This is exactly it! That’s exactly the sentiment, at least for me. After the first credits rolled and it dropped me right back on the first floor with seemingly nothing changed – even though I knew things would be changing, how could they not? – I didn’t feel compelled by any kind of mystery, I felt like I had just finished a game I had only marginally enjoyed, mostly got annoyed with, and then was told to do it again. The promise of layers and secrets enticed me back eventually (and to some degree is actually paying off), but having to sit through the full length of an entire video game (200+ puzzles!) before anything actually happens – before the real game starts – I struggle to think of a more effective way to burn through someone’s good will. Again: I respect it, I think it’s an interesting structure for a game to have and the mechanics of it do eventually become surprisingly delightful (the amount of freedom granted eventually gives the game a Metroidvania-flavored power curve, which was shocking), it might just be one of those games I like thinking about more than actually playing. Cool ideas, cool execution even, but the way it’s dressed up is just not really working for me
speaking for myself, it’s not that Void Stranger isn’t working for me. I think it’s cool. Just trying to think through the complications that come from being a boilerplate puzzle game that sort of dissolves into something presented as “deeper,” and how that strategy differs from games that are immediately esoteric.
One way to look at this is: hey you get 200 neat puzzles, the rest is gravy. And that particular pace is a different experience from a game that goes weird sooner (Like F&H which almost immediately wrenches you out of jrpg expectation).
I think also the format of Void Stranger makes it tough for the game to pull off what it does gracefully: because movement is confined to single, static screens that are gated by sometimes frustrating puzzles, there’s a greater risk of everything, including the twists, becoming monotonous
Anyway I think it’s a good game, just interesting to think about this stuff
puzzle games have to “make sense” and idk if they can be played intuitively the way F&H and Pathologic can
Lots of conversation has happened! I am very much in the ‘still figuring out if I have anything to say’ stage of playing the game, so I don‘t have much to contribute to that. I’m at floor 196 and I don‘t think I’m having much fun anymore, but I think it‘s almost over. The levels keep putting a different set of rules to think about on top of the tile replacement thing, and the different setups don’t all work for me. I would say most don't
Yeah I really wasn’t assuming the opposite, same as you it’s interesting stuff to think about and was using your comparisons as a point to elaborate and reflect some more. These are all cool games.
This is basically the approach I was trying to encourage here and the way I’d recommend it to most people. It’s also the one that allows the game the most space to do its thing. Surprises are after all meant to be that, if they become what you’re most expecting it kind of misses the whole point, doesn’t it?
Made it to B196. Spoiler-y impressions below:
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Wow!!!!! It's gotten real weird!!!!!! Having a lot of fun now. First of all, the puzzles have only improved imo since I complained about them. The tiles/monsters introduced around 160-ish brought with them a lot of really interesting edge cases. I love poking at these rooms, figuring out all the little intricacies of the new rules. Second, I learned to skip levels by jumping down a pit in front of the smiling statues. This discovery injected some much-needed momentum into my playthrough---definitely wouldn't call it a "slog" at this point. Third, I accidentally phased through some rocks and jumped down a pit to enter B??? for the first time, where I solved a nonogram (no clue what to do with that info yet; I assume it's a map of a floor somewhere). I also busted up a stone tablet earlier by repeatedly ramming into it and revealed a screen underneath. Moments like this make me wonder just how much I've missed---especially given that I've totally bypassed 20-ish levels now. And knowing all along that this game is full of secrets has honestly done nothing to lessen the joy of discovering these things for myself.@Bbtone Really interesting that we’re on the same floor and I have seen none of that, except the face statue thing, but somebody outright tells you that one.
For now, it’s the mystery that is keeping me going. And I don’t mean waiting for The Thing, but like, I wanna know who these other people are. Am I killing them when I push them down holes? Why are there starving people? Why do they keep calling her the Demon Princess? That seems ominous. Why are there these locusts everywhere? What exactly is this staff I found and why can only Gray use it? Is the Lamia okay? Where am I going? Do I get to see Gray do some more martial arts?
Y’know I considered this possibility and really thought about double-tagging those spoilers somehow lol. It’s a hard one to talk about!
Got to 224 and just wanna say that the clone puzzles are very fun.
Edit: oh wow that was really cool
Reading people’s impressions, I think I might need to play this… I share @Funbil's frustrations with that kind of storytelling, but mechanical discovery is one of my favorite methods of progression in video games. It’s really only becoming somewhat popular in the 2020s, as well – we’re living in the right age to gorge ourselves on that approach to game design!
Spoilers abound:
Okay, so I’m on my second way through and I feel like the game wants something from me but I don’t know what it is. Some things were immediately different. I started collecting crystals, but then I died and the crystals disappeared from the floors. I also found a secret banana? I ran into a big spark of light that gave me a riddle that I didn’t know the solution to and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. But mostly I’ve just been doing the floors again. Skipping when I can. I’m on 130-something. If there’s an answer that doesn’t spoil too much: Am I just supposed to keep going like this?
Edit: a realization has occurred
I’ll break your message down a bit if you don’t mind.
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Crystals are a mechanic that is only available when playing without the VOID status (acquired by eating the fruit after dying with no locusts). Their main use is exchanging them to unlock the entries in the “memories” section of the menu when you pause.
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No idea about the banana, haven’t encountered that yet!
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I ran into the big spark once but it disappeared when I touched it, didn’t gave me any riddles.
More generally: you only really want to beat the game again if you reached the end on VOID status. Seeing how you didn’t see the crystals until now I’m assuming that’s the case. Even then, that’s only one of the choices you have at your disposal right now.
At this point there are two very significant things that I’d suggest anyone to do after the first playthrough because most likely they will put you on the path of the unraveling the most juicy mysteries in the game. I’m going to give you hints instead of just giving the solution because you’ll enjoy it more that way, if they don’t help you or you want a more direct answer just ask!
- There is something VERY significant you can do in any floor with no walls, for example the ones with the trees. Try to take of advantage of the fact your movement is more unrestricted there somehow. Once you realize what I mean a world of experimentation and possibilities should open up. If this doesn’t help, here’s a more specific tip (open up only if this first part doesn’t ring any bells):
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Try to going out of bounds on those rooms. Specifically go [spoiler]down[/spoiler].- The stone tablets are very important, and on your second playthrough you should be able to read them. I recommend taking screenshots of each of them and give them a good look. Do they look familiar? Specifically, do they resemble any rooms in the game? More specific tip ahead:
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All of the tablets are 6x6. [spoiler]Are there any rooms like that in the game?[/spoiler] Do you think you could do something with that? What about [spoiler]recreating the tablet inscriptions with the floor tiles?[/spoiler]More realizations have been made!
I figured this out by accident! I was on like floor 200-something, on my way to clearing the game in VOID status again, and I accidently hit my own staff, which crashed the game. I did that a couple more times until I realized I could step on to the staff. I have figured out one thing I can do with this, which is switch locust/basement numbers, but almost everything else I do seems to crash the game or kill me lol. I tried to make my locust count a four digit number but that didn’t do anything, and that doesn’t matter anymore anyway. See next quote.
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I think I know at least one thing that they mean, but I don't know exactly what the resemblance to rooms means. I have noticed that one room is the same glyph that talks to you when you finish the game, which is also the first tablet, but I don't know what that means.However! I ended up in a state where I “gave up” after dying, because I didn’t want to be VOID again, and this unlocked the infinity brand (or at least it was at this point I became aware of the infinity brand), which made me realize those glyphs are brands probably. If I die again, which might be an issue because I have infinite locusts, I am going to try that glyph as a brand.
I’m not sure what that to do with the infinite locusts. The game doesn’t like me to move the infinity symbol, the “B”, or my HP, so I’m not sure if I can make anything else infinite, though I haven’t jumped down a warp yet; I want to see what happens there, but it might just be crash you get for removing it.
I wish I remembered what floor the banana was on. All I did was pick up some out of the way square and it did a little secret fanfare and I got the bonus banana.
But yes! A whole big world of new speculation and mystery has opened up.
Alright so turns out I was totally clueless about the tablets. Making one my brand didn’t do anything, so I read the other spoiler. Making the rooms look like the glyphs had occurred to me, but I hadn’t pursued it that much because it seemed like a lot of effort for something that might not work. And on my current run, the first room I ran into that I can do the thing in also had an enemy, which I eventually got tired of dealing with and moved on. I’ll wait until the next room or until I loop again so I can just do the easy one.
I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing something wrong. I’ve been playing for a while was wondering if I was going ponderously slow or something, but the howlongtobeat says this is a 40-50 hour game, so. Huh. I didn’t expect that for some reason.
You’re doing alright, don’t worry, maybe doing a couple extra runs and not doing the most “optimal” route but you don’t really need to. At the end of my first run I discovered the walking over the UI thing and that sparked my interest in what other weird nonsense could be possible, and that made me do the tablet thing. After that everything has been very organic, as both of these things open up a lot of paths which also require you to investigate things in other places of the dungeon.
And yeah, reading your first message I noticed you had the glyphs almost figured out, that’s why I didn’t say anything (as you also had the second tip waiting there). You also noticed that the first tablet room is given away for “free”, but you have to realize that the room itself doesn’t look 100% like the tablet. You’ll have to remove the tile that is “breaking” the pattern which happens to be (obvious answer ahead):
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the [spoiler]exit stairs tile[/spoiler].Also, the number manipulation with the UI (exchanging the Health, Locusts and Floor values) is a very crucial aspect, as it allows you to reach places it wouldn’t be possible otherwise. So basically, don’t forget that’s an option at your disposal now.
In general, you are correct, removing the “key” tiles such as the staff or the VOID status makes the game crash (a designed crash, intended by the developers). But there is something else other than the number manipulation which could lead to something interesting, which is removing the first tile of the floor value (the one with B + the first number). I’ll leave you to try that and see what you find!
Oh, man, I don’t know if I would have ever noticed that it was a single tile off. I guess they expect me to be pretty meticulous with these. I’ve started taking screenshots, which was very good advice. I think I know what the binary code means now, so that’s cool.
Oh! In my memory this was a crash (and yeah I just mean crash as in it’s kicking me to desktop, I figured everything was all going according to plan) but it’s a void. I guess there’s something in there? I’ll have a look.
Thanks for helping me along, by the way!
UPDATE: What? Excuse me?
Huge “I have seen the credits” spoilers:
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I still don't know what's up with the B# void (except that the date is one hundred thousand years in the future; that's cool), but I accidently manipulated my floor count a different way and ended up past where the game usually ends. I jumped into the mandatory(?) statue warp with infinite locusts and that took me far enough to get past the ending.It showed me a few big letters of the alphabet, and I realized too late it was teaching me part of a cypher, but I only got a few screenshots. I think I actually saw the “language” being used on the statues in the church(?) where everything goes down. But nonetheless, I have seen the credits. And maybe the end? An end? I know there’s more going on because I still haven’t done anything with the stone tablets!
Devotion being the theme works so well for this game. I had to do all those puzzles like three times! I really was devoted! Still am!
I don’t know what to make of what it showed me at the very end, but it showing me that and then cutting to desktop is one of the most striking things I’ve seen. I haven’t opened the game again since then, and I’m interested to see where it picks up. Maybe just the beginning.
So, uh, it’s more puzzles, then? Only harder?
@Mnemogenic If you mean the second character, Lillie, mostly yeah. You also get more story at the trees and new npc encountes during your playthrough. If you’re not invested in the puzzles and don’t care about getting all the crystals nothing prevents you from using all the skips and strategies you’ve learned so far to push forward!
Gigantic turbo spoilers after 5th ending ahead:
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I reached what looks like the final true ending of the game and it has filled me with joy that they put a full on STG sequence at the end. Specially after all the ZeroRanger references and narrative connections.@TracyDMcGrath must be happy!
Alright then. I was already pretty satisfied by the original challenge, and I can’t say I’m thrilled about hard mode. Hopefully I can get better at skipping, and I’m going to have a walkthrough handy. I also feel like I need to know at this point: is this the whole game? is it one thousand tile puzzles with a good story? I felt like I was just poking at some deeper mystery and now I’m back doing 200 puzzles again.