toblix

The Secret Mystery Game

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First, give me credit for not writing 'Mystary'. Also, did anyone find the name and possible more info on the cool flash-esque game where you play this silhouette running around with sliding crates and gears and shit?

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Ack, again with the Limbo! It is a very beautiful-looking game though, so I'm not really cross that people are still keen to know more about it.

Last rumour I heard was that it was bound for consoles, as a downloadable title, sometime in early 2008.

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But it doesn't even look like a game! It's too well animated and... non-gamey to be a game.

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Yeah, I agree that AW would be the best game to compare it to visually, but even in AW you can see how the movement of the character is connected to keyboard input, but this thing looked more like just a nicely animated concept demonstration to me. The transition from running to jumping, the handling of angled surfaces... I just can't believe it.

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The jumping made me think this can't be a gameplay video as well.

The game's hostile environment, the interaction and use of silhouettes reminds me of Heart of Darkness, even though the actual gameplay seems quite different. I wonder why I never finished the game...

Probably because it was too hard for me back then.

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Yeah, the action looks too... unplayable? I don't know if that's the word, but even if they do pull off the animation (and I suppose with him only being a silhouette, it should be easier), it looks......... boring!

Another World? What about

? Eh? :) Actually, scratch that, it was shit!

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[...]it looks......... boring!

What?! But it looks amazing. I would, without hesitation, walk around and strangle everyone in family in their sleep if it meant I got to play that game.

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Really? I don't know, if you watch the video it's just a pretty simplistic run/jump game with no baddies and no interaction (could be different later in the game, though). The puzzles that are shown look weak to me and seem to rely on trial and error.

I know what you mean, it LOOKS fantastic, I just wonder if the gameplay is actually there?

What happened to that game where you were a piece of paper that escaped from the artist's pad? That look interesting, too.

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The puzzles that are shown look weak to me and seem to rely on trial and error.

Many awesome games are based wholly or in part on trial and error.

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Many awesome games are based wholly or in part on trial and error.

It's looking that way to me; you'll need to explore each scene, getting used to the events that happen and the timing required. Once you've gotten a general feel for it early on, you should be able to move through other scenes with relatively little trial and error, depending on the complexity of the environment of course; things like those sliding crates in the main demo video looked like they could be tricky.

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It's looking that way to me; you'll need to explore each scene, getting used to the events that happen and the timing required. Once you've gotten a general feel for it early on, you should be able to move through other scenes with relatively little trial and error, depending on the complexity of the environment of course; things like those sliding crates in the main demo video looked like they could be tricky.
Definitely. It reminds me of Dragon's Lair or something. Superb presentation, no doubt, but I think they might need to expand their ideas... Where's Tim Schafer when you need him?
Many awesome games are based wholly or in part on trial and error.
Really? I can't think of any awesome games that are wholly based on trial and error. What am I forgetting?

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Really? I can't think of any awesome games that are wholly based on trial and error. What am I forgetting?

N. There aren't many levels you can beat on the first go, so I'd say it fits the criteria.

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N. There aren't many levels you can beat on the first go, so I'd say it fits the criteria.

That's not really the criteria. Any game where you could complete all the levels, or many of the levels on the first go would just be shit.

Here's something which looks very similar to Limbo... but which you can actually play. Hmm.

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That's not really the criteria. Any game where you could complete all the levels, or many of the levels on the first go would just be shit.

My point wasn't that a game that is difficult is a game of trial and error. Rather, I meant that N specifically is a game that has levels that are designed in ways that surprise the player and thus necessitate replaying parts over and over. In many levels you are punished for behaviour you've previously learned and then try to apply again. I would say that meets the requirements for calling something trial and error.

As for easy games being worthless; I don't agree.

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N (or M or whatever) is a really good example of what excites me about Limbo, or rather why I'm not excited at all by N. While there are hundreds of levels in N, they are just combinations of ten or so different tiles. The only interesting new experiences gained from progressing is getting a new challenge. It would be like if Portal didn't have the story elements. If there hadn't been the "hints" at the beginning that there was something more going on, and if all there was to it were just a lot of those puzzles. I'm sure most people would still think it was great, and I, too, would also think it was really cool at first, as well. But that shit gets boring quick. Unless there's something new on the horizon, I don't feel a need to go on. Limbo looks like everything's hand-made and that there's a story or something going on.

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As for easy games being worthless; I don't agree.

I wasn't saying that easy games are worthless, I am certainly no "hRdCrE GMr" - I generally don't have the time or patience to become good at really difficult games. Just the way you phrased the reason why N might fit in to the "trial and error" genre was probably the way most games are described.

I don't recall being overly challenged in terms of dying over and over in any Final Fantasy game, so I suppose that could be considered "easy", but I still thoroughly enjoy them.

A puzzle game like N (eg. Lemmings) would probably be considered shit (ie. unchallenging, and therefore non-addictive) if you could complete all of its 100 levels on the first go.

I do think most games that rely on trial and error would be generally considered crap (Dragon's Lair, anyone?). In fact, it should really be considered a Gaming Sin, along with "leaps of faith" (platform games that feature blind leaps that may or may not result in your death), if you ask me.

Did no-one try the game I linked to? It's eerily similar to Limbo...? (Well, it features silhouettes, cogs and spin saws.)

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Yeah, I had already tried it a while back, and visually it also reminded me of Limbo too, as well. Maybe that was the game that inspired me to start this thread, I dunno. Anyway, when you said Lemmings, it hit me that, although N and Lemmings might be similar in many ways, while I found N to be uninspired and dull, I absolutely love Lemmings. Both have no story (to speak of), and rely on failing a number of times on each puzzle, iteratively developing a strategy for success. And again I think the reason for my fascination with Lemmings is that each new level is something special, not just built using tiles.

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N is more of a showcase of very good Flash programming, and while highly playable, I feel the same way about it as toblix. Can't believe it's getting a DS and PSP release.

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Wow, I can't believe that either. I found it extremely dull and only played a few levels before deleting it.

toblix, I think you summed up what I was trying to say perfectly: Lemmings totally rocked because you developed strategies and solved puzzles. With a poor "trial and error" based game, you simply do things wrong until the game tells you you got them right, and move on... to do the same thing again.

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I found 'N' to be a great game, quite challenging (nearly frustrating) in some levels, but all the more satisfying once you survived and made it in time. N's graphics are monotonous, but everything else would be distractive, and the handling of the nicely animated Ninja is flawless. In some ways I thinks it's comparable to 'Geometry Wars' (and possibly many other arcade-game alike) as both lack story and characters, etc, but share those rare pure-gameplay experiences, those phases you are totally mesmerized and involved and wonder how you just pulled this highscore or this run off, once you fall out of this state.

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The only thing I hated about N was the save system. Some of the later levels require *really* tight reflexes, dodging rockets, lasers, those chasing eye things, and mines, all while collecting coins to make sure you have enough time to complete the next level. Each level becomes a difficult exercise in trial and error, but you can only save your progress after you beat a set of *five* of these increasingly difficult levels in a row. Quitting kicks you back to the beginning of the level set. I sort of understand their reasoning -- not collecting enough gold in earlier levels might not leave you with enough time to actually win a level set if you come back to it, or not wanting to take up save space for all 100+ level sets -- but it's still annoying. :(

Btw, this comes from beating the first 19 level sets before reaching the limit of my Video game masochism, so I have played enough to get into it.

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I loved N, both the visual aesthetic and the physics based gameplay. I never had any illusions of completing it though.

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