Pixel a Day

And that's good! I love frictiony games that can be a bastard to play! I just go nuts when people try and claim Outer Wilds is not frictiony at all, like we cannot have played the same game here

I crashed and died so many times in the first hour, just trying to pilot the ship XD

YouTube video by Pixel a Day PaD's Advent Gaming Calendar DAY ELEVEN #shorts

Hello! Have you been watching my Advent Shorts series, where I briefly review 24 games in 24 days? Here's the latest one (at this point I still had not realised YT shorts can be up to three minutes long, or I would've said more lol): youtube.com/shorts/WOcbq...

Fuck Valve and their cowardly bullshit.

Oh this is so validating! I sometimes wonder if people's playthroughs of Outer Wilds are much smoother and easier in their rose-tinted memories XD I also think they're misunderstanding the game's own design philosophy by telling people off for playing the 'wrong way'. Anyway you get it!

Anyway the point of this thread wasn't to own anyone or anything, more to clarify my own thoughts on some of the defenses of this game that I keep getting. I love Outer Wilds to bits but it kind of drives me nuts to hear that every criticism of it is actually the player's own fault. 😠

You can't praise a game for being open and not holding the player's hand, then tell the player it's their fault they played the wrong way when they get a bit lost and frustrated or find they had to backtrack a lot coz they didn't progress on an optimal route they didn't know existed.

This is the main issue for me though: A lot of these defenses boil down to "you're not supposed to..." or "you weren't meant to..." or "you didn't play the optimal way". But isn't the point of such a fiercely open exploration-based game that players will find their own way and not play 'optimally'?

I'm also not convinced that the game 'encourages thorough exploration of one planet at a time'. Does it? How? There's no soul retrieval mechanic. When you die mid-exploration, there's actually no clear reason to return to that one spot next run rather than go somewhere else.

Like this is just demonstrably wrong. Even just browsing a walkthrough that followed a pretty optimal route, I found at least three planets that have a bit where you have to find a clue on a different planet first. No the planets aren't self-contained. Yes there is backtracking.

To me, Outer Wilds is a wild, chaotic, confusing-ass game, by design. It's easy to die or fuck up in an instant and lose progress. I totally believe that other people had a smoother experience than I did, but to deny that there's any backtracking or time wasted is just being too defensive imo.

Every time I talk about Outer Wilds I get people who are absolutely baffled that I had a frustrating time with it, and I, conversely, am absolutely baffled that even one single person had a perfectly smooth time playing it. Isn't that kind of incredible?

a group of pokemon are standing next to each other with the words `` happy birthday '' written in the foreground . Alt: a group of pokemon are standing next to each other with the words `` happy birthday '' written in the foreground .

Pixel a Day is six years old today! 😎😎😎

That's what I keep coming back to. We've had these fights already everyone. Do we have to start again from square one here

How many of them would gleefully look up 2B's skirt while playing NieR: Automata or join in complaints that women in games aren't "hot enough"? When it's women and girls being fetishised that's all great and good actually. We don't mind "fetish stuff" then.

How can we say games are art with a completely straight face, when the games industry itself (not to mention countless gamers) doesn't agree? When we haven't even moved past "depicting something isn't condoning it" and "we rate things so we don't have to ban or censor them". Basic, basic shit.

This bit made me lol

Great stuff as usual from Kaile

Here's the bottom line: Horses is only 5 US bucks and the devs have been utterly screwed and need support.

Option 1
Head to GOG and pick it up: www.gog.com/en/game/horses

Option 2
Head to itch.io and pick it up: santaragione.itch.io/horses

The crux of the "reasoning" seems to be that the game made some corporate goons uncomfortable. (Apparently, they are not made similarly uncomfortable by anime titty trash, senseless mass violence and gore, or various borderline-paedophilic story beats and character designs esp. in japanese games).

The dev has been clear that there is no explicit gore or sex, all the nudity is pixellated, and that the "animal cruelty" objected to by Epic is in fact a critique of violence and abuse - I haven't played it yet but the reviews so far back this up.

ICYMI - Santa Regione is a legit game dev who has had their game banned by Valve and now also Epic, in both cases for what seems like very misguided reasons. Both studios have been needlessly opaque, refusing to specify exactly which bits of the game are in violation. It's censorship by vibes

Microsoft is a key supporter of Israel's genocide and can therefore get absolutely fucked. I won't be buying or covering games they (or their subsidiaries) publish. (If I feel I have to cover one of these games the fact that they support genocide and can get absolutely fucked will be clear)

PRO TIP

If you have YouTubers you like and follow and watch their videos a lot

leave innane/positive comments on their videos. The algo is all fucked up for YT creators and a lot of videos get sent to the void for whatever reason.

I hate doing it, but I've been trying to do it.

Just wondering are you turning this into research? I'd go to a conference talk about this just saying

"Surprisingly"

This is what we're opposing when we reject AI art - the desire for a bizarrely "perfect" digital world, the hypnotic comfort of familiar images with no human soul behind them. Like the Surrealists, we have to hold on to the human in ourselves and in art. The wonky, the jagged, the imperfect.

An incredible essay on what Surrealism had to say about what it means to not only be antifascist, but to be the antithesis of fascism, in who you are and how you exist in the world. (And of course, in the art you make).

Yeah, there's no way a game like this doesn't result in wildly varied player experiences. My critiques of the game aren't judgments on people who loved it (I'd never judge anyone who loved it or demand that everyone have the same take as me!)

Bless this lovely mad community, I'm so glad we could all go mad together. If you haven't watched the video then what are you waiting for! Check it out and then check out the comments coz they're great. Pixel a Day viewers rock