Outer Wilds.
Do it. @@Kontrazt1990
I teach the language. ;3
I sometimes refer to this type of games as "rabbit hole games", because they have these moments of sublime epiphany that recontextualizes everything, kind of like falling into a rabbit hole. Baba is You is a great example for that - the puzzles are fantastic on its own, but the moment you realize how to reach that damn island on the overworld screen you also realize that the whole game is even deeper and more complex than you ever imagined.
Outer Wilds soundrack made me cry instantly. Good job on not spoiling expirience of mentioned titles.
I cri everytim :(
Still best game in this genre is Rain World. You have unlocked everything (except 1 thing) from the start. Can go anywhere. Only knowledge limits you.
yes
I like hk more tho
I was filtered hard by Rain World and stopped after a few hours. I've seen several people who have said that as well, only to have given it a second chance, then "got it" and loved it. I intend to go back to it some day when I can set aside some time.
Because Outer Wilds is a metroidbrania, then it has to be my favorite. Only the lack of knowledge is in your way. Rain World sounds fun I might try it
@@tin_sensei yeah, it was quite the same for me. hated it on my first few hours, friends convinced me to try it again, fell in love with 500 hours now. think the game is just too harsh to immediately understand.
Phil Fish: The game is based off Riven.
Blow: The game is based off Myst.
Outer Wilds dev: We conceptualized it as a text adventure.
Gamers: No, let's give more credit to Nintendo.
I agree that Outer wild is basically the definitive "metroidbrainia". I almost prefer the term "wildslike" for this genre since many of the games are so far removed from traditional metroidvanias.
Eh, this is my favorite genre of game and for some reason I just couldn't stand outer wilds
I personaly have heard that Outer Wild would more likely be a "KnowledgeVania", the name is pretty self-explainatory, it's a metroivania where you are not block because of lacking powers but because of lacking knowledge. I like it more
I think the issue with Outer Wilds being called a metroidbrania is most of what you can see you can get to right at the beginning even with no knowledge. You're knowledge doesn't reveal the map more so what you know about the world. I feel like a core part of the Metroidvania games is unlocking new areas of the world to find and explore. Sure that exists in Outer Wilds to a degree but then there are games like Obra Dinn that shares a lot of its game dna with OW which I would put in the same genre, but no one would argue Obra Dinn is a Metroidvania or even close to it. I like the term "wildslike" for games where you progress with knowledge and in general a lot of these games overlap well with the metroidvania genre.
@@camdenwyeth316it’s a story puzzle game so if you love exploration and adventure and digging for lore in this game this game makes reading lore the way to gain knowledge to advance further
Why Outer Wilds? FEZ popularized this. Or do we still like slighting Phil Fish.
The best videogame subgenre. It's hard to decide whether a game belongs, but imo any puzzle game that makes me go "Wait, I could've done that the ENTIRE TIME?" several times fits. I also think the existence of some puzzles should be hidden right under the player's nose. Here's a list of games I've played that did both:
TUNIC
Outer Wilds
The Witness
A Monster's Expedition
Leap Year
Can of Wormholes
Linelith
Elechead
N Step Steve Parts 1 & 2
Toki Tori 2
Aliensrock the goat!!
This video is so good, hypes the games up without spoiling anything important. I hope this makes people try out Tunic and the other classics in this subgenre :D
I see Antichamber in thumbnail, I click. Simple as that.
One of my favorite games which is also among the most misunderstood games
Same. Such an underrated gem.
Antichamber appreciation club here ^^^
Game is ahead of it time , I wish the dev makes a sequel or just remake it with more mechanics and better art style
Thanks, was trying to remember the name of it. Was thinking it was Manifold Garden as I haven't played that either.
When I heard the Outer Wilds Soundtrack kick in, I knew this was gonna be a really good vid
The smile on my face when it came on.
Noita would fit this description in the roquelike category
I will give it to the fez devs that it is extremely funny that they have been radio silent on the black monolith solution except for one instance like 7 years after the game released when they came out and said that the release date theory was wrong, the most popular and assumed by the fanbase to be the intended solution. Absolute legends lmao
Although checking on old forums and seeing statements on people who claim to know the devs it seems pretty likely that the black monolith solution is actually hidden in the images of the soundtrack, as they said something along the lines of "you guys should wait until the soundtrack is out". Maybe the black monolith represents that black part in the spectrogram before they put an image? Who knows
Also another thing of note is that in an interview with Phil 10 years after the game came out he said that bruteforcing the puzzle was a much cooler solution than the one he planned. So there's that. Maybe it has something to do with the heartbreak code, which was intended to be datamined, as some sort of symbolism with how game completionism culture and squeezing every drop of content out of games is killing them and the developers
I'm so normal about this game trust me guys
If I remember correctly, the solution as the community has discovered it was actually related to the release date of the game, as well as the poetry in the book.
*SPOILER*
The date of the release gave a code of numbers that one could reorder the pages of the book. Reading them in that order, then (I forget how) translating those letters to numbers, and from that to inputs is the solution as we understand it so far
@@indigonao9864 no that's the theory that was proven to be wrong lmao. The devs already said that planning a game to be released on a specific day is something very hard to do and they just barely made it to the deadline with some insane crunch, so there's no way they made a whole puzzle about it
Dude, I waited until earlier this year, having had fez in my steam library since release, to finally play it and when I finally started looking some stuff up that part kind of pissed me off lol.
There's something so cool about having a notebook full of weird scribbles trying to figure out stuff in games like The Witness and FEZ
This is one of those videos for me where I think "Wow this video is really well made! This guy must have a lot of subs." It turns out you don't, but you definetly deserve them!
Found you through the Lego Racers video & now I'm enjoying everything you have on offer ;)
There's a Lego Racers video?!
Finally, a UA-cam channel for me.
same
Hoping he does more of this kind of gaming content!
That's why this guy turned up in my feed again! I thought it was another lego racing game (that I can't remember the name of) and only watched a couple of minutes.
I am commenting this so that this video gets boosted in the algorithm so more people see it and make games like these
Leap Year released like a week before this video and is a pinnacle distillation of a pure metroidbrainia. Zero unlockable items as progression is exclusively knowledge gated. Captures the entire spirit of the genre within an under 2 hour play time.
yoo was waiting for someone to mention leap year
adding it to the list, thank you
I've seen people calling those games "knowledge-based" games and I prefer that term. It's not a genre on its own, it has to be paired with other genres. Just like you would say "an action-adventure roguelike game", you could simply say "a knowledge-based 2D platformer".
I would define Outer Wilds as a 3D exploration knowledge-based game for instance.
"I explore around and find things that unlock new areas" is the category of Adventure Games, of which Metroidvania is a subset.
Zelda isn't a game that could have been called a Metroidvania if it weren't for an arbitrary rule about 2D platforming. Rather, Zeldas and Metroidvanias are different kinds of Adventure games (and, in fact, different kinds of Action Adventure games.)
Like... I shouldn't get so worked up about this. Genres are marketing categories, and they are notoriously non-systematic. People shouldn't fight over buzzwords devised or pushed by salesmen. But freaking text adventures and point and click adventures have the explore/unlock loop. Adventure as a genre predates Metroid and Castlevania by a good large amount, and both Metroid, and Castlevania, and for that matter Zelda, are consciously trying to be Adventures. And every five minutes some UA-camr notices, "hey, this broader swath of games has something in common with Metroidvanias," but doesn't notice that, yes, and that broader swath already has a perfectly good name that has nothing wrong with it, and Metroidvanias have always intended to be part of that broader swath, man, it bugs me.
I think that most of the problem comes with how restrictive these weird genres are since a lot of the time these genres fill a very niche type of game which I think inherently narrows a games potential if it’s trying to fit itself into that genre. For example with the roguelike genre, these games all have the mechanic of completely or at least mostly resetting your progress whenever you fail a challenge or die and also maybe giving you rewards based on how well you did. They also seem to mostly be top down, intense action games which rely on lots of randomness to provide a fresh experience whenever you restart. Although there are some good games here, there aren’t many that stand out on their own as unique or interesting however if we loosened the definition and mostly focused on the action and resetting mechanic then a lot more interesting games are now included like Zelda majora’s mask and I think there would be a lot more interesting games like majora’s mask if people didn’t try to develop games for very specific genres.
All of these games are based off Colossal Cave and later Myst/Riven. It's fucking embarrassing how badly game history has failed these kids. Phil Fish: The game is based off Riven. Blow: The game is based off Myst. Outer Wilds Devs: It was envisioned as a text adventure. Gamers: What do we call this genre. Morons man...
Ok, I agree with you, but I have to say, *clutching a plucked chicken* "Behold! A man!"
@@theletsplaycurse Funny you say that because there were plenty of interesting roguelikes, which all got thrown under the bus once games like FTL, Rogue Legacy and Binding of Isaac came out and people redefined roguelikes to include those games, and yet people are still making interesting games in those genres.
Majora's Mask also has little to do with roguelikes, be they modern, classic, antique or what have you. It's an action adventure game with a time-loop thematic and mechanic. I'm not even sure of what you're asking for, devs aren't following a checklist when making games to make sure they fit in a genre.
@@LutraLovegood see that’s kind of my problem, I said specifically majora’s mask could be considered a roguelike if we loosened the definition to games that reset your progress before allowing you to progress further which I think would be healthy for the genre overall if it was considered to be such. What I would want to come from this is that developers would be able to be a lot more creative and create games with a much broader appeal.
I call them puzzlevanias
I'm a simple man. You put that outer wilds soundtrack anywhere and I'm instantly hooked.
My all time favourite "metroidbrainia" must be the puzzle book "ABDEC". All except the basics of the rule set is not told AND solution validation is obviously not automatic. The only way to learn the rules is to check that thy rule set gives a unique solution to every puzzle. It also of course has non-linear progression and meta puzzles :). The point about non-automatic solution validation is really clever and is something that more games should use
I suppose Return of the Obra Din somewhat does this as well, by only validating I think triplets as opposed to individual solutions
Whoa, that book looks cool as hell!!
A game I see no one mention in this genre is Heaven's Vault. It was amazing. You go diacovering a forgotten language to discover the past of the world. Id say its a story game with the metroidbrania aspect being in the language but its AMAZING everyone in this genre needs to try it.
Also, there are so many ways to reach the many endings this has and things you can miss and still finish the game
Not to mention it has replayability and I still think people Haven't solved everything about the game
For anyone else interested in these Metroidbrania or Knowledge-Based Games, I recommend both:
- Void Stranger: puzzle focused
- Rain World: exploration kinda, it's hard as hell but worth it
As much as I enjoy Rain World, it doesn't really fit the Knowledge-based genre so well since all you're "learning" is how to get where you're going. Unlike Outer Wilds, where you progress by figuring out new rules, Rain World's progression is by moving forward.
@@mothichorror446 I disagree ngl, althought I see what you mean, a lot of the game's content is just locked behind knowledge, knowledge of how to do X movement technique, knowledge of how to use different items, how different animals act etc.
At least to me it feels like a knowledge based game for it, but I can understand your point of view.
Does anyone remember Toki Tori 2? That’s gotta be the epitome of MetroidBrainia. You’re limited to just 2 actions, stomping and whistling. It looks like a MetroidVania on first glance, but you never unlock any new abilities. Everything in the game is gated by your awareness of how to use the whistle and stomp to get past the obstacles.
This is literally my favorite game genre and I've played hundreds of games. I've always just called them knowledge based games. There's a great video that superdude made on them
Fantastic job with this video.
Easy sub.
You will be at 10k quick with quality like this
I was playing Riven this week and thought "this feels like a Metroidvania"
Now I know why.
Its worth it? I wanted to play it but its waaay to expensive, if it has something related to outer wilds and the witness i might get it
So many good references! My personal favorites were Swampy Boots and "My goodness, what an idea. Why didn't I think of that? Hammocks!"
Animal well died for me the moment I learned that some puzzles couldn't be solved inside the game. Not having a way to know which was which I eventually basically followed a guide the rest of the way. I think I had 2 eggs left at that point. I'm really glad you raised that point. Now that I know to expect it going forward I think similar games might will leave a less bitter taste. I actually just 100% Tunic (with some hints from reddit, I'm only human) and was excited by the more obscure late game stuff.
One of my favorite game series that has these knowledge gates is the Myst series. All the puzzles in these games require knowledge that can be acquired by exploring the game world, observing it and through interaction with objects. There are no keys and no items you can pick up.
If you understand the mechanics of the game's universe you can breeze through them. And there is so much environmental storytelling in the games apart from the puzzles.
There’s this game I really like called Taiji. It’s basically The Witness, but with tile puzzles instead of line puzzles. Definitely recommend.
oooOOOOOOoooo looks neat! A game I recently played and love that is like The Witness with word puzzles is Lingo.
Riven is also one of the defining games of this genre. I've beaten all the others you mentioned except for Outer Wilds, which I barely started earlier this year only to lose interest and get sidetracked by Animal Well. Now that I've found mostly everything in AW (I don't think I'll bother with some of those secret rabbits), I'll give Outer Wilds another try.
Loved the video and Metriodbraina is probably just about my favorite type of game, so I have to say I agree about the it sucks to end up late to a community puzzle but I will say that the Animal well community has done a pretty good job about letting you still solve the puzzles only giving you the info you absolutely need and not just saying here's the solution. the Mural puzzle in particular someone made a site that has all of the pieces but allows you to figure out how it actually goes together without spoiling it.
Nice video. I've always just considered this genre the "Wildslike" akin to roguelike's etymology. Another term I like is to call them "epiphonic" games since knowledge of mechanics drives progression, and thus it's all geared around making players have groundbreaking epiphanies that change their view of the entire game.
Holy shit Chip's Challenge was one of my favorite games back in the day. Nice to see other people still remember it.
Thank you for the video.
I still revisit Outer Wilds sometimes... Just for sightseeing, the music, and visiting the Sun station...
Since Francis Bacon pioneered the phrase "Knowledge is Power", I suggest we call these games Bacon Games.
I 100% agree about the community puzzles & ARG stuff. They can be fun, they have been done well in the past and I'm sure there will be more in the future. But it's starting to feel a little bit rote at this point, i guess? Like the final (the ACTUAL final) puzzle of Tunic is a community ARG and when i got to that point i was incredibly disappointed. It really felt like that developers wanted to "heighten" the puzzle solving stuff and the only way they could think to go bigger was to do this, even though none of the puzzles up to that point required that level of dedication or labor from the community.
Also mad props to the dedication to spoiler-free. These are some of my favorite games of all time, and it always breaks my heart a little to see other youtubers just flagrantly expose all the fun stuff and ruin the games for their audiences.
All of my favourite games in one place! I'm now playing through Chants of Senaar looking for another dopamine-filled brain-a-thon. I was hoping I'd find something I haven't already played in this video, but the only one was Chip's Challenge, and I think I'm alright skipping that. Great video!
The La Mulana games are pretty good metroidbrania games. Just be warned that they ask a lot from the player in terms of problem solving and patience.
It's not quite the same, but I would recommend giving Heaven's Vault a look
You should give Void Stranger a shot, it’s absolutely one of the best in this genre and criminally underrated
Chips Challenge is a puzzle game. It's really awesome. It was one of the few games I had on Windows 98 back in the day and we played so much of it. It doesn't have the flair of modern games but it's still good.
Chip's Challenge deep cut, subscribed
Great video, big fan of this "genre"
Where Void Stranger?
The man talked about FEZ 2, am ded 😭
Another example of a, Mertoidbrainia I guess, that I will take any opportunity to bring up is 'Toki Tori 2+'. Is cool, play it.
A more classic styled puzzle Metroidvania is 'Isles of Sea and Sky' which came out recently.
I also agree with the sentiment towards puzzles outside of a game, it even opens up the possibility of a puzzle being impossible to solve the intended way like say a website goes down that has an important key to solve it.
I think I managed to 'solve' the word block puzzle. I say 'solve' because well I'd figured that I had to line them up to make a word and somehow managed to luck into finding the right one.
So, take that as you will.
Great video btw.
Dammit, now I have to go find a longplay of Chip's Challenge.
Making a video like this without mentioning La-Mulana seems criminal
It's my favorite series but I don't think it fits. It'sore of aetr metroidvania with puzzles in it then about knowledge of the rules. But to be fair so is animal well, it's just metroidvania without combat and with puzzles
Yeah, Chip's Challenge! 🤩💖 Great video by the way. Thank you for diving into this topic! 😊
Thank you so much for this,i have been searching for YEARS for games similar to outer wilds or the witness and because of this video i can find some examples even in the comments. Great work man,instantly suscribed
I somehow managed to fully complete everything in fez (besides the final obelisk) without looking anything up. One of the most gratifying things I've ever done. I did it with both outer wilds and tunic a few years later, and I'm hoping to do the same in animal well
If people like these kinds of games and especially outer wilds I heavily reccomend Void Stranger, even if the genre of game doesn't initially seem up your alley its amazing.
Tunic was REAL nice. The story and lore were snoozers coming from Hollow Knight, but solving the mountain door and deciphering the language was some of the most fun I've had in games in a while. And yes, I deciphered it myself. Took about 5 hours or so, lol.
I will, however, forever hold up that the softest feather can suck my ass.
did you know there's a second, tonal language that the faeries speak and that plays in other places? the sound engineer for the game made a detailed twitter thread about it a while back.
I left the video (for now) at the spoiler warning, but I just wanted to let you know that I think this is really great stuff and I'm excited for more!
It has one. In Japan. It's "Tansaku" or "Exploration platformer", but nobody uses it.
OMG. I absolutely love "Chip's challenge" I played over what felt like thousands of levels on my 386 PC back in the day. Recently I found a version that has extra levels but it didn't age that well. But I've played the hell out of that game.
You better not badmouth Chip's challenge
12:40 the FEZ crossword clue has been solved _individually_ by at least 2 people because I watched Let's Plays. Keith Ballard used the help of encyclopedic knowledge but no video game wikis nor forums nor community, the Let's Play is still up.
I sure as heck couldn't do it. But they are also extra collectibles, right? (both the crossword and the big monolith puzzles) They're not even required for the good ending!
Tunic has a bunch of stuff like that as well - it just doesn't provide "completionism" so nobody bats an eye :P
I would classify metroidvania as a action explorer, while these cases like animal well, i would call it as a puzzle explorer
Antichamber mentioned!! WTF ARE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥
Yes! Saw that in the thumbnail. Super underrated game.
I just remember playing FEZ as a kid on the bus and always being confused on where to go, or what to do, or if I was in a place where I shouldn’t be because I couldn’t completely solve all the puzzles. If I gave a crack at it now I’m still not confident I’d be able to make sense of that game without some external explanations.
grab a notebook and take screenshots/pictures! it's so much fun to discover the stuff in the game. I do admit i've also looked stuff up, but if you do, try to just barely read ahead of where you're stuck, because getting the solution to a puzzle that didn't even look like a puzzle the first time you see it is such a rewarding feeling.
This "genre" definitely has some of my favourite games, as well as many games I've been meaning and wanting to play and I think it's cool that more people are seemingly starting to talk about this stuff, outside of game dev circles. I don't like to think in terms of genres and categories too much, because I think it can be limiting, but it can at least be useful in discussing these things, building on our ideas of what games can be and potentially pushing the medium forward in a meaningful way. Personally much of my interest in game design started with Jonathan Blow, his game Braid and then later The Witness. I had been interested in it before then, but he really kind of changed my perspective and broadened my horizons and since then it's continued to be one of my biggest interests, just because it feels like there's so much potential for creativity and exploration. I feel like "video game" doesn't even really do justice to what the medium can do or be. I prefer thinking of it as interactive art/experiences.
Anyway cool video. I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more games like this. Not just "metroidbranias" or "iceberg/rabbit hole games", but games that try to be meaningful, deep or interesting in some ways. Games that can actually benefit us or have a meaningful impact on people's lives or at the very least don't try to waste people's time or money. Games that respect people's intelligence and games that explore uncharted territory. Don't get me wrong though, I think there's room for all kinds of games, including triple A slop or whatever. It's not about being elitist, it's just about wanting to see variety, creativity and innovation. I like being able to mindlessly play some CoD, but I also like mindfully playing The Witness or getting immersed as fuck in Hollow Knight and it's beautiful world. So I'm looking forward to seeing where things go, because I feel like we've only scratched the surface of what people can come up with and create.
This is my favourite type of game genre ❤ as you said, it allows for the best, most emotionally involved and most rewarding first gameplay by far. Thanks for the video!
This is the greatest genre of all time. Outer Wilds, Tunic, and co deserve a genre of their own
Outer wilds legitimately changed the whole way I view video games. Truly incredible experience.
Noita is another game that has half a foot in this genre. It's less a true metroidbrania and more roguelikebrania.
Best genre indeed!
I share your opinion on community puzzles, they are uninteresting after they've been solved. And they are a frustrating when you play fully blind (the way the genre is best experienced). They are okayish for a small easter egg, otherwise I'd rather have them not included in the main parts of the game (like Animal Well (great game) unfortunately did).
Also, La-Mulana is a masterpiece. ❤
Community puzzles are great for ARGs but I don't care for them in metroidbrainias.
I was pulled the thumbnail and I’m barely a few minutes into your video….take my Like already!!
Honestly the bunny mural, while built for community collaboration, it is possible for a single person to do it on their own. The just got to completely delete their save, start fresh with a new flower seed (this also changes their mural shard) and do a 38 egg speedrun until they can view that shard. Then they got to completely delete the complete save file, not the ingame one but thensave file that holds the save file, start a bew game with a new seed, and do another 38 egg speedrun praying for no duplicate piece. I predict that to do it on their own would require roughly 200+ speedruns. And somehow figuring out how to number and arrange the shards ... Which I still don't understand that part and I did the 38 egg speedrun to get a second shard to prove my theory... How the heck are you supposed ti know where to put it... Is it the glowing dotes denoting file and rank in a grid?
Just picked up both OuterWilds and Fez. Thanks for the video! ❤
Hey, that's me at 0:03 :D
I'm so pumped more people are talking about these sorts of games!
Not strictly this genre, but Baba is you (made by one of the creators of Noita) blew my mind how many times it can recontextualize itself and give you the there is no spoon -moment. It may look like sokoban, but the solutions rely mostly on understanding and not much on long, tedious sequences, so you probably solve many levels while not actually playing the game, but just thinking about it while doing something else.
I've seen these kind of games refered to as "knowledge-based games", a title that is pretty self-explanatory.
One game I think fits this mold is hob, it’s such a good game please check it out, beautiful, serene, kinda 2D Zelda like, but the dungeons are part of the world, and you need to literally shift them into place, you pull chunks of the world back into place.
So cool.
I'll always remember the hopeless quest to save sunbro Solaire and the elation of realizing you actually could.
Great video describing my favorite type of game in recent years. As much as it would be amazing to have a game like this that reaches that level of replayability, that larger than life "a-ha!" moment is what cements these games in my mind, and makes the whole experience worthwhile and worth the price of admission. Also I appreciate the discussion of the big community driven endgame meta puzzles that a lot of these games have and how frustrating it is that only a select few people will ever experience properly. Reaching the final secret in Tunic after so much work only to be met with an ARG that I'm too stupid to understand was a bit of a letdown, but I do understand the value and excitement it can hold for others.
I came into this not knowing what that even was, then as soon as I heard the outerwilds music in the background I got it
Amazing video!
I recently saw a tweet that made me think of this topic.
This type of game is particularly magic.
I love Antichamber and I am so happy to see it in this video
Antichamber is hella underrated, I know it's an old game and people either never heard of it or played it/heard about it ages ago, but that game is mind fuck^2
“Nonlinear puzzle game”
It's weird seeing this genre being discussed without even a mention of Rain World, which is a game that I think absolutely nails it. In spirit of not spoiling anything about these games I'll just say: Get Rain World (60% off right now), finish the Survivor campaign and then get the DLC. It's one of the most incredible experiences I've had with a game
Thanks for explaining so well my gripes with a game requiring community work. I've said this several times, I fell for the Animal Well hype and regretted paying the release price for it as it seems to be based on getting to enjoy the full game from level 1 puzzles to the level 4 ones, which realistically very few people will, in one hand because as you said it's unreasonable to expect a community that has already collectively solved a puzzle to do it again, and in the other hand because most people are not that hardcore and will just get to the credits and at most will explore a bit of the level 2 puzzles before getting bored or distracted by the next new shiny thing or, like in my case, deciding it's too much work and too much repetition of subpar movement mechanics.
I had this experience with Animal Well shortly after having played Tunic for the first time, and it felt like a bit of a deja vu. I had to retread a lot of Tunic because of the game giving so little guidance, but at least Tunic had the option to turn on infinite health and stamina, so I just went and 100% it in a quasi-comfortable way. Then with Animal Well when I saw how much of the game I'd have to retread, plus having to do deathless runs and speedrunning challenges and no way of making it all more comfortable, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, despite being so much of a completionist. Maybe in the future I'll go back to it, but right now I'm a bit annoyed at the game for expecting so much of the player and not giving any warning about having such high expectations.
In fact, I believe these kind of games, what we can call metroidbrainias, should be more open and transparent about what kind of challenge they impose. While it's true, as you said, that metroidbrainias are best enjoyed going in blind, some can benefit a lot from at least letting you know if the tools required to solve the puzzle are contained within the game or require external tools, because I'm an adult and I don't have time to waste searching for clues that later I'll find out in an online guide that weren't there in the first place. I prefer games respect my immersion and don't break it by requiring me to use an unprovided barcode reader or to check the source code of a website or to make a spectrogram of an audio file, but if they really want to do that, at least be upfront about it and let me take that information into consideration before I decide to pay for a game. Hopefully more people will voice concerns and demands like mine and the industry will react appropriately.
All in all, great video.
Chip's Challenge! That's what it was called!
Omg I played chips challenge on windows 3.1 omggg
Idk when people became allergic to calling these action adventure games.
The adventure genre is about exploring a world, oftentimes with puzzles, as you move forward in a narrative (Myst, Syberia, Grim Fandango, etc). Add a element of action to it, where there are life or death challenges throughout the exploration, and boom.
A criminally under rated Video again. Keep up the good work!
I will disagree on you on the bunny mural puzzle, mostly as it isn't required for the game at all, depending on how define fully completing something.
People talk often about Animal Well as layers 1 to 4, with a lot of people stopping after layer 2.
You got to the credits twice at this point and with that, you could say it's fully completed. There are extra things that you know of, but the experience so far is where most people will be comfortable at (and all can be done as a single player.)
You might stumble and even solved some of layer 3 or even 4, but in the end those become community puzzles.
For spoilers: They layers seems to be:
1-Defeating the first manticore
2-Collect all the eggs for the second manticore
3-All the secret bunnies
4-The secret with those bunnies and the unicode puzzle for the time-capsule.
However, there is speculation that there exist a 5th layer as there are some hidden secrets and people wondering why some of these are things in the game.
Yeah, the dev didn't expect anyone to complete layer 3 (let alone 4 which I think he groups with layer 3.)
I was able to get a little over half of tbe bunny puzzles myself, and those are some of my favorite in the game.
Though I didn't mind getting help for the community puzzles, having been a part of an ARG in the past, just reading the past discussions around it kinda give a second-hand thrill.
Closest to a formal definition of a genre I've seen yet. Including counterexamples is key. We should start using it - I know I will anyway!
I'm actually working on one right now! I have to say I hate the name 'metroidbrainia' with a passion though. But anyway, It has been very tough advertising the game, exactly because there is no defined audience or name. I can tell everyone who played my prototype had no idea what I was talking about, and I know people who do love this genre haven't found my game yet.
By the way, if anyone wants to check it out, I would really appreciate it. I could really use the extra reach. You can see it in my uploaded videos, a trailer and a playthrough of the prototype. It's a cinematic platformer for the megadrive, strongly rooted in information games.
That looks cool!~ Good move making it for the Mega Drive that's the system of the future ;) hehe just teasing. :)
Loved the video! Outer Wilds is my favourite game of all time.. (and I'm normally not one for picking favourites)
Obra Dinn was my biggest surprise regarding a game I played last year.
Keep it up Tin Sensei! 🎉
Amazingly curated video, hoping to see more of this type of content from you :)
I've read a lot of discussions about how to define this "genre", what games should or shouldn't be counted in it, or whether the genre exists in the first place, and to be honest, I haven't really made up my mind about it, and I wish to see more writing or videos about it.
But my current takeaway is that, I feel like defining a group of games by whether their progression system is unlock-based or knowledge-based is a bit arbitrary for an entire genre.
First off, as you've shown, many of the games we consider to be part of the genre don't fully rely on knowledge-based progression. But even for Outer Wilds, the game which many would consider to be the best example of the genre (or even the best game of all time), pure knowledge-based progression isn't even that important. in Alex Beachum's conference "Designing for Curiosity", out of 20 minutes, he spends a grand total of 20 seconds to mention this aspect of the game, and when asked about it in a question later, he says it's totally optional.
You could also mention the fact that older games have had knowledge-based progression, either in part (super metroid) or in full (toki tori 2). Yet you don't really see those games mentioned when people talk about games similar to OW/TUNIC/FEZ etc. While on the other hand, games like Obra Dinn do get mentioned regularly, despite not adhering to the rules of the "genre", as you've shown.
Rather than looking at mechanics, we should be looking at the *feelings* these games give us, as I believe that is the reason we group these games together when talking about them. They encourage us to let our minds wander, sometimes focusing on specific details, sometimes thinking about the game at large, confident in the fact that there is actually something we can figure out and that it will lead to a tangible reward. They surprise us with stuff that was right under our noses to make us wonder what else we missed, what else there is to see. They shower us with bits of information, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, hints and clues that we get curious about as we know they actually mean something.
To me, Outer Wilds is the best one because it unapologetically and exclusively focuses on that: curiosity. As show by Alex Beachum, most if not all large-scale design decisions in the game focus on making the player curious and rewarding that curiosity. It makes that feeling the core element of the game and the only thing that drives it forward, to the point that it becomes a very unusual and weird game that some new players bounce off of when they don't get what they should be doing. But when you vibe with it... man.
I do think theres something to be said that both Super Metroid and Toki Tori 2 form part of this genre. Toki tori 2 probably isnt mention much because not many people have actually played it.
But on the other hand, Super Metroid is probably a little difficult to perceive. In reality, the base game ("layer one") of Animal Well isnt really that much different at all to Super Metroid in terms of puzzles, is just devoid of combat.
In simplest terms, just the mere act of putting a high ledge you cant reach and then give you a double jump or high jump is in fact a puzzle in any metroidvania. Same for a far away ledge and giving you a mid air dash. But for most metroidvanias we kinda ignore it because they are really consistent and apparent after playing your first one. But thats were super metroid kinda stands out of other metroidvanias and even other metroids, you have the two knowlegde rooms (the wall jump and shinespark rooms), they do a pretty poor job explaining what to do (or at leats for me, i was stuck in each for like an hour) and technically neither are really necessary knowlegde to beat the game. But one that is pretty important is the freeze ray, freezing enemies mid air and using them as plataforms is key to progress.
You could even start talking about how combat in some games is some sort of puzzle by itself, but thats a more of a different topic. I guess theres a factor were i see super metroid as more of puzzle game besides being also a metroidvania because it was my first too. The genre itself is plagued with these simple puzzles all over the game, the mysterious green door opened by the newly aquired green missile is technically a puzzle reduced to its simplest form.
In Alex Bechum's presentation, which you mention, he defines a curiosity as a location that answers a question, aka has knowledge. So I would argue he spends all 22 minutes talking about the same contextual knowledge we are concerned with for the possible genre, not 20 seconds. You are right that the talk is not very concerned with progression in the traditional sense.
Genres are ultimately arbitrary distinctions to begin with. They're abstract categories to simplify communication. So something blending, breaking or just not fitting into any genres neatly is pretty much what you'd expect to happen.
toki tori 2 is absolutely a metroidbrainia, super metroid isnt though. not only because by definition and linguistic origins its a metroidvania, and therefor cant be a subset of metroidvania when its existance is what defined the metroidvania genre. progression and gameplay in super metroid is about collecting items that factually upgrade your character and abilities, theres no secret code you can input or know to warp straight to riddley, theres no codes that need deciphered, theres no puzzles that need solving. theres some intangible blocks that lead to a few optional items but thats not what a metroidbrainia is about. they arent problems to be solved, theyre secrets to be told about.
@@firelasto Metroid is at least worth including in the discussion, eg. are the animal well hidden movement techniques really unique secrets or even required for progression? Then what about Metroid's bomb jumps which aren't explained explicitly by the game but which are required for progression? What about more advanced Mario Odyssey movement cappy tech that is totally optional? Does the "brainia" part refer to knowledge not explicitly explained? knowledge that significantly alters gameplay? or does it refer to knowledge being mandatory for progression? Since at a minimum the discussion is fairly new we need to be on the same page.
Since you brought up animal well mechanics I have an opinion you may find interesting. While puzzles are very fun, imo secret codes are just as boring as keys, simply not as interesting compared to having gameplay/techniques/lore which were always available to the player from the start if they had an open mind and experimented. I suppose this depends on what you count as being open to the player, Since the warp whistle is egg locked but then after that you can technically brute force a small number of codes.
These are "Knowledge Games". At least, that's the name I've most consistently seen and used.
Outer Wilds, Animal Well, FEZ, TUNIC, Void Stranger, Manifold Garden, Toki Tori 2, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (somewhat), Baba is You, Rain World, etc.
All games where the player is gated mainly by how familiar they are with what they need to do. Where the "sequence" only exists for someone playing the game for the first time, and the best secrets are under your nose the whole time.
Stephen's sausage roll and Can of Wormhole are also good examples. You gain knowledge, learn new mechanics just by playing around.
you people have to check out Lingo, it's a great game i'd say closer to the witness in it's nature of a metroidbraina
If I remember correctly, back in the day when FEZ was still new, Phil Fish once referred to the game as a Mystroidvania, so there's that as an option that never really got picked up. I think any extension of the term Metroidvania is a bit unnecessarily messy though.
Unrelated semi-review, of all the big games in this realm, I didn't enjoy Animal Well as much as I should have, just because compared to most others, the game isn't willing to direct you towards puzzles to solve. My only options were to move on entirely or use a guide by the end, because I didn't know where to look. FEZ has map locations marked as incomplete, TUNIC has the fairy-finding code, even The Witness' pillars and which face the marking is on point you in the rough direction of what you're missing, that help you find where to go when you are out of leads, and let you figure out the rest. When I resorted to a guide for Animal Well, a lot of the secrets were well designed and cool but I didn't get to do them because I wasn't willing to scour every inch of the map a second or third or fourth time looking for secrets without any indication that I was even close. Any hot or cold would have been nice.
Mystlike-metroidvania just rolls off the tongue
I think that a metroidbrainia could really succeed beyond the player knowing all of it if the game can over areas that aren't just fun to move around mechanically, which is what you said, but are also fun to look around because they're so detailed and interesting.
I come back and revisit Fez occasionally because the library world is one of the most beautiful areas Ive ever seen and I've always wanted to go there. The huge endless bookshelves in all directions really makes me crave a giant library dimension in a game, and replaying Fez is the closest I can get to that until somebody makes it.
Also, being under the water in Giant's Deep in Outer Wilds, while also being in the ship, is a strangly cozy and comfortable thing to do. Something about the muffled water current sounds and the small, rustic ship with a comfy chair feels really cozy (probably why I loved Subnautica so much)
I think called them Knowlege Based Games removes the unessceary complexity that comes from calling it a Metroidbrainia which is derived from an already weird name of Metroidvania which people still get confused about
Metroidvania is just blending Metroid and Castlevania, some of the early examples of the Genre.
I actually find knowledge based game to be a poor name because it doesn't really give you a good idea what the genre is about. That could mean something completely different from what is discussed here, such as Trivia games.
Although it's a weird word play on an already weird name, i think metroidbrainia fits perfectly if you already know whay metroidvania is.
Metroidvania is basically "you unlock progress by finding new habilities as you explore the map"
MetroidBrainia is "you unlock progress by finding new ways to think as you explore the map"
There are in some aspects the exact opposite, because one is "you already know that you need to double jump, but you haven't earned that ability yet", whilst the other one is "you already have the power to turn off gravity by pressing a button, but you still don't know that"
Knowledge gates
Great video
I actually thought of Noita!
I could never put it into words... but yes... THIS is my genre. Great video!
La Mulana 1 and 2 are my personal favorites of the genre. insane games with crazyyy puzzles. check them out!