SecretAsianMan

Tacoma from Fullbright

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After finishing it, I saw that one of the achievements is for spotting the cat in EVERY AR scene. I saw the cat in like...two. That's me, good ole "Sherlock" juv3nal, never misses a thing. :blink:

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I finished this on Sunday and I absolutely loved this from the very start, to the very end.

 

The way that the story telling is presented, being able to follow different threads (or not) feels unique to video games. It reminds me of the people that watched the same film every day for a month and they started just watching what the extras are doing. Tacoma allows you to follow tertiary characters in a scene and what they do is interesting.

 

Apart from one of those crazy 'follow actors around a scene' no other medium can  present the story like this.

 

Looking at the reviews, I am kind of shocked that people are saying 'good but not as good as Gone Home', I liked both but Tacoma is just about perfect - if you ignore the fact that I just wanted to hangout with Clive all day (the adorable, dumb weirdo).

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I finally finished it today. I had a break for little bit over the week. Seems I had played it first to about half point in the game.

 

Really liked so many things about Tacoma. Carl Lumbly was a fine choice for voice actor as Odin!

 

The Thumbs guys really do get some amazing talent to do the voicework in their games.

 

I really liked the story, but in some ways it lacked the punch that Gone Home had in it's story arch. The story was still really good. Way better than most modern scifi movies for example. And as a overall game experience I liked Tacoma a lot more than Gone Home.

 

The whole AR recording is a game changer, that was incredible and so well done with rewinding and fastforwarding all working smoothly.

 

Also interesting to see the pre-alpha videos in youtube now and compare that to the finished product. Many things changed, but many elements also stayed and just were perfected.

 

If I would have to comment on something on the negative side, I perhaps would've wished to have more puzzles in various forms to interact more with the station.

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Been meaning to check this out, but I didn't even know it came out! Feel like nobody is talking about it. It's definitely my type of game

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I started playing, but was overwhelmed at the first AR recording and stopped there.

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I guess I never posted in this thread after I finished it. Anyways this game owns. It's really great. The sci-fi universe is super well realized, the way the sun peeks in through the various rooms as the station rotates is really cool, the story is interesting, the voice acting is tremendous, and the time scrubbing mechanic works extremely well.

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12 hours ago, Erkki said:

I started playing, but was overwhelmed at the first AR recording and stopped there.

 

It is funny because in theory at least I really like the AR mechanic, but it also feels like a lot of "work" for me to get through these conversations. So I still haven't finished the game because I never feel like I'm in the right head space for it.

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I beat the game last night after discovering I had purchased it despite not remembering doing that.

 



The game is unarguably well produced, the station was very pretty and the voice acting was great. I was pretty disappointing by how short the game was and how straightforward the mystery was, I kept expecting a hidden message on one of those window panes, or for more hidden information elsewhere, something to reward more investigating of the physical environment. There only being 6 major conversation nexuses feels like the skeleton of what could have been a much more engaging story. I liked the game overall, but wish it was more Firewatch length, with more interesting twists and turns rather than the straightforward 1.5 hours it took, I kept expecting something else but it never showed.

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Started Tacoma last night.

 

I really like the Minny AI in Amy's space car. I wish that was the main AI character. (but what the heck is up with the plywood in Amy's space car enclosing ambiguous AI hardware? Will this be explained later?)

 

Otherwise, as I get into the game, both in story content and audio-log-interaction, I get vibes of SOMA. Good vibes. 

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3 hours ago, plasticflesh said:

Started Tacoma last night.

 

I really like the Minny AI in Amy's space car. I wish that was the main AI character. (but what the heck is up with the plywood in Amy's space car enclosing ambiguous AI hardware? Will this be explained later?)

 

Otherwise, as I get into the game, both in story content and audio-log-interaction, I get vibes of SOMA. Good vibes. 

You're there to download the station AI, the plywood is around the AI hardware that you'll download the station AI to.

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Just finished. Short, sure, but I very much enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the AR time interface. Very "Last Express" like.

 

Post game spoiler discussion:

Spoiler

I was genuinely attached to, and thus worried for, the crew. I was even attached to their relationship statuses, and was thus worried about the Cluey Dog intrigue. That part of the plot resolving in the last minute I really enjoyed, as well as the role of the player character.

 

Was really excited to say hi to Minny between capsules.  Best supporting cast. 

 

Who opened the Odin compartment?

 

Less spoiler-full discussion on this technique of story telling:

Spoiler

I often feel this "Theme Park Ride" style of story telling, where you are led through vignettes of the story one scene at a time, slightly breaks my immersion. Gone Home, BioShock, Half Life, etc all share a sort of style where you experience the narrative in a sort of linear path through the world, gating your entry to later sections of the world and thus, the story. I completely understand why it is done this way from practical programming aspect, of crafting a sense of advancement through the story, of containing the scope of programming the world, and limiting the possibility space that needs to be bug checked and scripted. But it often forces certain decisions into the physical architecture of the place itself. Would certain hallways exist if the play didn't need to advance through the story in a certain order. 

 

Not that I've played it, but Her Story might be the most non-linear application of game narrative? In that the player can in a sense access any part of game at any time? The narrative in that game is gated by your knowledge of search term keywords. So in this sense the game architecture is a conceptual one of knowledge.

 

I suppose those are the two main ways of keeping the reader in suspense, limiting their knowledge of events as in a murder mystery or thriller. And limiting their access to conceptual evidence, or physical evidence. At least, in stories where the reader has no ways of interacting with the world besides interpreting it.

 

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Steam: P84XF-Z8CQ2-ZLAMN
 
(Just bought a Bundle, already have it.)
 
(Mh, four years since the podcasts went away, still miss them from time to time.)

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