Scary Boat Used Evil Toot.
Aug. 31st, 2018 02:12 pmSupermassive Games, the creators of Until Dawn, have announced The Dark Pictures Anthology, a series of upcoming standalone games exploring different horror subgenres. The first, Man of Medan, is due out in 2019; it's about a group of young people who go out on a boat and get into horrible trouble (here's the trailer). I'm going to play it and hate it because I hate horror and I hate the ocean. I can't wait.
(I'm going to be even more unhappy if there's a game in the anthology set in space.)
In all honesty, I'm pretty excited about this. I loved Until Dawn, even if I also hated it, and I wrote a whole bunch of fanfiction (mainly about Mike and Sam). I don't regret experiencing Until Dawn via Let's Plays - I don't think I'd ever have worked up the nerve to play it myself - but I am a little sad that I robbed myself of the experience of going through it for the first time and finding out which decisions I'd have made, who would have survived, who would have fallen, how many times in a row I would have stroked the wolf. Now that I know how Until Dawn worked, I feel a little more prepared to tackle this one personally. Watch out, kids; your lives are in my inept hands.
I suppose it's a little like Danganronpa. You can experience the full story of Danganronpa through Let's Plays, but it's never entirely the same as playing it and putting together the clues yourself. I was surprised to realise how cool the experience of actually solving the mysteries was when I switched from reading fan translations to playing the games myself. Watching someone play games like Until Dawn or Danganronpa is still a good experience, but it's not the same as being the person behind the controller.
(I'm not sure if 'a good experience' is the right phrase when Until Dawn gave me trouble sleeping.)
As in Until Dawn, your actions in Man of Medan determine whether the characters live or die. There only seem to be five characters this time around, and I'm finding this an extremely high-pressure prospect. There were eight characters in Until Dawn; you're probably going to keep at least a couple alive! If there are only five characters in this one, I feel I could easily lose them all. We'll see, I suppose.
I watched an interview with one of the developers, and the interviewer asked what the studio learnt from Until Dawn, and he said they were surprised by 'how much people were engaged by the characters ... we were surprised by how much people got into it, how emotional they felt about it, how they tried to pair all the characters up with each other even when it wasn’t part of the story' and that as a result they 'improved the relationship system between the characters' in this game. Was this game specifically designed with 'shippers in mind? I'm in trouble.
If you can't stroke a wolf in Man of Medan, I am going to declare it a bad game. Although I suppose there probably aren't many wolves in the ocean. If you can't stroke a... dogfish?
(I'm going to be even more unhappy if there's a game in the anthology set in space.)
In all honesty, I'm pretty excited about this. I loved Until Dawn, even if I also hated it, and I wrote a whole bunch of fanfiction (mainly about Mike and Sam). I don't regret experiencing Until Dawn via Let's Plays - I don't think I'd ever have worked up the nerve to play it myself - but I am a little sad that I robbed myself of the experience of going through it for the first time and finding out which decisions I'd have made, who would have survived, who would have fallen, how many times in a row I would have stroked the wolf. Now that I know how Until Dawn worked, I feel a little more prepared to tackle this one personally. Watch out, kids; your lives are in my inept hands.
I suppose it's a little like Danganronpa. You can experience the full story of Danganronpa through Let's Plays, but it's never entirely the same as playing it and putting together the clues yourself. I was surprised to realise how cool the experience of actually solving the mysteries was when I switched from reading fan translations to playing the games myself. Watching someone play games like Until Dawn or Danganronpa is still a good experience, but it's not the same as being the person behind the controller.
(I'm not sure if 'a good experience' is the right phrase when Until Dawn gave me trouble sleeping.)
As in Until Dawn, your actions in Man of Medan determine whether the characters live or die. There only seem to be five characters this time around, and I'm finding this an extremely high-pressure prospect. There were eight characters in Until Dawn; you're probably going to keep at least a couple alive! If there are only five characters in this one, I feel I could easily lose them all. We'll see, I suppose.
I watched an interview with one of the developers, and the interviewer asked what the studio learnt from Until Dawn, and he said they were surprised by 'how much people were engaged by the characters ... we were surprised by how much people got into it, how emotional they felt about it, how they tried to pair all the characters up with each other even when it wasn’t part of the story' and that as a result they 'improved the relationship system between the characters' in this game. Was this game specifically designed with 'shippers in mind? I'm in trouble.
If you can't stroke a wolf in Man of Medan, I am going to declare it a bad game. Although I suppose there probably aren't many wolves in the ocean. If you can't stroke a... dogfish?
