Save the Date

[Jon_Danger]

Can we talk about "Save the Date" please?

 

http://paperdino.com/games/save-the-date/

 

Visual novel game.  I don't want to spoil anything, but it is a lot deeper than it seems.

 

I'll wait to discuss after some of you have played it.

 

 

[clyde]

This is pretty great. 
Spoiler in between brackets [I really like how the context of the options changes in such a sardonic and morbid way.]

[clyde]

I give up, but I enjoyed playing it.

[SecretAsianMan]

I haven't found a "good" ending yet and I'm not even running under the assumption there is one.  At first I felt like I was playing a dating game from Newgrounds, but then it got dark in a hilarious way.  It makes me think of the movie Next or Paycheck or that one episode of ST:TNG where the Enterprise is stuck in a time loop but they don't realize it.

 

Also, I totally said I was a wizard, because, you know, WIZARDS.

[Jon_Danger]

I really enjoyed the game, and after a long time just going away at it, I finally got to an ending... at least for myself.

[Ucantalas]

Wow, thats... really something. I'm impressed, but a little upset at how hard it is to save this date. After a certain point, you've gotta wonder if she's really worth it, you know?

[youmeyou]

I really enjoyed the game, and after a long time just going away at it, I finally got to an ending... at least for myself.

 

Was it the ending that mentioned Groundhog Day? Because I think that's the actual 'ending'

 

This game is meta as HELL

[Jon_Danger]

Ok, spoiler territory.

 

There is no way to save the date. The only way to "save" her is to stop yourself from killing her over and over again.

 

I really liked the dialogue in the game.  The conversations felt like real people talking to one another.  That is kind of rare.  Even when things got weird, everything still felt natural.

[SecretAsianMan]

Ok, spoiler territory.

 

There is no way to save the date. The only way to "save" her is to stop yourself from killing her over and over again.

 

I really liked the dialogue in the game.  The conversations felt like real people talking to one another.  That is kind of rare.  Even when things got weird, everything still felt natural.

 

[clyde]

Ok, spoiler territory.

 

There is no way to save the date. The only way to "save" her is to stop yourself from killing her over and over again.

 

I really liked the dialogue in the game.  The conversations felt like real people talking to one another.  That is kind of rare.  Even when things got weird, everything still felt natural.

 

 

I can accept that. Thinking otherwise motivates the player to be thorough with exploring the options. By doing that, the atmosphere begins to turn from a morbid slapstick into some sort of deterministic nightmare. Still, I would prefer that once you've exhausted the entirety of options, a new choice pops up that implies that it is pointless to try to variate the choices with subtle permutations of when you leave the restaurant or how. Once I started doing that, the game became tiresome.

I really did get a lot of humor out of how multiple playthroughs transform some of the lines into inside jokes of understatement.

[chummer]

I really liked that the game was aware that a player was interacting with it as opposed to the game interacting with an avatar I control. Reminds me of how some of the insanity effects in Eternal Darkness were aimed at messing with the player instead of trying to vicariously scare the player through the heroine.

[youmeyou]

I can accept that. Thinking otherwise motivates the player to be thorough with exploring the options. By doing that, the atmosphere begins to turn from a morbid slapstick into some sort of deterministic nightmare. Still, I would prefer that once you've exhausted the entirety of options, a new choice pops up that implies that it is pointless to try to variate the choices with subtle permutations of when you leave the restaurant or how. Once I started doing that, the game became tiresome.

the game does this once you get to the starry hill. at this point you are essentially carrying on a conversation with the developer. it becomes entirely about the meta narrative. as on the nose as it is, I love this part because a lot of great points are made about the traditional ways in which we interact with video games - the falseness of happy endings and winning a narrative and so on. the ability to let go. Interestingly my gf refused to quit the game far after it had been established how futile the explicit goal was because she just could not accept that there wasn't some super secret way to rescue Felicia after all. whereas I quit pretty soon after the starry hill dialogue. it's fascinating because the game serves to illuminate what kind of player you are as much as what kind of game it is you're playing,

[clyde]

the game does this once you get to the starry hill. at this point you are essentially carrying on a conversation with the developer. it becomes entirely about the meta narrative. as on the nose as it is, I love this part because a lot of great points are made about the traditional ways in which we interact with video games - the falseness of happy endings and winning a narrative and so on. the ability to let go. Interestingly my gf refused to quit the game far after it had been established how futile the explicit goal was because she just could not accept that there wasn't some super secret way to rescue Felicia after all. whereas I quit pretty soon after the starry hill dialogue. it's fascinating because the game serves to illuminate what kind of player you are as much as what kind of game it is you're playing,

WHaT??!!

[toblix]

You guys got this, right?

[youmeyou]

no! how?

 

edit, oh god just did it, that is perfect. just perfect.

[clyde]

That akward moment when you realize that you suck at video games. Next, y'all are gonna tell me that Mario eventually finds the princess in a castle. After the sixth one I was like "ok, ok, I get it she doesn't want to see me more."

[dc2012]

the game does this once you get to the starry hill. at this point you are essentially carrying on a conversation with the developer. it becomes entirely about the meta narrative. as on the nose as it is, I love this part because a lot of great points are made about the traditional ways in which we interact with video games - the falseness of happy endings and winning a narrative and so on. the ability to let go. Interestingly my gf refused to quit the game far after it had been established how futile the explicit goal was because she just could not accept that there wasn't some super secret way to rescue Felicia after all. whereas I quit pretty soon after the starry hill dialogue. it's fascinating because the game serves to illuminate what kind of player you are as much as what kind of game it is you're playing,

So your gf kept playing the game trying to find a secret way to win? I tried to decompile the game files and when I failed I contacted the game developer asking for the game files so I coud write my own ending, which I will be doing very soon...

[chummer]

So your gf kept playing the game trying to find a secret way to win? I tried to decompile the game files and when I failed I contacted the game developer asking for the game files so I coud write my own ending, which I will be doing very soon...

Damn. Now that's some out of the box thinking. Good work.

[juv3nal]

if you've spoken with her on the starry hill, the response you get from calling off the date entirely changes slightly. to my mind, if you're looking for a "good" ending other than the hacker one (which is kind of mocking you in its over the top-ness IMO) or putting down the game, I think that's the one.