Oh wow. I did the art for some of this game and the creator told me that people started making videos for it and he just asked me to do some more stuff for it. I'm so happy for him. He legit has been working on this game since 2013 when I met him. It's a giant passion project for him.
It was such a cool find. Totally unique experience and vibes playing this game, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here - thanks for your hard work and for stopping by!
@@mutantwormgirl yeah! Also, watching your vid, you brought up his work ethic. You have no idea. When I met him in the army, that man never slept. Leif was a medic who worked hard and always kept up to date on medical knowledge, so much that he got awards for his hardwork and leadership skills. Then when he got back to the barracks, he would work on the wooden ocean for another 6 hours, everyday. I would just come over to his room, eat some pizza with him, he be studying or making this game and then telling me all the story ideas and having me read it. This week, he told me your video helped him get his drive back to work even harder. Keep that a secret between us. seriously, your support means alot to him
I am so happy to hear this. The dev really, really deserves the bump. The guy has been toiling on this thing for nine years like Tony Stark in a cave and it's criminally underrated.
I think I heard her mention it on I *think* the New Gods podcast (along with Void Stranger) and just immediately wrote those two titles down for later. I'm very, very glad I did.
Anonymous fan writer writes an OC for their favorite fantasy novel, all hell breaks loose when the wider community finds it. Violet is our very own Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and we are her author
I get the feeling that the idea/concept of creativity is very important to this story, and not in the ways it might first seem. "The Wooden Ocean" was the last fantasy novel ever written by a human, and that happened around 38 BILLION years ago, seeming to suggest that humanity hasn't just stagnated, but did so so long ago that it's now all anyone can imagine. The Infinite Hotel is a truly amazing work of art, but it's also(from the very, very little we've seen of it) seemingly a purely derivative one, only allowing people to experience already-existing stories and scenarios. And between that and the Jealous Artist seeking only to destroy that which is better than what they can make, if you leave out the real-world art pieces then there's only one wholly original creative work in this world that was created after humanity transcended reality: Violet. Violet is a new character, who didn't exist in the original "Wooden Ocean", who has a backstory and memories that don't line up with it at all. I think Violet's Artist is/is going to be a very important force in the narrative, even if only in the background most of the time like the Old Gods in Fear & Hunger, because her Artist is seemingly the only person in the realm of transcended humanity who's both willing and able to make new art and tell a new story.
Wooden Ocean is a weird palimpsest of a game, marinated (lovingly) in enough RPGMaker aesthetic that it feels like a time capsule until the time capsule suddenly grows seven limbs and starts calling you uneducated
GREAT use of the word palimpsest; and this game is sort of a bizarre palimpsest, isn’t it? so much of it does feel like old RPGmaker games, but the love and effort that went into it makes it…well, sort of a crystal, suspended in time. it’s a throwback that is also fresh and futuristic in its tone.
@@KilgoreTraut Haven't read that one; I think my first encounter with the word 'palimpsest' was either something written by Borges or something by Calvino.
I once had an idea for a story that took place in a kind of MMORPG server that was still running after an apocalyptic war wiped out all of humanity, where every NPC and monster had gained sapience and were trying to get by in a world that was supposed to have a large number of god-like beings killing monsters and fueling the economy. There was a "War In Heaven" that was basically moderator bots fighting over whether they should stay the course or change the rules since all the players were gone. The world had, in the aftermath of that "War In Heaven", devolved to a Conan The Barbarian-esque bronze age, because the moderator bots were all gone and there was now nothing to keep the plugging the gaps in the system, with the few NPCs who had figured out how some of the systems worked now ruling over kingdoms as unstoppable god-kings, because what is a level one NPC armed with bronze and wood going to do about someone who is level 99 and has end-game gear? The Big Bad of the story was meant to be a glitch that had gained self-awareness that, to the NPCs in the game, looked like a genuine cosmic horror beyond comprehension because it was literally a sapient flaw in reality. I feel like, after watching this video, maybe I should do something with that story now.
Get into DND. Run this world as a game master, keep notes! Your players will help you fill in gaps in your world you didn't know were there, and after enough work, yes, *work*, you'll have something you could make a Funger/Wocean RPGmaker game, or something else.
I dont even know what to call this type of content, but I love it. Its like a combination of a video essay explaining the game, leading into a long play talking me through the narrative, but edited down to movie length. There are so many games I'd like to see covered just like this. Great work.
Totally agree. I rarely have the time to commit to actually playing games, so I tend to enjoy them vicariously by listening to / watching those types of video while going about everything else in life. I wish I could find more time to play but I'm usually too exhausted by the end of most days to dedicate the attention these great projects deserve, and I get to support creators I love in the process.
I think I would consider this video a "narrative longplay review," but it's probably too wordy of a tagline. You might enjoy Warlockracy for a similar style.
@@AaronMDubya100% seconding the Warlockracy suggestion. His Arcanum vid mixes in a story summary, some analysis, his own roleplaying as the character, mild political theory, and inter-splices it with of Victorian-era predictions of the far future (now).
The simple character graphics and lack of portraits for most of the characters had me picturing them as movie characters, and that line popped into my head immediately.
I have a peculiar feeling that Violet is in some way expression of fanfiction- made by an outside artist, causing her to be "imaculately birthed" into the world of another, lacking memories of her own and being "overpowered" in the world she's dropped into, probably one character of said fan artist since noone knows of them, but a significant addition showing that people like the artwork of the original artist enough to write fanfics and make up new characters for that world (even if they don't know how to organically introduce them yet)
There's a book you can read (I forgot where...) that kinda adds to this, talking about the concept of a "Mary Sue". I almost think Violet is commentary on that concept, Having two elements, a rare hair color, and a close relationship to the "real" protagonist of Wooden Ocean would make her seem like one of these characters, if Wooden Ocean was a real story in our world. Coupled with the fact that the jealous artist speaks like the Author of My immortal types, that fanfiction angle actually makes a lot of sense.
oh that's super interesting makes the 'jealous' title curious as it commonly is used to mean envy it's also used for possessive controlling feelings. You might be actually fighting the author of the story 'the wooden ocean' trying to murder fan fic ruining his book forever in this metafiction outside of time lol
Oh I love that reading, this fits really well with how she's got a vague tie to the "canon" of the story (being one of the unnamed sisters) but a massively expanded role
the TV Lawyer being the lawyer from TV was a running gag that never got old, A+ and thank you for keeping alive the enduring promise that good games and compelling art are always out there, waiting to be discovered.
Your analysis and commentary consistently amazes me away no matter the game. From the research, to the script, to the gameplay, the amount of work you put into making these videos is stellar. I'll have to pick up this game. Cheers!
Some npcs calling violet mezra and nosredna being anderson backwards (and also someone's face) are things I can't believe I never noticed while playing, but it makes me want to replay it someday. Also, props for getting through the final area's insane difficulty spike without resorting to bombs.
I love that the name of the piece is literally a stage, when art pieces reveal the reason for their name towards the end it always feels cathartic to me.
Got this game because of you. Developer is a literal crazy person who responds to every message board post within minutes regardless of time of day, often incoherently. This is a good thing.
Really great video as usual! Glad to be a supporter! Also thank you for resisting the urge to title this “the best RPG maker game YOUVE NEVER PLAYED” or something like that lol
I love that you dedicate the time and energy to highlighting these lost games. It gives me so much existential dread to think about how many people pour their souls into their art only for it to go unseen and quickly forgotten.
1:29:49 its even more complicated than that. There's a book (forget where) that states the Infinite Hotel wins awards for Best Afterlife, one is mentioned by name but others are implied. I'd guess thanks to arbitrary physics there are multiple competing cosmologies. And it's not like outer space is gone either. There's a convo from a ghost close to the water temples ghost road entrance that says rich people could use space travel rather than the Hotel to get around (and Alex's comments on Earth).
I think worm girls main fan base has all agreed, start worm girl video about a game weve never heard of, pause video, buy the game, play the video while it downloads. Never have I consistently loved every single video someone makes, let alone evrry game they reccomend till she came along with absolute banger after banger. Keep it up dude!
Wow, this game is something else.. In my game Violet suddenly had 30 spirit at level 8 and started nuking everything. But since the game is so weird I wasn't really sure if it was a bug or some meta humor thing. Anyway, I proceeded to some of the deepest late game areas, found UR, nuked all the endgame bossed I could find, 2 shot the "final boss" with 0 planning, roll credits. Never even boarded a boat. Turns out there's a huge chunk of story I missed because my Violet turned into One Punch Man. What..
I was waiting for this video for weeks now! I bought the game after you mentioned it briefly on your Termina speedrun stream with Frapollo and instantly fell in love. Thanks for sharing this Gem of a game with us!
God I'm really glad you made this video because of how much I love this game but even by now there's more ppl who watched the video than ever played it and it feels like some sort of secret laid bare
I've seen several people saying they've bought the game thanks to the exposure, and the story is far from finished. Hopefully this video will just be a footnote in WO's story.
When she said "bows reduce your threat rating" I somehow decided for a moment she meant WEARING a hair bow, not weilding a bow and arrow, makes you seem less threatening and less likely to be attacked. That'd be a very charming mechanic for an RPG imo 😂
@@fabrizioart1928 Yeah; it's especially weird since bows are apparently one of the more damaging weapons. It's one thing in a game like _FFIV_ where bows do less damage than melee but allow for more defense than a melee weapon; it's another when it simultaneously does great damage and lowers threat.
this is actually the lore explanation behind some of the armor in Undertale. anyone you're fighting is a magical creature and magic in that setting is influenced almost purely by emotion. being cuter makes enemies want to hurt you less, thus decreasing the damage you take
This video hits me for 2x damage, the first hit is because I'm in the middle of going "how does any videogame ever get made???" as you describe at the beginning, and the second is because I've tried walking the tightrope of brilliant/nonsense through a metanarrative very similar to this one before and it's really goddamned hard. Props to Anderson for riding it out and publishing his thing. Oh and to you for finishing the vid, I've been curious since you first mentioned in that stream a while ago.
In the meta-narrative about art and artists it's pretty clear that the player / Violet takes the role of the audience / fancdom. Violet herself has quite a few aspects of a fanfic character / mary sue in the original sense (related to the main character of the story, somehow becomes the protagonist despite not existing in the original narrative). As such the Player is the opposite of the Jealous Artist (who would be the hater / anti-fan), instead of reacting to the work with destruction, they actively engage with it and it inspires them to be creative.
Your reading of this was actually how I imagine it would sound if I were trying to suss out a story from a bunch of people with different interests were all talking at once. It was nice to listen to! Though it's funny that mankind tried to make its perfect world, and it's just purgatory. Every time!
I basically never write any youtube comments ever, but thank you so much for making a video about this game. I found it more or less randomly, didnt know your channel before, neither did i ever even hear about the game. The entire thing is completely up my alley, and i would have never found it any other way, since it seems to be criminally unknown, so thanks for that!
Damn, how underground WAS this game. Even after your vid and 2 months, there are still LESS THEN 100 reviews on Steam. Like... that's less then 0.1% of all the people that watched this vid. I get that that is not how this works, but its still wild to think about
I'd like to point out at: 1:24:10 there is a book in Lampless that hints to the nature of Time. It's the one about the last element discovered and Arbitrary Physics I believe. Eternal Recurrence, Big Crunch into the Omega Point.
The more blatant humor is a very welcome addition in this video! Your videos are amazing and the commentary helps me get sleep when im having difficulties. Thank you for the great video!
As someone who's been following this game since its beginnings as a simple dungeon crawler, kudos to you for giving it the attention it so richly deserves! 👏 Fun fact: you can find me (or a version thereof) as an NPC in Winter Recluse. Goes back to a chat I had with the dev on Twitter a few years ago...😄
Quick note about Psuedo vs psuedo: Psuedo = RUR, Pseudo = UR, IIRC there is some dialogue explaining this in Psuedo Hell. Pretty interesting to see the little differences in how our playthroughs went, lots of easy to miss dialogue.
I always try to leave some stuff on the table for players to explore on their own, but TBH I probably missed more than I intended to just because of how there's no real wiki or community space for the game yet. I do remember Roland mentions that he puts in a petition for Violet to get into Psuedo heaven and says something like, "It's not UR, but it's almost as good." I never got to explore the hells though so I refrained from commenting.
@@mutantwormgirl Oh yeah not intending to criticise at all, there's definitely some stuff in your video that is different from my experience as well in some significant ways so there's stuff here I missed! For example before the angel encounter in Poetry of Rust there is actually a free teleport right to the divine tower entrance so I had a completely different path there and missed the divine tunnel dialogue. Even though it;s obviously finite I really love the feeling of infinite variation the game gives through the way it slowly reveals its layers, the way you build up your own mental map of the world reminds me of the Kings Field games in a way.
Proper capitalization is important for these concepts... :3c (not throwing shade, I remember that being the literal reason of difference between the two 'Pseudos'..outside of the deeper explanation of RUR and UR.
Truly my favourite way to consume game content these days. I still buy the games where I can to support the creators! But I love hearing the story broken down like this.
I got about 20 minutes into this video before going to the Steam page and getting it for myself. I’m only about 10 hours in but I’m absolutely rabid for more of this game, it’s truly incredible and one-of-a-kind. Excited to finish the vid once I’m done! thanks for all your hard work on this channel.
Paused this video after the prologue/chapter 1 section to go play Wooden Ocean for myself. I've gotten pretty far with a wind/thread start using daggers, even managing to kill some things well above my level, but came back to see your thoughts on the things I have played. This turned out to be a great idea, because I could not find Demon Door II. Found I and III on my own but couldn't find II. Lo and behold, 33:00 had my answers. Thank you Worm Girl. I'll now re-pause this video since I haven't actually searched the mines for Marcus yet and only dipped in to deal with the orcs and get the cash reward (and some other minor exploration, I left as soon as Alex said we were on the right track since I wanted to do other things first). I will be back once I have made more main story progress, which will likely take me a long, long time. There's just so much to explore.
@@mutantwormgirl oh no. YIIK. I will never forgive that game for having a genuinely good character moment that is immediately ruined by a golden alpaca appearing out of a random portal and forcing us to fight it.
@@mutantwormgirl Maybe...if the update includes taking out the part where the devs use the characters from their delisted first game that included stolen assets to whine about how said first game which they stole assets for wasn't very popular, seeming to imply that it was because people just didn't want them to succeed instead of it being just Not Great and also, well, the stealing. Very tempted to say that this game doesn't deserve a video from you on it, but I guess if anyone could find something good in that...that *thing*, it'd be you.
I don't think they're especially similar but I am reminded of Neverending Story. I like stories that play with meta-narrative a lot. This game/video was a trip!
Wooden Ocean is the sixth entry in the relatively unknown game series GoGo's Strange Misadventures. The other entries in this series in order are Ghost Plasma (1998), Combat Desire (2002), Moonrock Knights (2006), Coal is Indestructible (2009), and Platinum Breeze (2015).
For some reason, I only just noticed this video existed now. And it's great. I wishlisted the game 20 minutes in because it feels like a special kind of weird already. Please continue searching for obscure fringe gems like this. I normally cover obscure indie games but this had flown WAY under my radar.
Murda Urda finally bought the game and now have spent 1 hour into it running a gravity and darkness class this is the coolest rpg maker game I have ever played thank you worm woman!
The protagtrio of this are mt favorite kind of characters. People who by all rights suck, they have done horrible things, but they make decisions to do better, to help. If not others then at least each other. Youre much less your past self than you are the person you are now. And thatll be the case every day.
Okay, a bit of build theory-crafting: Violet: Daggers, Thread, Dark. Alex: Sword and Shield, Earth/Metal. Amelia: Bow, Radiation. Violet is your primary damage dealer, using Darkness to inflict Curse on enemies to halve their luck and follows up with Threads for high damage, with Daggers to deal high-damage crits for undead and curse immune. Alex tanks, and since Violet and Amelia have low Taunt weapons, they'll be largely ignored outside AOEs. Amelia is your Debuff queen, dropping Poison, Toxic, Cancer, etc. Again, this is all theory-crafting, but I think it should make a pretty potent build. Each party member has a role and the skills needed to fulfill that role. With both Violet and Amelia sporting weapons that reduce Taunt and Alex sporting gear that increases it, you only have to worry about keeping one character healed up while the rest of the party does the work. Violet on her own should be a very strong damage dealer while Amelia uses debuffs that will reduce enemy stats and defenses, making Violet's attacks even more damaging. If the enemy is an undead, Alex's Earth skills will be more damaging to them, so that covers that one weakness. This is all based on info I found on the guide and will need testing, but I think there's a good chance of this being a solid build.
Okay, small addendum to this post: Curse is a pretty common status affliction, especially early on, so getting the Cultist talent will be useful for this build given that it prevents Dark debuffs like Curse.
Second Addendum: Given how common dark-resistant and undead enemies are in the early game, Holy and Thread may end up being a better pair. Holy has a spell that nearly doubles Luck which, when combined with Dagger skills that raise luck further, can turn Violet into a powerful nuker with Thread spells. If you can find an item that grants Dark abilities, you can give it to Amelia so she can inflict Curse on top of her other debuffs.
Just wanted to say that I took a quick look at your other vids and, frankly, you're my kind of content creator. You've earned my sub with great, quality content that scratches my increasingly weird tastes. I guarantee you were recommended to me because I'm also subscribed to Mara (formerly Maraganger) and Eurothug4000. Keep up the awesome work! Also I've already bought my copy of Wooden Ocean, and I'll be taking a look at your vids for Deadeye Deepfake and Lost Cartridge in the near future. Cheers!
I remember playing a RPGMaker game over a decade ago that started out with the main character jumping off a bridge and ending up in purgatory and teaming up with a werewolf to try to escape going to Hell for killing himself. I have no clue what the game was called, but this game's atmosphere and storytelling is very similar. That's why I bring it up. Wish I knew what that game was called, but there are so many RPGMaker games that I'll likely never find it again.
I'm only 10 mins in and this looks so unbelievably cool. I must also say your long-form video quality has drastically improved. I feel very compelled to not spoil further and play the game myself. Thank you for this recommendation.
Heya, thankyou for giving me a door to art i couldnt mentally complete on my own. I love art deeply and knowing im missing out on so many experiences is genuinely so saddening to me, that stories like the one you've written here fill me with delight. Thankyou
Commented about a year ago about your vids absolutely slapping, and you’ve done diddly did it again. Truly one of, if not the best creators on here. See you in another year when I once again inadvertedly will become absolutely floored by your growth, keep on keeping on, cant wait for the next vid!
Shole my beloved-it's really his pseudo world and we're just living in it In all seriousness, thank you so much for the shout-out! It was a pleasure to help and the video came out genuinely so well! Here's to all the new players who get to experience this trip of a game! 🪵🌊🎉
I'm not one to normally comment on a video, but I like your deep dives so much and respect how truly unknown this little gem is that for you and for the author of the game I will leave this message. Thank you for creating.
I used to love playing through RPGMaker games, like To The Moon and Corpse Party and Omori, but don't really have the time to explore new games anymore... Thanks for diving deep for us Worm Girl, hopefully I can sneak in a watch with my morning tea 💕
I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I came into this vid, but one of the most profoundly heartfelt metanarratives on the creative process and just a straight up amazing story about not being tied down by what other people expect you to be or not be, I think I've ever seen wasn't it. If just hearing about it from ya made me a bit misty-eyed, then I'm looking forward to experiencing it firsthand.
The only thing im sad about is this vid posted on my day off so I cant jam to it at work. Not like I wasnt going to end up rewatching this over and over anyway, lmao How you do your videos is just so good, the way you walk through the narratives is lovely, and you know how to enter memes *exactly* when theyd work the best without spamming them
The space funeral comparison is great! As soon as I saw this game I realized it was another wonderful piece of art brut... I was so happy to see the plot develop, and... It's so unique! Games like this are what fuel me to create, no matter what. I think both games have a moral message- be who you love, and do what you love... Although, that does end up having some unfortunate consequences in both games.
I bought this after I read a forum post and got stuck because an unmarked door was a point of no return. I think that was a glitch, though. "Game made by one guy who had absolutely no oversight or sanity checks" is one of my favorite genres of fiction so I could forgive it. shoutout to worm girl for repeatedly releasing videos when something bad happens in my life though lol.
The credits are the very last thing I do, after the whole rest of the video is done, so you can hear the toll that the editing process has taken on my sanity.
I bought the game and it's a lot longer than what I expected. I thought I was going to breeze through the game and then watch your video, but it seems like I'll have to put in 100 hours first. Thanks for putting this game on my radar. It is a real treat to play this game.
It's as if the game is a meta-narrative about the process of the dev Anderson creating this game. It started as a surface level RPG, a medieval setting of towns separated by the eponymous Wooden Ocean, with a cliche hook: the PC has to find her brother and untangle the mystery behind his disappearance. And along the way we fell down this meta rabbit hole as he got deeper into the creative process, culminating in him losing complete control and his own creation "defeating" him.
i bought wooden ocean because of this video, and im very very happy i did! watching the video and playing the game felt like entirely different experiences, but both gave me what caught my attention about the game to begin with! theres so many things to dig into about the world, lore, characters, mechanics, and secrets!
honestly... yeah the "real" ending culd get some work, to avoid all that grind, but still 10/10 experience, your video has led me to find the best rpg i have played to date
That made my daayyy! I write for fun (and for TTRPG games I run for my friends) and all those RPGmaker rare-gems are an absolute GOLD-mine of inspiration- and those videos essays/dissertations you make the perfect vehicle to learn about them. I enjoyed all those little moments that were included that make no sense to the main character as the curtains rises on the "reality" of the situation. Simple, but very entertaining. Your recap of the story was CLEAN. Also the *SPOILER ALERT* Self-insert at the very end of the game is hilarious. I hope you will revisit if the artist ever finishes his art. Thanks for grinding like hell for this channel, although I hope that won't be a recurring thing (for your sake). PATREONED!
1:13:50 Fun fact but that seizure warning might have been due to my feedback. I've Let's Played this game twice upon the devs request over the past several years, although the last I did, I mentioned that this scene in particular was a little heavy on the visuals. I guess he listened and gave the angel that dialog warning the player right before the light show happens. Leif is one of the most interesting developers I've ever had the pleasure of taking playthrough requests from. I mean that in the best kind of way. I always looked forward being able to talk with him and his passion for this game is unlike anything I've ever seen from a dev. The guy deserves a lot of respect.
I’ve never heard anyone other than NitroRad mention Space Funeral. His review is old but it’s still pretty good and “Spleen” is one of my favorite poems I’ve discovered through that video. You should cover it if you want to do a shorter review or play through it!
DAMN It was cool to watch someone else play this game and show me all the stuff that I missed, I hated Valez from the first moment I laid eyes on him but had no idea you could actually do anything to him!
Praise be to the blood altar, for Worm Girl has uploaded a most murda video today! I can't wait to watch this! Though it'll probably be a while since I still have so much of the game to experience myself (despite reaching NG+ and dumping over 40 hours already hehe =v=).
Always love seeing these videos. These types of games are not my forte but I love learning about the story and seeing them played. As always you did an amazing job! 10/10
Ive watched your every videos several times over. I i really like your video making and talking style. You should make more videos. Listening to you is like listening to your vig sister talking about something you both love
Few of my thoughts after this video and reading comments - SPOILERS obviously: 1. I have no idea why nobody mentioned this but - Infinite Hotel seems to me like an obvious reference to Hilbert's Hotel/Infinite Hotel Paradox, a paradox in mathematics that says that fully occupied hotel can still accommodate additional guests if already existing guests are relocated. This is complicated and related to set theory and I can't even pretend to understand how it works, I can't also find any clear answer on how it's related to the game 2. I feel like Jealous Artist is misinterpreted. Someone jealous of piece of art doesn't want to destroy it- they wish they were the ones to have created it instead. Jealous Artist writes his own story on top of "Wooden Ocean" - replacing Marcus with their own OC (Violet) and changing the story. Except partway through writing it they start regretting it - the story gets derailed and instead the Jealous Artist becomes the main enemy. This is why TV Lawyer helps Violet at the start and sides against her in the end. In a way, "Wooden Ocean - the story" seems to be written by an Artist, "Wooden Ocean - The game" is written by the Jealous Artist 3. Honestly I wish you made a new video on this game in future, when community grows, more secrets are found and some theories are formed.
Wonderful breakdown and spotlight as always. Wishlisted it a little while back then lo and behold it went on sale. As it stands now I'm over 10hrs in with no sign of stopping, and it's aaaaall your fault!
Another great video. ❤ I'm glad to see your channel growing, and I really love the games you've highlighted so far. I would ask if you could format the text overlays a bit differently if you could, the text is sometimes hard to read. Keep up the good work worm girl!
I love that you're covering this game! Love to see cool projects in RPG Maker getting love. Also in case you, Worm Girl, see this, have you ever heard of the RPG Maker game Star Stealing Prince? It's definitely more standard fantasy turn-based rpg fare than something like Wooden Ocean or Fear&Hunger, but it's really solid and has a compelling story and is only about 10 hours long. I really recommend checking it out sometime if you ever want to check out a short but sweet RPG Maker experience
5 minutes into the video and I've decided to buy the game. I'll be back in a week or so to watch the rest of the video once I've finished my own playthrough. Thanks for the recommendation.
Amazing job. Not only is the video awesome but the game is really interesting. My small brain could only understand a little bit but that just gives me reason to watch the video again later! ❤
I'm so glad this game is getting some love through this video. Love your analyses; you may enjoy checking out another strange little project called Soulestination!
game characters being aware that they're game characters rarely is done right, i remember one of the star ocean had that ending but star ocean has never been good at story progression so it really sucks. i'll definitely check the game out, great video as usual
I literally reached the part where you warned about spoilers after the prologue, then paused and bought the game! It's been great so far. As for what you mentioned about knowledge, I think some things might have been added? On NG+, I walked to Winter Recluse and saw, in the space where there used to be a path to nothing, a blue chest. Opening it gave me six realism shards and the text "She saw the unseeable. This was knowledge." I notice on the eastern end of town there's another path towards nothing. I think another chest may be there. Has anyone else encountered this? EDIT: After taking a closer look around the map, I've noticed these chests everywhere. It seems like a NG+ method to help cope with losing all your stats. I can suddenly buy Poet of Metal gear for everyone.
I haven't delved into NG+ much myself..but I do know, last I remember, a "Limit" to how many NG Cycles you can do. As to if it's plot reasons or mechanical reasons (likely.both) I dunno...but odds are you might be on the right track with that thought process.
Oh wow. I did the art for some of this game and the creator told me that people started making videos for it and he just asked me to do some more stuff for it.
I'm so happy for him. He legit has been working on this game since 2013 when I met him. It's a giant passion project for him.
It was such a cool find. Totally unique experience and vibes playing this game, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here - thanks for your hard work and for stopping by!
@@mutantwormgirl yeah! Also, watching your vid, you brought up his work ethic. You have no idea. When I met him in the army, that man never slept. Leif was a medic who worked hard and always kept up to date on medical knowledge, so much that he got awards for his hardwork and leadership skills. Then when he got back to the barracks, he would work on the wooden ocean for another 6 hours, everyday. I would just come over to his room, eat some pizza with him, he be studying or making this game and then telling me all the story ideas and having me read it. This week, he told me your video helped him get his drive back to work even harder. Keep that a secret between us. seriously, your support means alot to him
step one of watching a worm girl video on a game I don't know about is to pause the video and go buy the game
I am so happy to hear this. The dev really, really deserves the bump. The guy has been toiling on this thing for nine years like Tony Stark in a cave and it's criminally underrated.
I think I heard her mention it on I *think* the New Gods podcast (along with Void Stranger) and just immediately wrote those two titles down for later. I'm very, very glad I did.
@@AutocraticAnarchy I do hope she covers Void Stranger sometime.
335555554r3rr@@mutantwormgirl
@@mutantwormgirlhomeboy put up a sale too, can't help but feel like you helped that
Anonymous fan writer writes an OC for their favorite fantasy novel, all hell breaks loose when the wider community finds it. Violet is our very own Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and we are her author
Now you make me want to know how the story went when Alex hadn't been stuffed into leather pants...
I get the feeling that the idea/concept of creativity is very important to this story, and not in the ways it might first seem. "The Wooden Ocean" was the last fantasy novel ever written by a human, and that happened around 38 BILLION years ago, seeming to suggest that humanity hasn't just stagnated, but did so so long ago that it's now all anyone can imagine. The Infinite Hotel is a truly amazing work of art, but it's also(from the very, very little we've seen of it) seemingly a purely derivative one, only allowing people to experience already-existing stories and scenarios. And between that and the Jealous Artist seeking only to destroy that which is better than what they can make, if you leave out the real-world art pieces then there's only one wholly original creative work in this world that was created after humanity transcended reality: Violet.
Violet is a new character, who didn't exist in the original "Wooden Ocean", who has a backstory and memories that don't line up with it at all. I think Violet's Artist is/is going to be a very important force in the narrative, even if only in the background most of the time like the Old Gods in Fear & Hunger, because her Artist is seemingly the only person in the realm of transcended humanity who's both willing and able to make new art and tell a new story.
Wooden Ocean is a weird palimpsest of a game, marinated (lovingly) in enough RPGMaker aesthetic that it feels like a time capsule until the time capsule suddenly grows seven limbs and starts calling you uneducated
I didn't know what to expect, and then I discovered that there's no way I could have expected what it turned out to be.
Palimpsest is definitely a new word, I was kind of surprised to find out it actually meant something.
@AutocraticAnarchy did you ever read Perdido Street Station? i only ask 'cuz that's how i learned what palimpsest means lol
GREAT use of the word palimpsest; and this game is sort of a bizarre palimpsest, isn’t it? so much of it does feel like old RPGmaker games, but the love and effort that went into it makes it…well, sort of a crystal, suspended in time. it’s a throwback that is also fresh and futuristic in its tone.
@@KilgoreTraut Haven't read that one; I think my first encounter with the word 'palimpsest' was either something written by Borges or something by Calvino.
I once had an idea for a story that took place in a kind of MMORPG server that was still running after an apocalyptic war wiped out all of humanity, where every NPC and monster had gained sapience and were trying to get by in a world that was supposed to have a large number of god-like beings killing monsters and fueling the economy. There was a "War In Heaven" that was basically moderator bots fighting over whether they should stay the course or change the rules since all the players were gone.
The world had, in the aftermath of that "War In Heaven", devolved to a Conan The Barbarian-esque bronze age, because the moderator bots were all gone and there was now nothing to keep the plugging the gaps in the system, with the few NPCs who had figured out how some of the systems worked now ruling over kingdoms as unstoppable god-kings, because what is a level one NPC armed with bronze and wood going to do about someone who is level 99 and has end-game gear? The Big Bad of the story was meant to be a glitch that had gained self-awareness that, to the NPCs in the game, looked like a genuine cosmic horror beyond comprehension because it was literally a sapient flaw in reality.
I feel like, after watching this video, maybe I should do something with that story now.
Oh god yes make this immediately
Get into DND. Run this world as a game master, keep notes!
Your players will help you fill in gaps in your world you didn't know were there, and after enough work, yes, *work*, you'll have something you could make a Funger/Wocean RPGmaker game, or something else.
YES, DO IT RN,
OH MY GOD, HECK YEAH!
Kind of reminds me of the MMO aspect of Crosscode. It's a single player rpg but you're in an "mmo". It's great.
I'd read it
I'm loving that Violet's radiation attack is basically "Cancer Beam"
"Me? A sorcerer? Wrong!"
_ *CANCER BEAM* _
RADIATION CANCER BEAM ATTACK:
〽
"Violet, you gave me cancer?"
"Why do i even have this power!?!?!?"
“What kind of witch are you?”
a rad one 👉😎👉 _gives guard leukemia_
I dont even know what to call this type of content, but I love it.
Its like a combination of a video essay explaining the game, leading into a long play talking me through the narrative, but edited down to movie length.
There are so many games I'd like to see covered just like this. Great work.
Totally agree. I rarely have the time to commit to actually playing games, so I tend to enjoy them vicariously by listening to / watching those types of video while going about everything else in life. I wish I could find more time to play but I'm usually too exhausted by the end of most days to dedicate the attention these great projects deserve, and I get to support creators I love in the process.
It's such a good admixture of play through and essay on
I think I would consider this video a "narrative longplay review," but it's probably too wordy of a tagline. You might enjoy Warlockracy for a similar style.
@@Intrasight_I'm landing at about 3 words to capture it too! And thank you I'll check em out
@@AaronMDubya100% seconding the Warlockracy suggestion. His Arcanum vid mixes in a story summary, some analysis, his own roleplaying as the character, mild political theory, and inter-splices it with of Victorian-era predictions of the far future (now).
"But black dynamite, I sell drug to the community." Goated line
The simple character graphics and lack of portraits for most of the characters had me picturing them as movie characters, and that line popped into my head immediately.
@@mutantwormgirlI made this reference in my head and actually screamed when it showed up in the video lmao
I have a peculiar feeling that Violet is in some way expression of fanfiction- made by an outside artist, causing her to be "imaculately birthed" into the world of another, lacking memories of her own and being "overpowered" in the world she's dropped into, probably one character of said fan artist since noone knows of them, but a significant addition showing that people like the artwork of the original artist enough to write fanfics and make up new characters for that world (even if they don't know how to organically introduce them yet)
There's a book you can read (I forgot where...) that kinda adds to this, talking about the concept of a "Mary Sue". I almost think Violet is commentary on that concept, Having two elements, a rare hair color, and a close relationship to the "real" protagonist of Wooden Ocean would make her seem like one of these characters, if Wooden Ocean was a real story in our world. Coupled with the fact that the jealous artist speaks like the Author of My immortal types, that fanfiction angle actually makes a lot of sense.
oh that's super interesting makes the 'jealous' title curious as it commonly is used to mean envy it's also used for possessive controlling feelings. You might be actually fighting the author of the story 'the wooden ocean' trying to murder fan fic ruining his book forever in this metafiction outside of time lol
Oh I love that reading, this fits really well with how she's got a vague tie to the "canon" of the story (being one of the unnamed sisters) but a massively expanded role
@@TheArchwolf or it's another fanfic artist who instead of trying their hand on the deal tries to ruin it for others to not feel inadequate
she even has the 'rare hair color' trope
the TV Lawyer being the lawyer from TV was a running gag that never got old, A+
and thank you for keeping alive the enduring promise that good games and compelling art are always out there, waiting to be discovered.
I propose we start calling the TV Lawyer "Saul Television". I think it'd be funny.
Your analysis and commentary consistently amazes me away no matter the game. From the research, to the script, to the gameplay, the amount of work you put into making these videos is stellar. I'll have to pick up this game. Cheers!
Thank you so much, and I'm glad to hear people are digging the game!
Man this hour long video essays in youtube is the best trend that ever happen in this site imo
Longtube now, longtube forever
Go watch Mauler
@@jamesmcdonald1108 I found a fellow Mauler fan AND Worm Girl fan, I can't believe it!
Some npcs calling violet mezra and nosredna being anderson backwards (and also someone's face) are things I can't believe I never noticed while playing, but it makes me want to replay it someday. Also, props for getting through the final area's insane difficulty spike without resorting to bombs.
I didn't even really know about bombs until I was talking to Rilko about the game lol.
Firebombs are saving me in my water/lightning run
Very useful
I love that the name of the piece is literally a stage, when art pieces reveal the reason for their name towards the end it always feels cathartic to me.
Got this game because of you. Developer is a literal crazy person who responds to every message board post within minutes regardless of time of day, often incoherently. This is a good thing.
Really great video as usual! Glad to be a supporter! Also thank you for resisting the urge to title this “the best RPG maker game YOUVE NEVER PLAYED” or something like that lol
Thanks! And I try to avoid that kind of thing, haha. This is the classy corner of UA-cam.
I love that you dedicate the time and energy to highlighting these lost games. It gives me so much existential dread to think about how many people pour their souls into their art only for it to go unseen and quickly forgotten.
1:29:49 its even more complicated than that. There's a book (forget where) that states the Infinite Hotel wins awards for Best Afterlife, one is mentioned by name but others are implied. I'd guess thanks to arbitrary physics there are multiple competing cosmologies.
And it's not like outer space is gone either. There's a convo from a ghost close to the water temples ghost road entrance that says rich people could use space travel rather than the Hotel to get around (and Alex's comments on Earth).
I think worm girls main fan base has all agreed, start worm girl video about a game weve never heard of, pause video, buy the game, play the video while it downloads. Never have I consistently loved every single video someone makes, let alone evrry game they reccomend till she came along with absolute banger after banger. Keep it up dude!
Wow, this game is something else.. In my game Violet suddenly had 30 spirit at level 8 and started nuking everything. But since the game is so weird I wasn't really sure if it was a bug or some meta humor thing. Anyway, I proceeded to some of the deepest late game areas, found UR, nuked all the endgame bossed I could find, 2 shot the "final boss" with 0 planning, roll credits. Never even boarded a boat. Turns out there's a huge chunk of story I missed because my Violet turned into One Punch Man. What..
Embrace the chaos!
I was waiting for this video for weeks now! I bought the game after you mentioned it briefly on your Termina speedrun stream with Frapollo and instantly fell in love. Thanks for sharing this Gem of a game with us!
Thanks, and especially thank you for supporting the dev! It really is something special.
Any game that allows giving my enemies cancer is an instant buy for me
It's the first weekend in a while where I don't have a huge project hanging over my head. Feels great!
That must be such a relief!
@@mutantwormgirlGlad to hear that! Get your well deserved rest Ms. Worm!
This comment made me buy the game.
As much as I want to finish watching this video, half an hour in, and I need to play this for myself. God damn, you sold me.
Yesss, that is what I like to hear!
God I'm really glad you made this video because of how much I love this game but even by now there's more ppl who watched the video than ever played it and it feels like some sort of secret laid bare
I've seen several people saying they've bought the game thanks to the exposure, and the story is far from finished. Hopefully this video will just be a footnote in WO's story.
When she said "bows reduce your threat rating" I somehow decided for a moment she meant WEARING a hair bow, not weilding a bow and arrow, makes you seem less threatening and less likely to be attacked. That'd be a very charming mechanic for an RPG imo 😂
And would actually make more sense than NOT being worried about the guy who can pepper you full of spiked points without getting close to you.
@@fabrizioart1928 Yeah; it's especially weird since bows are apparently one of the more damaging weapons. It's one thing in a game like _FFIV_ where bows do less damage than melee but allow for more defense than a melee weapon; it's another when it simultaneously does great damage and lowers threat.
this is actually the lore explanation behind some of the armor in Undertale. anyone you're fighting is a magical creature and magic in that setting is influenced almost purely by emotion. being cuter makes enemies want to hurt you less, thus decreasing the damage you take
This video hits me for 2x damage, the first hit is because I'm in the middle of going "how does any videogame ever get made???" as you describe at the beginning, and the second is because I've tried walking the tightrope of brilliant/nonsense through a metanarrative very similar to this one before and it's really goddamned hard. Props to Anderson for riding it out and publishing his thing. Oh and to you for finishing the vid, I've been curious since you first mentioned in that stream a while ago.
Same
In the meta-narrative about art and artists it's pretty clear that the player / Violet takes the role of the audience / fancdom. Violet herself has quite a few aspects of a fanfic character / mary sue in the original sense (related to the main character of the story, somehow becomes the protagonist despite not existing in the original narrative).
As such the Player is the opposite of the Jealous Artist (who would be the hater / anti-fan), instead of reacting to the work with destruction, they actively engage with it and it inspires them to be creative.
one of the books in the library mentions mary-sues, so this makes sense
Your reading of this was actually how I imagine it would sound if I were trying to suss out a story from a bunch of people with different interests were all talking at once. It was nice to listen to!
Though it's funny that mankind tried to make its perfect world, and it's just purgatory. Every time!
I basically never write any youtube comments ever, but thank you so much for making a video about this game.
I found it more or less randomly, didnt know your channel before, neither did i ever even hear about the game.
The entire thing is completely up my alley, and i would have never found it any other way, since it seems to be criminally unknown, so thanks for that!
Really happy to be able to share the game with people!
Damn, how underground WAS this game. Even after your vid and 2 months, there are still LESS THEN 100 reviews on Steam. Like... that's less then 0.1% of all the people that watched this vid. I get that that is not how this works, but its still wild to think about
I'd like to point out at: 1:24:10 there is a book in Lampless that hints to the nature of Time. It's the one about the last element discovered and Arbitrary Physics I believe. Eternal Recurrence, Big Crunch into the Omega Point.
It feels essential for understanding the plot, but I think it spawns randomly in a different place in every new game lol.
The more blatant humor is a very welcome addition in this video! Your videos are amazing and the commentary helps me get sleep when im having difficulties.
Thank you for the great video!
As someone who's been following this game since its beginnings as a simple dungeon crawler, kudos to you for giving it the attention it so richly deserves! 👏
Fun fact: you can find me (or a version thereof) as an NPC in Winter Recluse. Goes back to a chat I had with the dev on Twitter a few years ago...😄
Quick note about Psuedo vs psuedo: Psuedo = RUR, Pseudo = UR, IIRC there is some dialogue explaining this in Psuedo Hell. Pretty interesting to see the little differences in how our playthroughs went, lots of easy to miss dialogue.
I always try to leave some stuff on the table for players to explore on their own, but TBH I probably missed more than I intended to just because of how there's no real wiki or community space for the game yet.
I do remember Roland mentions that he puts in a petition for Violet to get into Psuedo heaven and says something like, "It's not UR, but it's almost as good." I never got to explore the hells though so I refrained from commenting.
@@mutantwormgirl Oh yeah not intending to criticise at all, there's definitely some stuff in your video that is different from my experience as well in some significant ways so there's stuff here I missed! For example before the angel encounter in Poetry of Rust there is actually a free teleport right to the divine tower entrance so I had a completely different path there and missed the divine tunnel dialogue.
Even though it;s obviously finite I really love the feeling of infinite variation the game gives through the way it slowly reveals its layers, the way you build up your own mental map of the world reminds me of the Kings Field games in a way.
Proper capitalization is important for these concepts... :3c (not throwing shade, I remember that being the literal reason of difference between the two 'Pseudos'..outside of the deeper explanation of RUR and UR.
Violet, casually giving people cancer: "My disease?"
She thinks it's the 13th century, she probably doesn't even know what it is.
Worm Girl strikes again. Time for another masterpiece about a game I'm never gonna play!
Truly my favourite way to consume game content these days. I still buy the games where I can to support the creators! But I love hearing the story broken down like this.
I got about 20 minutes into this video before going to the Steam page and getting it for myself. I’m only about 10 hours in but I’m absolutely rabid for more of this game, it’s truly incredible and one-of-a-kind. Excited to finish the vid once I’m done! thanks for all your hard work on this channel.
Paused this video after the prologue/chapter 1 section to go play Wooden Ocean for myself. I've gotten pretty far with a wind/thread start using daggers, even managing to kill some things well above my level, but came back to see your thoughts on the things I have played. This turned out to be a great idea, because I could not find Demon Door II. Found I and III on my own but couldn't find II. Lo and behold, 33:00 had my answers. Thank you Worm Girl. I'll now re-pause this video since I haven't actually searched the mines for Marcus yet and only dipped in to deal with the orcs and get the cash reward (and some other minor exploration, I left as soon as Alex said we were on the right track since I wanted to do other things first). I will be back once I have made more main story progress, which will likely take me a long, long time. There's just so much to explore.
It seems to be a very postmodern game in it's themes.
What Happens in YIIK: The Postmodern RPG
@@mutantwormgirl oh no. YIIK. I will never forgive that game for having a genuinely good character moment that is immediately ruined by a golden alpaca appearing out of a random portal and forcing us to fight it.
@@mutantwormgirl Legitimately, I would love to see your breakdown of YIIK after the 1.5 release finally drops.
YIIK looks like it was scientifically designed to appeal to me and then the story just biffs it. Maybe the update will help?
@@mutantwormgirl Maybe...if the update includes taking out the part where the devs use the characters from their delisted first game that included stolen assets to whine about how said first game which they stole assets for wasn't very popular, seeming to imply that it was because people just didn't want them to succeed instead of it being just Not Great and also, well, the stealing. Very tempted to say that this game doesn't deserve a video from you on it, but I guess if anyone could find something good in that...that *thing*, it'd be you.
I deeply appreciate you putting Nuclear Throne as the first example of a polished game. THE jury-rigged masterpiece
I remember the first time I tuned into one of the dev streams and saw the actual code. JW was/is nuts
This is probably the first game Ive ever heard of that allows you to give cancer to enemies
I don't think they're especially similar but I am reminded of Neverending Story. I like stories that play with meta-narrative a lot. This game/video was a trip!
Wooden Ocean is the sixth entry in the relatively unknown game series GoGo's Strange Misadventures. The other entries in this series in order are Ghost Plasma (1998), Combat Desire (2002), Moonrock Knights (2006), Coal is Indestructible (2009), and Platinum Breeze (2015).
Heheheheheheheheheheheh
You nearly fooled me lmfao, those sound too real
For some reason, I only just noticed this video existed now. And it's great. I wishlisted the game 20 minutes in because it feels like a special kind of weird already.
Please continue searching for obscure fringe gems like this. I normally cover obscure indie games but this had flown WAY under my radar.
watched long enough to know i should wishlist. i'll come back to this video some day, after I play it.
Murda Urda finally bought the game and now have spent 1 hour into it running a gravity and darkness class this is the coolest rpg maker game I have ever played thank you worm woman!
The protagtrio of this are mt favorite kind of characters. People who by all rights suck, they have done horrible things, but they make decisions to do better, to help. If not others then at least each other. Youre much less your past self than you are the person you are now. And thatll be the case every day.
Okay, a bit of build theory-crafting: Violet: Daggers, Thread, Dark. Alex: Sword and Shield, Earth/Metal. Amelia: Bow, Radiation. Violet is your primary damage dealer, using Darkness to inflict Curse on enemies to halve their luck and follows up with Threads for high damage, with Daggers to deal high-damage crits for undead and curse immune. Alex tanks, and since Violet and Amelia have low Taunt weapons, they'll be largely ignored outside AOEs. Amelia is your Debuff queen, dropping Poison, Toxic, Cancer, etc.
Again, this is all theory-crafting, but I think it should make a pretty potent build. Each party member has a role and the skills needed to fulfill that role. With both Violet and Amelia sporting weapons that reduce Taunt and Alex sporting gear that increases it, you only have to worry about keeping one character healed up while the rest of the party does the work. Violet on her own should be a very strong damage dealer while Amelia uses debuffs that will reduce enemy stats and defenses, making Violet's attacks even more damaging. If the enemy is an undead, Alex's Earth skills will be more damaging to them, so that covers that one weakness.
This is all based on info I found on the guide and will need testing, but I think there's a good chance of this being a solid build.
Okay, small addendum to this post: Curse is a pretty common status affliction, especially early on, so getting the Cultist talent will be useful for this build given that it prevents Dark debuffs like Curse.
Second Addendum: Given how common dark-resistant and undead enemies are in the early game, Holy and Thread may end up being a better pair. Holy has a spell that nearly doubles Luck which, when combined with Dagger skills that raise luck further, can turn Violet into a powerful nuker with Thread spells. If you can find an item that grants Dark abilities, you can give it to Amelia so she can inflict Curse on top of her other debuffs.
Building luck early is really bad though because it starts at 1 and doesn't grow with levels.
Just wanted to say that I took a quick look at your other vids and, frankly, you're my kind of content creator. You've earned my sub with great, quality content that scratches my increasingly weird tastes. I guarantee you were recommended to me because I'm also subscribed to Mara (formerly Maraganger) and Eurothug4000. Keep up the awesome work!
Also I've already bought my copy of Wooden Ocean, and I'll be taking a look at your vids for Deadeye Deepfake and Lost Cartridge in the near future. Cheers!
I remember playing a RPGMaker game over a decade ago that started out with the main character jumping off a bridge and ending up in purgatory and teaming up with a werewolf to try to escape going to Hell for killing himself. I have no clue what the game was called, but this game's atmosphere and storytelling is very similar. That's why I bring it up. Wish I knew what that game was called, but there are so many RPGMaker games that I'll likely never find it again.
I'm only 10 mins in and this looks so unbelievably cool. I must also say your long-form video quality has drastically improved. I feel very compelled to not spoil further and play the game myself. Thank you for this recommendation.
Thanks! I have learned a ton, I had no video experience before starting the channel and it really shows.
@@mutantwormgirl the editing stuff comes easy. You have the important stuff down. Looking forward to the Logic video. Best of luck.
Heya, thankyou for giving me a door to art i couldnt mentally complete on my own. I love art deeply and knowing im missing out on so many experiences is genuinely so saddening to me, that stories like the one you've written here fill me with delight. Thankyou
These videos are doing God's work exploring underappreciated indie games.
Looks like I have another game to play
Commented about a year ago about your vids absolutely slapping, and you’ve done diddly did it again. Truly one of, if not the best creators on here. See you in another year when I once again inadvertedly will become absolutely floored by your growth, keep on keeping on, cant wait for the next vid!
20 minutes in and this looks like a really solid passion project. It's charming and grim at the same time.
Came here cause of the Cdawg shoutout. Stayed cause the content is goated.
Yeah I binged all her fear and hunger videos too after the void stranger video
Same
Shole my beloved-it's really his pseudo world and we're just living in it
In all seriousness, thank you so much for the shout-out! It was a pleasure to help and the video came out genuinely so well!
Here's to all the new players who get to experience this trip of a game! 🪵🌊🎉
I love coming across channels and media like this.
In both definitions, as in stuff similar to this and in the manner by which I've come across it.
I'm not one to normally comment on a video, but I like your deep dives so much and respect how truly unknown this little gem is that for you and for the author of the game I will leave this message.
Thank you for creating.
I used to love playing through RPGMaker games, like To The Moon and Corpse Party and Omori, but don't really have the time to explore new games anymore...
Thanks for diving deep for us Worm Girl, hopefully I can sneak in a watch with my morning tea 💕
Its been nice watching you grow from a few 100 to thousands of subscribers, you introduced me to alot of cool games i enjoy now
Great to hear! I feel really privileged to be able to help bring an audience to these amazing games.
Hell yeah I was *just* boredly refreshing everything for something good to watch, and something good was delivered-
I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I came into this vid, but one of the most profoundly heartfelt metanarratives on the creative process and just a straight up amazing story about not being tied down by what other people expect you to be or not be, I think I've ever seen wasn't it. If just hearing about it from ya made me a bit misty-eyed, then I'm looking forward to experiencing it firsthand.
The only thing im sad about is this vid posted on my day off so I cant jam to it at work. Not like I wasnt going to end up rewatching this over and over anyway, lmao
How you do your videos is just so good, the way you walk through the narratives is lovely, and you know how to enter memes *exactly* when theyd work the best without spamming them
The space funeral comparison is great! As soon as I saw this game I realized it was another wonderful piece of art brut... I was so happy to see the plot develop, and... It's so unique! Games like this are what fuel me to create, no matter what. I think both games have a moral message- be who you love, and do what you love... Although, that does end up having some unfortunate consequences in both games.
50% of the way through and you've convinced me to give it a shot
I bought this after I read a forum post and got stuck because an unmarked door was a point of no return. I think that was a glitch, though.
"Game made by one guy who had absolutely no oversight or sanity checks" is one of my favorite genres of fiction so I could forgive it.
shoutout to worm girl for repeatedly releasing videos when something bad happens in my life though lol.
So I'm guessing you're pumped for the next Death Stranding game?
best part of the video is listening to the ends credits like it's an ASMR video of someone having a mental breakdown saying random words
The credits are the very last thing I do, after the whole rest of the video is done, so you can hear the toll that the editing process has taken on my sanity.
I bought the game and it's a lot longer than what I expected. I thought I was going to breeze through the game and then watch your video, but it seems like I'll have to put in 100 hours first. Thanks for putting this game on my radar. It is a real treat to play this game.
It's as if the game is a meta-narrative about the process of the dev Anderson creating this game. It started as a surface level RPG, a medieval setting of towns separated by the eponymous Wooden Ocean, with a cliche hook: the PC has to find her brother and untangle the mystery behind his disappearance. And along the way we fell down this meta rabbit hole as he got deeper into the creative process, culminating in him losing complete control and his own creation "defeating" him.
I have fallen asleep every time i have tried to watch this video because the narration is so calming and chilled out. 10/10 will watch again
Bumping for the algorithm. Small devs deserve the recognition, thank you for sharing!
Appreciated! I hope this propels the dev to indie stardom.
ahhh, Worm Girl coming through with a new audio-visual dopamine source for my brain to mine. Praise be.
i bought wooden ocean because of this video, and im very very happy i did!
watching the video and playing the game felt like entirely different experiences, but both gave me what caught my attention about the game to begin with!
theres so many things to dig into about the world, lore, characters, mechanics, and secrets!
honestly... yeah the "real" ending culd get some work, to avoid all that grind, but still 10/10 experience, your video has led me to find the best rpg i have played to date
That made my daayyy! I write for fun (and for TTRPG games I run for my friends) and all those RPGmaker rare-gems are an absolute GOLD-mine of inspiration- and those videos essays/dissertations you make the perfect vehicle to learn about them.
I enjoyed all those little moments that were included that make no sense to the main character as the curtains rises on the "reality" of the situation. Simple, but very entertaining. Your recap of the story was CLEAN.
Also the *SPOILER ALERT* Self-insert at the very end of the game is hilarious.
I hope you will revisit if the artist ever finishes his art.
Thanks for grinding like hell for this channel, although I hope that won't be a recurring thing (for your sake).
PATREONED!
1:13:50 Fun fact but that seizure warning might have been due to my feedback.
I've Let's Played this game twice upon the devs request over the past several years, although the last I did, I mentioned that this scene in particular was a little heavy on the visuals. I guess he listened and gave the angel that dialog warning the player right before the light show happens.
Leif is one of the most interesting developers I've ever had the pleasure of taking playthrough requests from. I mean that in the best kind of way. I always looked forward being able to talk with him and his passion for this game is unlike anything I've ever seen from a dev. The guy deserves a lot of respect.
I’ve never heard anyone other than NitroRad mention Space Funeral. His review is old but it’s still pretty good and “Spleen” is one of my favorite poems I’ve discovered through that video. You should cover it if you want to do a shorter review or play through it!
DAMN It was cool to watch someone else play this game and show me all the stuff that I missed, I hated Valez from the first moment I laid eyes on him but had no idea you could actually do anything to him!
Praise be to the blood altar, for Worm Girl has uploaded a most murda video today! I can't wait to watch this! Though it'll probably be a while since I still have so much of the game to experience myself (despite reaching NG+ and dumping over 40 hours already hehe =v=).
Always love seeing these videos. These types of games are not my forte but I love learning about the story and seeing them played. As always you did an amazing job! 10/10
If I am honest.
I had to watch this whole two hour analysis three times all the way through to fully comprehend the plot.
Ive watched your every videos several times over. I i really like your video making and talking style. You should make more videos. Listening to you is like listening to your vig sister talking about something you both love
Few of my thoughts after this video and reading comments - SPOILERS obviously:
1. I have no idea why nobody mentioned this but - Infinite Hotel seems to me like an obvious reference to Hilbert's Hotel/Infinite Hotel Paradox, a paradox in mathematics that says that fully occupied hotel can still accommodate additional guests if already existing guests are relocated. This is complicated and related to set theory and I can't even pretend to understand how it works, I can't also find any clear answer on how it's related to the game
2. I feel like Jealous Artist is misinterpreted. Someone jealous of piece of art doesn't want to destroy it- they wish they were the ones to have created it instead. Jealous Artist writes his own story on top of "Wooden Ocean" - replacing Marcus with their own OC (Violet) and changing the story. Except partway through writing it they start regretting it - the story gets derailed and instead the Jealous Artist becomes the main enemy. This is why TV Lawyer helps Violet at the start and sides against her in the end. In a way, "Wooden Ocean - the story" seems to be written by an Artist, "Wooden Ocean - The game" is written by the Jealous Artist
3. Honestly I wish you made a new video on this game in future, when community grows, more secrets are found and some theories are formed.
I'm aware of Hilbert's Hotel but couldn't think of any narrative relevance it has to the story, otherwise I'd have mentioned it.
Wonderful breakdown and spotlight as always. Wishlisted it a little while back then lo and behold it went on sale. As it stands now I'm over 10hrs in with no sign of stopping, and it's aaaaall your fault!
Another great video. ❤ I'm glad to see your channel growing, and I really love the games you've highlighted so far. I would ask if you could format the text overlays a bit differently if you could, the text is sometimes hard to read. Keep up the good work worm girl!
I love that you're covering this game! Love to see cool projects in RPG Maker getting love.
Also in case you, Worm Girl, see this, have you ever heard of the RPG Maker game Star Stealing Prince? It's definitely more standard fantasy turn-based rpg fare than something like Wooden Ocean or Fear&Hunger, but it's really solid and has a compelling story and is only about 10 hours long. I really recommend checking it out sometime if you ever want to check out a short but sweet RPG Maker experience
5 minutes into the video and I've decided to buy the game. I'll be back in a week or so to watch the rest of the video once I've finished my own playthrough. Thanks for the recommendation.
Amazing job. Not only is the video awesome but the game is really interesting. My small brain could only understand a little bit but that just gives me reason to watch the video again later! ❤
Awesome. Glad you made something for us! Was a great ride. Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
just started the video and "Let's just give up!" is going to live in my head forever.
Which is hilarious given the final thoughts about this game, I guess! Fantastic, definitely going to try out the game.
Really liked all the designs in this, everything was so unique and yet in a similar tone
I'm so glad this game is getting some love through this video. Love your analyses; you may enjoy checking out another strange little project called Soulestination!
It is 4 in the morning and I was not mentally prepared for this level of webcomic creator multiverse theory world design
This is awesome! I started watching your channel due to your cdda tutorials, and this kind of content is my favorite to watch
"You know, like in real life!" Spat out my water 😂
game characters being aware that they're game characters rarely is done right, i remember one of the star ocean had that ending but star ocean has never been good at story progression so it really sucks. i'll definitely check the game out, great video as usual
Star Ocean 3 is what I had in mind when I was writing the bits about how it almost always sucks.
Time for my bimonthly rewatch of all your content! Please keep it up i adore all your videos!!!
I literally reached the part where you warned about spoilers after the prologue, then paused and bought the game! It's been great so far.
As for what you mentioned about knowledge, I think some things might have been added? On NG+, I walked to Winter Recluse and saw, in the space where there used to be a path to nothing, a blue chest. Opening it gave me six realism shards and the text "She saw the unseeable. This was knowledge." I notice on the eastern end of town there's another path towards nothing. I think another chest may be there. Has anyone else encountered this?
EDIT: After taking a closer look around the map, I've noticed these chests everywhere. It seems like a NG+ method to help cope with losing all your stats. I can suddenly buy Poet of Metal gear for everyone.
I haven't delved into NG+ much myself..but I do know, last I remember, a "Limit" to how many NG Cycles you can do.
As to if it's plot reasons or mechanical reasons (likely.both) I dunno...but odds are you might be on the right track with that thought process.