So I watched the first hour of this in his youtube archive (apparently he only did 1.5 hours of it, and I'll get to see the last part tomorrow). I'm usually in his chat on Fridays but had work to do, so I missed this, the one time he played something I knew about - I might have been able to improve the image of the game had I been there, but blah.
Anyway, I gotta say, his stream makes the game look
terrible.
The problem is that TSS is soooo much a 'a sequel for fans of the game' and not a 'good way to be introduced to the game' that it
(a) started out on so much story he was confused about and uninterested in
(b) immediately started confusing him with decoration, like that whole area you'll never access north of the roach/platform maze in the first level
(c) introduced concepts in a weirdly paced way - roaches to guards, to everything about snakes all introduced in one room so he had no idea what he was learning there
There's no way anyone watching that stream thought the game was a good experience to go out and try. If only he had streamed GatEB or JtRH instead, sigh.
But there's no way blame Day[9] for this. I think it's really our fault for being so stuck in our DROD bubble for so many years that we couldn't envision the optics of this game to a new player. TSS was awesome for fans, but in many ways actually repellent to people who have no idea what the what is what.
Though it's hard to blame "
us,"
too. We were stuck in our bubble and made/got the sequel we really wanted. In order for us to have done "
better"
we would've had to have seen streams like this a year ago.
Anyway, blame sucks. What can be done to make the experience of "
buying TSS because friends are reviewers rave about it"
not turn into "
what is all this? who are all these people I don't care about, saying more made-up words in the first few minutes than I should have to learn? how do I get up to that area up there? is it part of the puzzle? help!"
My suggestions can't really be implemented:
* make sure decorative unreachable bits only happen (at least initially) in rooms that are so easy you can't mistake them for part of the solution. or at least SAY (the first few times) that it's a decorative unreachable bit. Or maybe just remove the orbs from up in there so newbies don't spend 10 minutes clicking on them and being confused about how to get there when it's just a decorative unreachable area
* try not to use elements just once or twice - if there's only one rattler puzzle, maybe we just leave it out. or make it a secret room with a note about rattlers. but don't introduce snakes, rattlers, and adders all in one room, with unforced documentation and no mention of them again for levels and levels.
* bundle it with JtRH and TCB and strongly suggest playing those two holds first unless you're a Big Fan. Or pare down JtRH and TCB into smaller versions of themselves and literally stick them in front of the older holding vats?
or maybe
* since TSS was clearly made for fans and not new players, try to sell it was such. it's actively
worse for business to try to make money by giving people an experience only fans will appreciate as the their first experience - instead of hooking people and creating positive word of mouth, you'll create experience like Day[9]'s where the game positively screams "
don't buy me"
when you watch his videos. so maybe don't promote the game or try to sell it to new players at all. promote earlier games and then try to sell this one to fans only.
I don't know. It's hard. Day[9]'s self-torture has given me a lot to think about (even though my thoughts are pretty much just for my own fantasy world)
...
and, of course, my thoughts are mooted if I read threads about press clippings I normally don't care about, like reviews on sites I've never heard of, where a bunch of this is already discussed
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[Last edited by silver at 08-02-2014 09:42 AM]
