Proteus

[BigJKO]

Proteus, an awesome game, was out on Steam yesterday. This is amazing.

People are already complaining that it's pretentious, artsy, non-game, worthless. This makes me sad.

Anyway, check it out if you haven't already.

[Gormongous]

I want to talk about some of the experiences I've had, but I don't want to rob anyone else of them. Suffice to say, this is a game that encapsulates everything beautiful about all four seasons. Watching the island change before my eyes was transcendent. The days are too short, really.

Edit: Oh god, the Steam Community page JKO linked is nothing short of toxic. Read RPS' review instead.

[Tanukitsune]

What I don't get is why are people buying this if they don't like "pretentious hipster crap"? If you are COD kiddie, why would you even click on this? WHY DID YOU EVEN BUY THIS? I'm beginning to understand why Tale of Tales left Steam now...

I just bought the game myself, the game wasn't for sale until much after it was available for some reason.

[BigJKO]

Yep, I hope he sells a lot to other people that aren't awful.. Otherwise, getting onto Steam would just be an invitation for awful people to berate your game for not fitting into their personal definition of what is worth being on Steam..?

Also, someone questioned whether or not the guy even owns the game? Would be kind of nice if posting on the game's hub required you to actually have the game (Nintendo did that with Wii U, I think)

[Tanukitsune]

If you have a mouse next to your name, you own the game, there is one guy in the forums who is particularly upset about this game... WHERE IS THE STORY, GAMEPLAY AND PROGRESSION!?!? They all claim.

To me exploration is a valid type of gameplay and you do progress through the seasons and there is a story in the sense of "Did I tell about that time in Proteus I followed some animal and I found a tiny isle with a giant tree with birds that made 8-bit music under it?".

It was pretty great, I did have a moment when it got very quiet and dull and then

I climbed a mountain to some statue and stood in the middle of them, the sky went red and stars went crazy... When I regained control I turned and saw a ghost! I chased to the island I just mentioned and chased him around until morning, where he seemed to turn into a white floating face and disappeared a when the day ended.

When Winter starts it was kinda tense, I had just chased a ghost and suddenly everything was white and uninviting... The music wasn't cheerful anymore and there was no life on the island but me... I climbed the mountain, saw the aurora borealis and the game ended... I don't know if I transcended or died of cold. *shrugs*

We are not supposed to be able to enter the houses, right?

[BigJKO]

If you have a mouse next to your name, you own the game

Oh, wow. There are three posts at the top shouting "This isn't a game, don't buy it. It's shit. After 10 mins you've seen it all. It's pretentious hipster.." yada yada. Three different guys, and none of them have bought it! Is this like a vendetta against Proteus?

[Nachimir]

We are not supposed to be able to enter the houses, right?

That's right.

I'm pretty upset to see the "OMG WHERE IS TUH GAEM?" user reviews topping the Steam page, but Ed and David seem to be having a good day. I also think it's important to preserve these kind of reactions; they're clearly growing pains of an entire medium, and will be more laugh-worthy the more years pass.

Source.

[aeolist]

It's kind of amazing that even though it was all procedurally generated my first playthrough was perfectly paced. Every few minutes I would see something off in the distance that engaged my curiosity, and the game kept it up until the very end.

Very rarely do I play something that makes me go "oooh what's that?!" as often as a little kid at the zoo.

[BigJKO]

I also think it's important to preserve these kind of reactions; they're clearly growing pains of an entire medium, and will be more laugh-worthy the more years pass.

I hadn't thought of that. At least, I will always remember this:

this is a new dark age for pc games.

There are some amazing things being said in that game hub.

[Tanukitsune]

Oh, wow. There are three posts at the top shouting "This isn't a game, don't buy it. It's shit. After 10 mins you've seen it all. It's pretentious hipster.." yada yada. Three different guys, and none of them have bought it! Is this like a vendetta against Proteus?

Since when do angry fanboys need to have played a game to hate it?

It's kind of amazing that even though it was all procedurally generated my first playthrough was perfectly paced. Every few minutes I would see something off in the distance that engaged my curiosity, and the game kept it up until the very end.

Very rarely do I play something that makes me go "oooh what's that?!" as often as a little kid at the zoo.

Even Autumn and Winter? I didn't have much to do during those season... there was no life on the island.

[Lu]

Those poor fucks. Their precious hobby is being hijacked by these pretentious art games. We gotta rise up and defend gaming, bros!

[BigJKO]

That one guy now pops up in every thread saying it's not worth the $10. I would understand if he was upset after spending said $10, but he hasn't.

[Argobot]

I'm glad that the over-saturation of words like 'hipster' and 'pretentious' has led people to label something with genuine artistic value/sincerity as somehow 'bad.'

Anyway, this game looks good; I will probably buy it this afternoon.

[Tanukitsune]

I'm so tempted to go the forums and tell everybody to ignore those who haven't played the game... Would it be suck a bad idea to make that post and actually ignore those hating on the game? This Fireflow has been posting NON-STOP!

[BigJKO]

I would've done it earlier, but I haven't got access to my Steam account. Go do it!

[Lu]

It would be a waste of your time. It's just a handful of guys trolling and spouting verbal diarrhea . People are smart enough to make up their own minds if they're interested in it or not. Do their opinions dissuade any of us in getting the game?

[Tanukitsune]

No, but that's what I'm trying to tell the people who are defending the game, those are potentially saner I hope.

I may have gone to far by calling the discussion as absurd that Monty Python sketch. :|

[BigJKO]

Yeah, I would've liked to have seen a thread when I first saw the other thread, telling me that if there's no "mouse" icon then the person hasn't played the game. Then I would've ignored him from the get-go.

Now I'm too deep in, gotta see where the rabbit hole ends!

[vimes]

I think this game is great: after a a minute or so, it had eased me into a very primitive, raw state of consciousness; one similar to what I think early Man might have had be when no societal frameworks were there to structure his experience of the world.

My first session was a chaotic string of extreme feelings of wonder

(the wisp circle on the first night, the animals)

, befuddlement

(the teleporting towers, the lack of life when entering autumn)

, anxiety

(the quietness and oppression low cloud ceiling of winter)

and terror

(the terrifying aurora borealis)

.

Invaluable.

[SecretAsianMan]

People who call a game that goes 10 seconds without shooting something "boring" or call it "pretentious" and say things like "not worth $10!" tend to have the opposite effect on me. They make me want to buy the game even more. I feel like in a small way I'm helping to cancel out their idiocy.

[Tundra]

if any of you like me bought early access to the beta you get a free steam code on the page link in your order confirmation email.

[Nachimir]

Now I finally understand why I've been misattributed as a Proteus developer twice:

http://www.youtube.c...h0ifdql8#t=337s (<-- Not me on the right, but my name. His real name is David Kanaga and he's the composer who worked with Ed).

http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream (<-- An unflattering photo of me, labelled as Ed)

Both a part of that cunning Ed Key's devious plan! I've been verbally and physically attacked in the street 18 times so far today.

Edit: The Game Police have been doing good work today.

[Tanukitsune]

Umm, is the Game Police making fun of crazy fanboys or run by one of them? I can't tell, sarcasm doesn't translate well through the Internet.

[BigJKO]

It's making fun of them. It's hilarious.

[Tanukitsune]

Oh, I guess I'll follow it then!

It's kinda sad how people are attacking each other, going to a poster's library to find their most embarrassing game? And those are coming from people defending it!