Is Pathologic worth playing in 2016?
>>332280460
Yes, especially with the updated translation.
There's a HD remaster coming out laternever ever
they'll make a game about anything these days.
>>332280460
It's always worth playing because the game has one of the best atmospheres in vidya and story is really great.
>>332280460
HD remaster is out, remake is coming out later.
>>332280917
>>332281101
These.
If you can make it past the antiquated graphics and UI, you'll find one of the best atmospheres in gaming history, as well as an interesting story that TRULY evolves based on your actions -- it's possible to miss entire quests because you weren't at the right place talking to the right person at the right time. That SOUNDS cheap and frustrating but it's not, because if you're following conversations it should be fairly obvious what to do next. But it requires actual attention -- you have to read and listen and figure things out on your own. There is no giant GO HERE flashing quest arrow.
Also there are 3 characters who experience the same 12 days of plague (their storylines are concurrent) but unlike most games they each have DRAMATICALLY different play styles and outcomes.
>tl;dr -- It looks and plays like garbage but it's a game that stays with you. It's LITERALLY unlike ANY game you have ever played. I'll probably be haunted by this game until the day I die. Remake never :(
>>332280460
Good atmosphere, good plot, good dialogue and a feeling of tensions.
Then again the game feels old in a lot of ways, and something as simple as the walking speed will probably grow to annoy you quite a bit, especially when you are familiar enough with the game not to risk running out of time on a given day. Give it a try, it's sort of long but gets better as you progress
I respect what developers did with this game but the gameplay is just garbage
>>332281950
That's a very nice infograhic, anon. I like it.
>>332282381
But how else would you be able to enjoy the sceneryand desperately staggering away from clouds of plague?
Remake when?
>>332282982Never ever
>>332282982
November, 2016
I tried to play it a few years ago, but the translation was so bad the game felt like nonsense.
Hearing that it got a new translation I might give it another go.
>>332283308
You definitely should, I liked it even with the original translation, and it's certainly something you should experience.
>>332281950
I bought the HD remaster day one and never ended it.
The dialogues doesnt make any sense and they are too long. The town is huge for what it has to offer, you spend a lot of time walking through the same places.
AGLAYA BEST GIRL
MARIAFAGS GET OUT
>>332283731
Maybe it's just not for you, anon.
>>332283738
>AGLAYA BEST GIRL
>MARIAFAGS GET OUT
>Aglaya
>Not clear best waifu Anna
Anna > Lara > Everyone else
>>332280917
>never ever
I doubt it. They've got the money, and it's not like they don't like making games.
Don't lie, almost everyone of you didin't even finished Clara.
someone said the void?
you require additional color
>>332284204
The only good thing Anna ever did was take the hit for the Haruspex when the Foreman tricks you
Even Butcher-lover-plague-cause Aspity is better than her
>>332284725
Clara is a chore though. There are barely any unique quests and late game all you do is
>catch your doppelganger every single day so that a part of the city isn't permanently fucked
>do all other manners of repetitive tasks to basically keep the city from falling apart but also burning you alive for witchcraft
>It's not like I wanted to eat. Doing miracles all day everyday until my hands bleed.
>When they do you walk it off instead and go duel some hobos for food
>Then maybe you have some extra time to do the actual quest for the day
At least I can chill out with clay monsters
>>332286000
Just lockpick the rich houses to get at least 1 piece of bread/meat and fuck up the entire abandoned district at night
Max rep too much money and too much food
Breaking the game is really easy to do
Also 2 meradorm fully heal and rest you in 3 hours
If you use even more you can fully heal in a single hour
>>332280460
>Is Pathologic worth playing in 2016?
I'd normally say yes, but considering the remake is in the works, I'm not entirely sure. Pathologic is easily the best game I've ever played - the kind that alone made me thing that games are not just a waste of time. That said, it's mechanically broken as fuck and can be incredibly tedious and frustrating, and I'm not entirely convinced that play through the same campaign twice (one for the HD version, and second for the remake) is something I can honestly recommend.
>>332282870
Yeah, the infographic got made during the brief but wonderful Pathologic renaissance after the HD re-release got out and we got tired to typing out words of advice to every new player of the game. God knows it's really helpful, and I applaud who ever made it.
>>332284204
>>AGLAYA BEST GIRL
Lara. Lara is easily the best girl in the town, closely followed by Julia. Anna is a bitch, Maria is an incredibly annoying pretentious bitch, Eve is consumed by jealousy, Aglaya is a compulsive lier. Lara may have her fair share of skeletons in the closet, but at least she really means well.
If we wanted to get weird, I'd say Kapela maybe the most sensible female character the the whole god-damn city, but she is way under age.
Is this the greatest use of narrative in a video game ever?
>>332287135
>Is this the greatest use of narrative in a video game ever?
Probably, yes. I honestly can't think of a better. I've played plenty of interesting games narrative wise, and I think we are slowly reaching a point where games are starting to figure out what Pathologic did more than a decade ago, but I still hold Pathologic as the best piece of story and story telling ever done in video games.
>>332287135
It's russian literature magic applied to video games. I wouldn't call it proper narrative because the whole thing is obviously hexed. You just can't replicate that shit unless you breathe vodka and exhale squats.
>>332287334
>you breathe vodka and exhale squats
Oh, you.
>>332287270
Yeah, I figured as much.
I made this thread because I'm actually not that into video games. Pathologic just seems like a game that does interesting things that can't be done in another medium. I find video games valid as a medium, but I just haven't discovered a video game that fully utilizes its potential and creates art (be it in a narrative sense) in a way that other media can't. From what I've seen, Pathologic seems to be something I'd actually find interesting.
>>332287334
I love Russian and Eastern European literature and cinema. I'm willing to take the goofy with the great, as far as this game goes.
>>332287135
>narrative
The game tells its story by using NPCs which you visit mostly in fetch quests, and it breaks the story as you visit points A, B and sometimes C, so it's nothing special. What makes Pathologic impressive is its atmosphere and diversity of situational events. Everyone who played this game has their unique event to tell.
>>332287547
>I made this thread because I'm actually not that into video games.
There are actually plenty of games that do the whole story-telling thing really well. Silent Hill 2, for an instance, which by the way was cited as probably the biggest inspiration driving IPL to make Pathologic. You have team Ico games and works like Bastion, Homeworld, arguably even Morrowind. Pathologic takes thing further then those works, but it's not the ONLY game to do the medium justice in the narrative and artistic perspective.
>>332287584
>What makes Pathologic impressive is its atmosphere and diversity of situational events. Everyone who played this game has their unique event to tell.
Actually, there is a lot more to it. The single most important aspect of pathologic is one that many people managed to disregard entirely: the tri-persona time driven narrative. Even if the low-resolution mechanics are fairly standard: the quests and the quest solutions themselves, it's the fact that the game tells a story OVER TIME (rather than based on spacial progression) and the main protagonist is always only "one of the three" (at minimum) that catapults the whole game to a level virtually no other game examined yet.
There are very few games in the world that actually do make the player only one of many actors in an ongoing story, rather than making him the centerpiece and core receiver.
cool, pathologic thread
since 'the void' is by the same studio, I was curious of something:
I was tending to my garden in the starting area, when I jumped into a tree and it shot me into the sky, and landed up on top of this aclove, and it had a 'secret' gylph that displayed when you were up there, I painted it and it started to flow color like a waterfall, but I feel like I left something behind up there, the gold glow tells me it's a heart, the symbol looked like a 'psi' greek character " Ψ"
>>332280460
No game is worth playing
>>332287953
I thought I knew the game through and through but I've never came across that.
>>332281950
Is it a horror game? With the spooks and the jumpscares and such? Or is it more like a thriller?
>>332288068
I've been trying to replicate it, but I was just mindlessly jumping across the area and smashed into a tree, next thing I knew I was soaring above the map, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to screencap the glyph
>>332288319
>Is it a horror game? With the spooks and the jumpscares and such?
Not really. It's creepy as fuck, and it can be genuinely terrifying, but it's not horror in the classical sense. No jump scares what so ever. There is barely any actual immediate sense of threat in the "oh my god there will be a monster waiting next door". It's dreary and sad and very depressing, and you can get scared of the things that are happening. But it's far more akin to say, Kafka or some works by Bruno Shultz than to say, King.
It's not a game trying to sell itself on constant sense of immediate threat, in fact it's not trying to sell itself on the horror or scariness itself: ironically though, it can get more "profoundly" scary as a side-effect.
>>332288369
>>332288068
I also painted in green, which is probably why the color 'dripping' off of it is green, probably going to start over since I dun goof with color management, if I do get back up there, I'll have to screenshot it and try a different color to see if it takes form of the color it was painted with.
>>332287898
>the player is just one actor in a vast story, and is NOT the centerpiece
This is why I love it so much. More than any other game, it makes you truly feel like just some random asshole caught up in an ever-worsening situation in a town where 99% of people don't know you and don't give a fuck what "quest" you're on. You are NOT The Chosen One. You're just another person, like anyone else in town.
>>332288319
Not a "jump scare" game at all. It's more of an incredibly well-done sense of building pressure and dread that not only never lets up, but gets exponentially worse every day.
It's literally the only game I've ever played in my entire life that left me emotionally drained. Emotionally fatigued, like I myself had just spent a week in a quarantined plague town full of horrible shit, and nothing I did seemed to fix anything.
>>332287041
>Yeah, the infographic got made during the brief but wonderful Pathologic renaissance after the HD re-release got out and we got tired to typing out words of advice to every new player of the game. God knows it's really helpful, and I applaud who ever made it.
Fuck, I'm really disappointed I missed it now. It sounds amazing.
>tfw the Kickstarter threads
>Lara. Lara is easily the best girl in the town, closely followed by Julia. Anna is a bitch
I honestly agree with you, but I do fucking love her voice.
>>332288946
>It's literally the only game I've ever played in my entire life that left me emotionally drained. Emotionally fatigued, like I myself had just spent a week in a quarantined plague town full of horrible shit, and nothing I did seemed to fix anything.
This.
>Play for the first time in a fever
>Finish game for the first time
>Stare at wall in a fugue for an hour
>>332288658
I've played the game through, I've got most endings includingascending the nameless sister- I thought I found all the easter eggs and secrets, but I haven't seen this particular thing yet. Let us know if you manage to replicate it.
>>332288783
Yeah, and the most brilliant thing is that it's encoded into the game mechanically. It's not actually all that complex, the means through which they achieve it are fairly simplistic, but it works. Telling ONE story through the eyes of three different characters, always giving you only a small segment of the whole thing so that you have to piece it together in your own head, and the fact that quests just come and go each day, shit get's "resolved" even if you yourself don't pick it up (in fact, given the tri-persona story you often CAN'T get involved in a lot of it, as it just "happens" around you is amazing, and I still can't believe there are not more games like it. There is Majora's Mask, and there is Dead Rising, but neither of it takes it nearly as far as Pathologic did, and I think that is a damn shame.
>>332289290
>Fuck, I'm really disappointed I missed it now. It sounds amazing.
It was a lot of fun. There were maybe like 30 people contributing to those threads all together, so we pretty much could tell each other by the posting style alone, but it was a lot of fun, and hopefully, few new people got to play and enjoy the game. That was half a year ago though. Back when the kickstarter was running, there wasn't much talk about it, as any "positive" discussion was outweighed by the sheer amount of people calling "viral" or claiming the games are "not real games" and that kind of shit. Like with so many kick starters and early access games that are not aimed at a very broad demographic, the discussion was fundamentally crippled.
>>332284964
>>332285097
i could never figure that game out
>>332280460
I don't know yet.
Playing through it now, middle of Day 3 as Bachelor and so far I'm kinda split.
The story seems to be pretty interesting, but I find it hard to follow sometimes.Georgiy informed me that Simon's body was stolen, Rubin is nowhere to be found and his house was infected. So I start doing the rounds and after a while I got the the district where Rubin's house is. Not only was it not infected, he was there and my character wasn't a wee bit surprised. So I'm not sure if I'm stupid or the game is just badly translated.
Gameplay is really bad though - shooting/sneaking is so basic as to be laughable and all you really do is a whole lot of walking and talking.
>>332289804
Simon's body is infected, and since the twonsfolk are retarded and thoght Simon was still alive they tried to steal Simon's body.
Since it was infected, Rubin left his house and is now hanging in his hideout with Simon's body
You were supposed to talk with people to learn about Rubin's secret hideout but thanks to the map that your character doesn'treally have you can figure out where Rubin is
I played the game with my bro for like 5 hours, read what felt like a light novel and a half of text, walked around the town aimlessly before just saying fuck it and playing something else.
Does anything interesting ever happen in this game or is it wandering around a dreary town aimlessly reading walls of text from every NPC?
>>332290235
So the building that says "Rubin's hideout" since Day 1 isn't actually his house?
>>332290468
>hideout
You are too stupid to play this game.
>>332281057
Like what?
>>332290468
Nope, it's just a place where he is hiding
He has a hosue but since you don't ever need to go in there it's not the game
Please post spoilers with a spoiler tag.Please.
>>332287547
>I'm actually not that into video games
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>332289779
>i could never figure that game out
It's not as hard as it seems, the main issue is that the game repeatedly LIES to you, or simply withholds some fairly important pieces of information, making the early learning stages more daunting and cruel than they have any right to be. Though it can be argued (at least in regard to SOME elements) that that is the god-damn point. The Void is a game about losing, in this sense it's not actually that far from the rogue-like genre.
>>332289804
>The story seems to be pretty interesting, but I find it hard to follow sometimes.
Yeah, communicating basic systems and game-logic is really not IPL's strong side. "Rubin's Hideout" should have not been marked on the map until young Vlad tells you about it, but it's different from "Rubin's house". Rubins actual house is way back in the infected eastern district, close to Isildur's house: the hideout is where he escaped with the body. The game kinda fucks up with communicating the the whole deal to you.
And yes all you do is a lot of walking and talking - and later on, a bit of looting and shooting. It's just the content and context that gets increasily more fanscinating, as the game really has the whole narrative more on par with good works of classic literature than conventional genre fiction. Sadly, it seems to me that a lot is STILL lost in the translation, even after they re-translated the whole thing.
>yfw hearing this after the polyhedron visit of day 12
>>332290604
Forgive me for thinking that his super secret private retreat wouldn't be marked on the map from the beginning.
>>332290984
>>332289584
;-;
I'm glad we actually managed some discussion about it, though. It'll be great once the remake is outand threads become more common, r-right?
>tfw some Russian anon in the Kickstarter thread was what led to me wanting to read Definitely, MaybeSo, Tragedian masks when?
>>332290819
Please.
>>332291078
It's amusing how almost all characters say something similar and you just ignore it
>>332290998
That's just how this world works, anon.
>>332290259
>Does anything interesting ever happen in this game or is it wandering around a dreary town aimlessly reading walls of text from every NPC?
Well, a lot of interesting things happen, but mechanically, it's a whole load of wandering and talking. There are survival mechanics, which unless you know how to exploit the system can get pretty tense (at least on your first play through), but they are essentially just a load of resource management. There is combat and stealth in the game, but they are shit. Later in the game, some further survival mechanics (mostly in the forms of various environmental hazards) pop up and make the daily commutes more stressful, but I'd not say they make it more "fun".
If you feel like you don't give a fuck about the environments and the tone the story sets up early on, it's pretty safe to assume it's not going to be a game for your.
The whole point and selling point is the environments and the way the story progresses, but those are still mainly communicated through dialogues.
>>332280460
I still cant get the title screen music out of my head.
Pathologic is probably one of the few games that can be actually considered high art.
Post the other void brothers
>>332291312
>There are survival mechanics, which unless you know how to exploit the system can get pretty tense (at least on your first play through), but they are essentially just a load of resource management.
I always love how if you're not clever enough to think ahead,you can get badly fucked over by the price increase on the second day. Well, what'd you think would happen when people found out about a plague?
>tfw now I always sell everything I own except for my gun and two bullets
what is a good website to see artwork or discussion of pathologic? Their forum is shit and I can't find anything
>>332291745
I always did enjoy the actual resource management in the game. No other game got me sitting on the side of my bad for half an hour, pondering which cocktail of meds and painkillers I need to take to NOT DIE IN MY GOD DAMN SLEEP.
>>332291801
>what is a good website to see artwork or discussion of pathologic?
Not really. There is a FUCKTON of fan art for Pathologic on deviant art - some of it actually fairly good - together with a lot of russian-based discussions of the game, but when it comes to english, sadly, 4chan was always as good as it gets. There used to be some pretty great threads (VladWorth was a part of it, though later on it all tended to spiral towards talking about what a handsome guy he is rather than the games themselves).
There were times when we had fantastic 400+ discussions around here, but other times, the threads barely made 40. It was still the most debate about the game I ever managed to have.
>>332283738
>the playercan hit on her
BEST
>>332292216
>the player can hit on her
Bad idea. Also,that pic is a sort of spoiler in it's own...
>>332292146Who's VladWorth
>>332290984
>>332291078
>>332291169
FUCK
God I need to finish Clara one of these days.
i played the game with the old translation a really long time after seeing the RPS article. i still have the megaupload links to the full version of the game saved, heh.
i never really liked pathologic nearly as much as the void though, maybe it was the shit translation, but i never had a proper understanding of what i was doing or what was going on. that and the difference between what was being stated and what was going on, everyday you'd get a note about the fatalities/new cases, but there'd be no appreciable differences other than what zones are infected/deserted. or like, you'd apparently have set up a hospital in the church, but it'd still be just as empty as it was beforehand and the apparent hundreds of people relying on its freshwater were nowhere to be seen.
>>332280460
Worst pacing: the game
>only one kickstarter update this year and that was back in february
pls don't go dark on us again IPL
Loved to scared the shit out of the blonde with the Hausperex
Is Ice Pick Lodge the Yoko Taro of non-Japanese entertainment? Horrible gameplay, zero pacing, unintuitive progression, godawful writing, all signs point to yes, yes?
>>332292647
Later on it becomes appreciably noticable, there's way less people walking the streets, the muggers and worse start walking around in broad daylight, and most of the town turns into the brownish red sludge of the infected districts.
You might give it another shot after taking a look at >>332281950, they put out an HD version that fixes the translation and a couple other bugs.
>>332287898
>Even if the low-resolution mechanics are fairly standard: the quests and the quest solutions themselves, it's the fact that the game tells a story OVER TIME (rather than based on spacial progression) and the main protagonist is always only "one of the three" (at minimum) that catapults the whole game to a level virtually no other game examined yet.
I'm pretty sure some games did similar thing to that even though nothing comes to mind right now, but the point is that the perspective shift is nothing new and for several hours that I've played Pathologic, it's mainly a walking simulator with bad gameplay and fetch quests and even fetch plotlines.
>There are very few games in the world that actually do make the player only one of many actors in an ongoing story, rather than making him the centerpiece and core receiver.
You're always the centerpiece of your sideshow.
>>332281057
First thing I thought of when I saw OP's pic.
>>332292938
Actually they're cooking new update and started doing podcasts, but only in Russian. Sorry, English-speaking bro.
>>332293208
Yeah, Dybowski always stated that he knows shit about gameplay and thinks it distracts players from the game. But still hired gameplay designer. Yet
>godawful writing
u wot m8?
YES
YES
PATHOLOGIC IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC
>>332292357
>Who's VladWorth
Probably the only tripfag in the history of /v/ that people were genuinely happy to see. He is a Russian IPL and World Of Darkness enthusiast that actually started making his own Pathologic translation back years before the remake kickstarter. He used to be a regular in IPL threads giving us updates on the translation project (I would not be particularly surprised if he popped up here), a good discussion partner and generally very helpful in all things Pathologic. Eventually he became something of a "celebrity" among the very narrow IPL fanbase around here, especially after somebody dug up his photos. Over the many years, I've never seen him being a cunt about anything, which among tripfags is really a unique quality. He brought the "community" together quite frequently.
His translation project was abandoned after the HD-re-release, and I haven't seen him much since, but he does appear from time to time.
>>332292938
There were two updates: one early november, one february.
To be perfectly honest, I was expecting them running out of steam on the updates. They did try, but clearly it's not their thing. It's annoying - like so many things about them and their games: it just comes with the creative insanity, I guess.
>>332292647
There was little more feedback than that - most noticeably Adherents (now "Bound") dying but I agree the game could improve a lot on the feedback: I hope that is what they do with the remake.
That said: I'm surprised that you did not have problem with The Void, considering how nebulous and weird and abstract absolute majority of the game is. I mean: I enjoyed The Void a lot, but my biggest issue with it was always how disconnected most of itThe Surface visits and the last two Sister Chambers not withstandingfelt from anything real and relatable.
>>332291907
Yeah, me too. That's why I love the walking pace - it forces you to constantly keep in your mind where you're going, what you need to do, what you can get done on the way, what resources you need and what you can gather,OH WAIT YOU JUST GOT INFECTED BY AN ANGEL OF DEATH sorry, Bachelor
Balancing what you need for healing is terrific, like staggering around on death's door and patching yourself up with bandages because you just can't afford to sleep right now.I also love some of the glitchiness when it enhances the experience, for my first playthrough I got to where you need to free Artimiy but Gryph's thugs didn't show up, so I got to murder the guards with my own hands and them and then spend the rest of the day running around trying to make people love me again. Good times.
>>332292938
I've needed to email them for a whileabout my Brandsso when I do, I'll ask them and report back?
>>332293464
...do you have something against fetch quests?
>>332293686
Are you retarded?
The impostress/Changeling is named Clara
>>332293686
Clara is the Devotress, the third Path that unlocks after you complete one of the other twobut you should really play both the Bachelor and Haruspicus before hers
>>332293603
>u wot m8?
It's_____bait_____
>>332293690
As far as I recall, Vlad was contacted by Alphyna and IPL used his drafts in HD remaster translation.
>>332293603
>Yeah, Dybowski always stated that he knows shit about gameplay and thinks it distracts players from the game. But still hired gameplay designer.
It's actually a little more complicated than that. Dybowski has an issue with mechanics for the sake of mechanics, and with the idea that game is supposed to be an exercise with rewarding gameplay loops. All IPL games always have been actually extremely mechanic-centric, it's just that he views the context differently from different games. I don't know anything about him hiring a gameplay designer, but I would say it's a massive misinterpretation to think Dybowski thinks "gameplay distracts the player". Their design philosophy has always been "player agency first".
>>332293719
I have something about tedious 'go here, go there' narrative iterations when they are lauded as something unique. Storytelling in video games is at its best when coming through gameplay and map design. Pathologic has interesting map design even though most of the scenery serves no purpose other than padding and the gameplay part is better the less you talk about it.
>>332293719
>I'll ask them and report back?
Will be waiting warmly, thanks friend. Don't really need specifics, just a simple "oh yeah we're still chugging away at it" would be comforting enough.
>>332293992
Yeah, I'd have said the same if someone asked for me to elaborate.
Man, IPL's interviews are pure bliss.
>>332293967
>As far as I recall, Vlad was contacted by Alphyna and IPL used his drafts in HD remaster translation.
Nope. He was indeed contacted by Alpyna at one point, with a rather creepy email stating that "he would not want all of his work to be in vain", but she never got back to him, and he did not actually contribute to the HD remaster in any way.
>>332294229
It's such a sad story...
>>332293690
>I enjoyed The Void a lot, but my biggest issue with it was always how disconnected most of it...felt from anything real and relatable
Not that guy, but that was what really drew me into The Void, it absolutely fucked nailed that sweet spot of bizarre/melancholic/beautiful that seems to tug directly at my soul for whatever reason.
Going further and further up the chambers and seeing more and more chunks of real-world flotsam was fascinating, but more than anything I loved the weird bits.
Then again that's just >opinions. Wish I had better screenshots, none of the batch I took after forcing AA came out right.
>>332293208
>godawful writing
Please.
They do have a lot if common, though. Both try to explore the medium and challenge the player on more levels than just basic gaming skills. The only real difference is that Taro has the support of gaming industry in Japan, in Russia no one gives a shit about IPL aside from their fans.
>>332294468
I did enjoy it for a while, but then I started realizing that I miss the reliability of Pathologic. It's the old: make everything surreal and dream-like and eventually the novelty wears off. That said, the game didcompletely turn around for me after the first Surface visit, and with the dawning of the actual "meaning". It's not just all weird: it actually makes some very relevant and relatable points, but it does obscure them for a good portion of the game. The whole first Surface visit felt a lot like the encounter with Albino in Pathologic except in reverse.
>tfw my English is пиздeц кaк godawful and I'm too much of a faggot to пpaктикoвaтьcя
Should I stick to books? Any advice what to read? As for the latest achievement I've gotten myself to understand Poe's writing style, but still find it too difficult to speak for myself. Like, the whole comprehension thing is okay, but expressing something - no, thanks.
>>332294784
Was Pathologic your first Ice-Pick Lodge Experience(tm)? The Void was mine, it's probably easy enough to chalk up a lot of differences of opinion to the impact of this whole new style of game.I agree though, first visit to the Surface was a hell of an eye-opener. Trip to the Adit stands as the defining "holy shit what is this feeling oh right it's genuine *awe*" moment to me. Or coming back to the Nameless Sister's garden late in the game to find those giant scorpion things eating all the trees and realizing this wasn't a scripted event.
Honestly, Pathologic probably had a lot more holy-shit moments, but The Void somehow left more of an impact on me.
>>332293603
>but only in Russian. Sorry, English-speaking bro.
;-;
Still, their English communication is cute as fuck.
>>332294048
It's just... this is probably because I think it works really well, but I just don't think you could change too much and still have it work as well as it does. Like the spacing of the town - just because a lot of the buildings are just houses with no specific events tied to them doesn't mean they shouldn't be there.
>>332294105
No worries mate, I'll see what happens.
>>332295262
Read more books. Read normal people stuff spaced out with /lit/ stuff. Don't worry if you think the classics are garbage or boring, a lot of them are classics because mass appeal or cultural/historical significance, not because of great writing and engaging stories.
You really only appreciate different styles when you know what normal looks like.
>>332295958
Actually, classics are more appealing to me since they're already considered something of value. It's normal people's stuff I struggle to choose from.
But thanks anyway, I'll dig further into the topic.
>>332295262
Hey, Russbro!Were you the guy who recommended Definitely, Maybe to someone in one of the Kickstarter threads, once upon a time?
>>332296271
Fair point. Most never struck a chord with me, I end up with a sense of "yeah that was a good read" but nothing more. Like it's written for the whole human race but doesn't really have time for you and your thoughts. Probably a sign I'm a navel-gazing narcissist but hey, what can you do.
Anyway the last thing I read that I loved and could be considered a classic was John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Long but damned good and the payoff is incredible. Good luck in your quest.
>>332296682Nope, that's not me, sorry. The film worth a watch, though?
>>332296840
>East of Eden
Began reading it in Russian some years ago but stopped halfway through, don't even remember why, since it was pretty interesting.
Guess it's time to give it a second try, but in English.
>>332295370
>Was Pathologic your first Ice-Pick Lodge Experience(tm)?
Yes. Back when I first played Pathologic, The Void was still named Turgor and pending for an international release. I guess the order can play a major role here. For me, Pathologic was the first game I played after Silent Hill 2, which was pretty much the first game that made me thing "there is more to games than just silly entertainment" and it quite literally blew my mind: especially since at the time I was getting heavily into magical realism - it was mere months after I gorged on authors such as Kafka, Schultz, Borges, Bulgakov or Platonov.
I can name only a handful of movies, theatrical plays or video games that had as profound impact on me as Pathologic did.
The Void I played only a few years later, and while it was insanely enjoyable (in the incredibly sad, depressing, melancholic and frankly cruel way it works), and unlike Pathologic, I actually even replayed it several times, but it never clicked with me quite as much as Pathologic did.
>>332295262
When it comes to speaking, I've discovered the ONLY thing that helps is actually being thrown into an english-speaking environment. This applied to all languages I've ever learned. You can get as good comprehension as you want, but it takes several weeks in constant company of english speakers that really gets you through the expression barrier.
Work camps, volunteer works, Erasmus trips (if you are careful not to get caught up with same-language speaking people) are the best way to go.
Reading, of course, can't hurt. It's both good to improve your passive comprehension of language, and it's generally a good thing to do. Seriously, books are awesome. But I think it's the change of entire environment that can really help you with troubles to express yourself.
>>332294771
Yes, the writing wouldn't be published in a low tier fantasy bin, let's not delude ourselves. It's very similar to how Japanese tend to mask lack of meaning with big words - like Taro calls his bizzaro moeshit 'Gestalt' and Miyazaki picks up fragments of English that he can understand and inserts it into 'lore' that is of medieval ritter novel quality.
>>332295813
>'s just... this is probably because I think it works really well, but I just don't think you could change too much and still have it work as well as it does. Like the spacing of the town - just because a lot of the buildings are just houses with no specific events tied to them doesn't mean they shouldn't be there.
I like their art design a lot, but their exploration model is completely broken from the pacing standpoint. I know it's tied to the flow of time but if you take that mechanic as literally as they have you sacrifice pacing for the faux-realism. There are huge swathes of time where you're just enduring and I don't think that player should suffer if the character does. At least Kojima tortured you in MGS for short spurts of button mashing.
>>332289779
The game is hard as fuck and not forgiving at all but the dev released an easy and normal mode patch.
>>332280460
Well its a pretty terrible game, I don't think it's worth playing at all unless you are morbidly curious what Russians think is acceptable.
>>332280917
Huh, isn't this the remaster?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/384110/
>>332297590
>I can name only a handful of movies, theatrical plays or video games that had as profound impact on me as Pathologic did
Don't suppose you can namedrop a few? There's always room in my backlog.
Do not be an asshole.
>>332298607
>>332298607
I kinda like the original translation's "not caught - not a thief." There was a bit of mystery that the broken translation added but that shit got old real quick when it went drastically south past like day 7 Bachelor.
>>332297451Damn, I've been meaning to thank that guy forever. Lel, I actually meant the Strugatsky Bros' novel - it's something like A Million Years to the End of the World in Russian, isn't it? Forgive me for not realising, RussiabroBut anyway, surprisingly, the film is great
>>332296840
Did you like A Rebours?
>>332298167
>I know it's tied to the flow of time but if you take that mechanic as literally as they have you sacrifice pacing for the faux-realism. There are huge swathes of time where you're just enduring and I don't think that player should suffer if the character does.
Ah, then this is where we disagree. I love that it makes you suffer, and particularly that it doesn't try and arbitrarily disadvantage you. The whole challenge of the game is simply trying to endure while trying to accomplish your goals, you can start out well enough, think you have a handle on things, and then the situation just gets drastically worse until at the end of the game you're staggering around, doing what you can to stem the bleeding, drained and exhaustedas much as the characters are
Even the long, monotonous walking/scavenging/scheduling really helps imo, especially when you plan on one thing or some specific timing and then the game fucks you over by throwing something unexpected at you.
>>332298429
>Huh, isn't this the remaster?
Yeah, my phone fucked upbecause 'remake' and 'remaster' are the two things that come after Pathologic in the predictive textand since the good anon corrected me before I just couldn't be fucked deleting my post. Sorry, man.
>>332299662
>Ah, then this is where we disagree. I love that it makes you suffer, and particularly that it doesn't try and arbitrarily disadvantage you. The whole challenge of the game is simply trying to endure while trying to accomplish your goals, you can start out well enough, think you have a handle on things, and then the situation just gets drastically worse until at the end of the game you're staggering around, doing what you can to stem the bleeding, drained and exhaustedas much as the characters are
>Even the long, monotonous walking/scavenging/scheduling really helps imo, especially when you plan on one thing or some specific timing and then the game fucks you over by throwing something unexpected at you.
Let's not pretend that the endurance part comes from anything other than Ice Pick Lodge's inability to make good gameplay. I hear these same arguments in Nier/Drakengard threads.
>>332299662
>A Rebours
>19th century French NEET lyfe
Haven't read it, sounds neat. From the description it sounds like something I'd do if I had the money.
>>332299965
Huysmans is one of the great stylists of literature. La-Bas is the ultimate Satanic novel. As for 'Against the Grain', it's the book that literally corrupts Dorian Gray.
>>332295262
What topics are you interested in?
>>332289393
I've managed to get close enough by riding the wall to trigger the glyph, but still haven't replicated a method of getting up there. By jumping into a tree in such a way that you'll hit your head, it will knock you back. I had a heart full of blue, so the extra speed probably made the knockback go into overdrive
>>332299961
Gonna disagree with you there m8, it's quite obvious it's intentional. The game wants you to feel feelings other than "wheeee." There's tons of movies, tv shows, novels, etc. that specialize in making people feel uncomfortable, shitty, disgusted, and other unhappy emotions, why can't games do it too? Especially since their interactivity allows for easier conveyance of that.
>>332298594
>Don't suppose you can namedrop a few? There's always room in my backlog.
Well, in cinema it was Stalker, a few movies from the Czech animation school (Stuff by Trnka, Zeman, Švankmajer - it may not be very easy to find). Curiously enough, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain and The Fountain both had a massive impact on me, though in hindsight I can't say they are such a good movies: they just kinda hit me at the right time and into the right spot. Also, Children of Men, Woman in Dunes, Marat-Sade, some works by Miyazaki and very lately, I was fascinated by both animated movies by Tomm Moore (Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea). To be perfectly honest though, I don't feel very well qualified to recommend cinema: for some reason I and movies don't really agree together that much.
In theatre, one author that particularly thrilled me was Martin McDonagh - Pillowman in particular blew me away.
In literature, the list would be a LOT longer. I've mentioned Kafka, Shultz, Borges and Bulgakov. Borges is to me by-far the most important one. I really feel like I should add some works of Dostojevski and Solzhenitsyn. Milorad Pavic is another quite brilliant lesser-known author.
I also Cortazar, Calvino, and Ray Bradbury, and generally quite enjoyed works Chekhov, Gomborowitz, Chesterton and Chapek. You might start to notice a pattern there.
Oh yeah, and then there are my favorite Japs: Ibuse, Shiga, Kawabata, Abe. To a lesser extent also Tanizaki and Akutagawa)
I also found reading Thousands and One Nights absolutely awesome.
So, maybe some of this will pick your fancy. It's what I can name - from the top of my head, as works or more authors that I loved. It's a bit of a chaotic collection.
In games, from the narrative standpoint I loved Silent Hill, Pathologic, The Void, Homeworld, Morrowind, SotC, Bastion, Cryostasis, Waking Mars and some others I can't really think of right now.
To everybody else, sorry for the blog-post. I'm off to get drunk.
>>332300352
Pathologic seems to be Bela Tarr of video games. Because most movies wrap up in under two hours despite the desperation.
>>332300192
I did notice on a recent replay of The Void that in the Nameless Sister's garden on the right side, there's a spot where you can almost jump over the wall. You can't, but you can see a weird green ogre-looking thing hiding above the wall.
>>332300051
>it's the book that literally corrupts Dorian Gray
Well shit, I'm sold. Thanks. Maybe I'll try and read it in the original, my French can't be that rusty.
>>332300393
>Waking Mars
Nice post anon, didn't know about this one. Come by to /lit/ if you haven't already. I don't share your views on Pathologic and don't like Pavic and Poulain at all but it's nice to see a coherent post on /v/ of all places.
>>332300393
Cheers, friend. The ones I recognize are ones I already love, so that's a good sign. Enjoy your drinks.
>>332300158
Dunno, something about naval travels would be nice. Kinda like Moby Dick.
>>332301417
Don't have a good recommendation but maybe you'd like
>To Have and Have Not is a novel by Ernest Hemingway (publ. 1937) about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain out of Key West, Florida. The novel depicts Harry as an essentially good man, who is forced by dire economic forces beyond his control into the black-market activity of running contraband between Cuba and Florida.
>>332301621
Thanks, but reading Hemingway's novels is difficult point for me. I absolutely loved them in Russian, but can't grasp them in English yet. I guess it comes with practice.
Is Crime and punishment a good book? What makes it so amazing?
>>332300651
AAAHHHHH I triggered it again, but missed, it was near the pile of roots by the opposite portal, and I can confirm it attains whatever color the 'waterfall' is painted in, I imagine gold being a matching trigger of sorts. Sooner or later I'll get it down to an autistic science.this game is damn trippy, if only I had some shrooms
>>332302294
I think he's a good author for someone not too familiar with language because he doesn't abuse the thesaurus.
>>332302851
As with every Dostoevsky work, the answer is psychology and faith.
>>332303567
Best russian drunk book?
>>332303841
Dead Souls by Gogol.
Why is this thread so good?
>>332287135
Best I can think of.
>>332304390
>shit gameplay
>good narrative
does not compute
