Subnautica (available for free on Epic's store)

Rudolphin wrote:
darksideby182 wrote:Gave this 20 minutes then uninstalled it, no idea what was going on other than swimming around in a circle.

[Urge to post something rude...rising....]

It's your loss, really. It's opaque at the start but it's not a hard game to understand, especially compared to other survival sims. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing but it's certainly worth more than 20 minutes of anyone's time.

It's a very opaque start, that does little to tell you what the game is about. As this was free on the Epic store, I picked it up without even knowing it was a survival sim. For some reason, I thought it was going to be a side scroller, based on presumably images I'd imagined I'd seen on the Steam store.

The very first thing I did with the game, aside from put out the fire in the escape pod, was try and swim to the wreckage of the main ship, as it was all I could see. After 250+m, I start getting injured by radiation, so what is there to do? The slow swim back to the pod. It's not a great opening experience, swimming half a km to end up back where you started.

Once you dig around in the pod, it becomes clear this is a gathering/crafting game, but even then, it's not clear what you do to gather materials. You gather materials in the ocean that aren't outwardly what you're looking for. I had to break off some limestone rock to get copper? Then acid mushrooms were a source of something else as well.

Having had a chance to get to grips with it, I get where it's going, but it makes the opening seriously difficult for those going in blind, and it's obviously a game that is not interested in guiding you towards what you need next.

As for my own progress, I've got myself a torch and an oxygen tank now, so I should be able to explore further. I could really do with finding some sulphur so I can go about getting the repair tool built.

I'm one of the worst for getting narked with a game if I feel it's putting barriers in the way of progress (see my moaning in the Hollow Knight thread) but I never felt that with Subnautica. I'm also one of the worst for simply looking things up if I don't immediately understand a mechanic, but I didn't do that either.

One of the joys of the game for me was how well it balanced the unknown with the established. Granted, I researched the game and bought it instead of going in completely blind, but the way it shepards you into certain actions with very little prompting made progress both enjoyable and spontaneous. It never told me I'd need a radiation suit to get close to the Pandora, but it suggested it heavily enough that I reasoned that was what I had to do. It never told me I'd end up needing a sub to get to areas with higher level materials, but I kept finding parts for one all over the shop and it became my new goal to build one.

The further in you get the more fascinating, and scary, the world becomes. The release version has a plot too which I've not investigated yet but have heard very good things about. It's a time sink and a mystery, but one that rewards the time you put in.

This is one of the best games i've played in many years, it took me about 20 hours to begin to understand how you're supposed to play it (what you're able to do), it's never hidden from you - just experiemnt, scan everything.

Got this cheap back when it was in preview program on Xbox, it's now 4K so might get stuck in over xmas.

YouTube

I should have downloaded this last night instead of spending 4 hours realising elite dangerous doesn't support 32-bit Windows (old machine) or directx 10 anymore after it failing to update 4 times (15Gb download).

So will get lost in this instead. Nice deal.

I am looking forward to the expansion they are making for this, Below Zero, which will have a completely new part of the planet and plot to explore. More of a sequel than an expansion from what I can tell.

YouTube

Turns out this also is DX11 only. fml, downloaded loads of other games.

Also even Fortnite is 64-bit only. Time for an upgrade, it has been 10 years after all.

Thought I'd give this a go given some of the good press.

Unfortunately it suffers from the exact same issue as every other survival game. "Oh, you'd like to know how to get started and how to play the game? Well strawberry float you! Go look it up outside of the game and spend an hour or two watching YouTube videos first"
Want to go exploring to get started and try to figure things out? "strawberry float you buddy, there's these exploding fish everywhere that will completely strawberry float you over. What? Want to know what you can possibly do about it? Lol, strawberry float off mate and go look it up outside of the game"

Git gud sub

Is anyone else watching the stream for Below Zero?

Probably worth changing the title as this isn't free any more

Subnautica (available for free on Epic's store)

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