Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Outer Wilds - outer space camping trip game

barker_s

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Messages
806
Location
Poland
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Fig: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/outer-wilds

https://www.mobiusdigitalgames.com/outer-wilds.html




https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/outerwilds/home

I don't think there's a thread dedicated to this game yet and it's been more than a year since the alpha's been released, so here it goes. I seriously think it doesn't get enough love from the interwebs.

So what is it exactly? From the developer's website:

The game is a seamless first-person experience that gives you just 20 minutes to freely explore a miniature solar system as it dynamically evolves over time. After those 20 minutes are up, the Sun goes supernova and the entire Universe ends. Fortunately, the Solar System is stuck in a time loop, and only by exploring over the course of multiple playthroughs will you come to understand the forces and secrets that drive the Universe.

From what I understand it was made by some students as a part of their graduate thesis. It's still in alpha, a little rough around the edges and incomplete, but it won't be an overstatement if I tell you that this is one of the best experiences I had during my video gaming years. I shit you not, playing it for the first time evoked the feelings of awe and excitement that I got when I was a kid and video games were still fresh and "magical" to me. There's not much in the gameplay department (except for flying your ship and navigating through environmental hazards), but the exploration is a reward in itself. If you thought Morrowind's world was a breath of fresh air, this game will blow you away.

Okay, enough of me fapping over it. Maybe my love for space and exploration in games is clouding my judgement. So, have you guys played it? If so, what do you think? If not, I urge you to go to http://outerwilds.com/ and give it a try (Xbox controller is recommended, because keyboard controls are not so good, unfortunately).

If you're still not convinced, here's a playthrough I recorded the other night. Beware though, because you might spoil yourself the fun of discovering it for yourself:

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Solid Snail

Learned
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Messages
328
In theory people who watched the last E3 Microsoft conference via Mixer owns the game already, but I think the devs dropped the Play Anywhere feature so I got stuck with a useless XBox One version.
 

davidsalata

Barely Literate
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
0
Is anyone else playing this?

I've fell off single-player games pretty hard for a while now except for the odd 'experience' (i.e. Abzu / Edith Finch) and Wolfenstein, but this game has me hooked. It's basically a space exploration adventure game with limited game mechanics; the focus is on the story and unravelling it over time.

If you haven't played it, my advice is to go in absolutely blind. I got it for $15 off the Epic store (they had $10 off, unsure if they still do) and have sunk a good 5 or so hours into it already. Whatever you do, do not go out and watch videos of someone else playing it.

Note: game doesn't really hold your hand at all, which can be a detriment but I do think it adds a bit to the mystery. I have a few issues with how it values the players time, but the positives far outweigh those negatives.
 
Self-Ejected

Jack

█▓▒░
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2010
Messages
4,900
Location
Yondo
Insert Title Here
Is anyone else playing this?
Yup, just finished it. I've been keeping an eye on this game since the alpha version was released and wasn't disappointed after having played the final version. Unfortunately the game is an Epic exclusive so I won't be giving the devs any jewgold anytime soon, despite the game deserving a buy.

:4/5:
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Is anyone else playing this?

I bought it since it was $10 off on day one due to the Epic sale. Who knows when I'll play it though, my backlog is so large. Shame it's not getting much attention, doubt that's an Epic problem since Metro and World War Z got plenty of videos and posts around the web. These kinds of games just aren't "in" right now it seems like, for lack of a better way to put it.
 
Self-Ejected

Jack

█▓▒░
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2010
Messages
4,900
Location
Yondo
Insert Title Here
doubt that's an Epic problem since Metro and World War Z got plenty of videos and posts around the web.
This is a small indie game, even if it was extremely popular people would still pay more attention to Metro Exodus. With that said, yes, it does seem to have fallen outside the radar for most people and not entirely due to being Epic exclusive. It barely had any marketing, the only reason I even knew it was released was due to this thread, and I've been checking up on the game every now and then.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
This is a small indie game, even if it was extremely popular people would still pay more attention to Metro Exodus.

I meant in relative terms of course. Epic Store exclusivity doesn't prevent word of mouth and marketing and such. If anything it probably helps because of all the articles about exclusives.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Epic exclusive = devs should die of cancer. Along with all of you who purchased it on Epic.
 

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
eh

Gave it a try. Im intrigued, but the gameplay sorta gave me a headache
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


https://www.fig.co/campaigns/outer-wilds/updates/1195

Outer Wilds Is Coming to Steam!
Fuel up your jet packs and get your camping gear ready...Outer Wilds is coming to Steam for PC on June 18th! We’re excited to welcome a new batch of recruits to Outer Wilds Ventures ::D.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/

Check out our new trailer below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EnIpUkQ__M

We will be distributing codes via email to backers who requested Steam keys in their backer surveys, so keep an eye on your inbox if this applies to you ::).



That’s the End of This Update
Join us for another development update soon! Have a great week everyone!

Cheers,

Mobius

Facebook

Twitter
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
I got Outer Wilds in one of those Epic sales for like $10, but it's definitely a game that basically vanished form the face of the Earth like a week after it came out.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,471
Played it last summer. It's an interesting game, very trippy at times. A lot of people will be turned off by the time mechanic. And Epic exclusivity on top of that probably didn't help much either. It's one of those "hidden gems" now.

Interesting. The founder of Mobius Digital is Masi Oka, the actor who played Hiro Nakamura in Heroes.
 
Last edited:

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
I got Outer Wilds in one of those Epic sales for like $10, but it's definitely a game that basically vanished form the face of the Earth like a week after it came out.

Is it actually a good game or is it another "Stunning Brave 10/10 Masterpiece" like Undertale, Life Is Strange and similar hipster garbage?

Goddamn, not even SkillUp is reliable on that bc he tends to like hipster garbage.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,647
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Got this on the Steam sale, didn't even know it was Epic Excloosive.

It's p. good apart from obviously being based on the shittiest engine in game history (Unity).

The 'splodinating sun every 22 minutes can be a little inconvenient when exploring some of the bigger areas but the mystery element is on point.
 

Jaedar

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
9,837
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Worth getting? Looks kinda fun
I've been playing it a bit. If the idea of an exploration/platformer with a space theme seems interesting to you, you will probably like it.

It's not a great game (it has too much theme park / walking sim dna), but it is good and fairly cheap. As long as you expect a fairly casual exploration focused platformer with light environmental puzzles, you will not be disappointed. Some of the vistas are incredibly pretty though, and the fantastical natural phenomenon are appropriately mysterious.
 

pakoito

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
I played it through this week so it's still fresh. The game consists on putting the pieces of a metaphorical puzzle together, it's like a little point & click adventure except in 1st person. The timeloop is 22 minutes and there's no persistence between runs, so technically you can finish it on the second loop if you know where to go. You're traveling between planets in real time with full control of your ship, both takeoff and landing, which is already novel by itself.

There're emergent moments here and there that feel really good even if they don't fit the genre. Like taking a space walk to fix your ship while the planets are revolving around, watching the sun explode at the end of the loop from within different planets, some of the mechanics of the planets themselves, environmental storytelling...If you check the credits most of the staff are designers and artists and it shows. If you removed the timeloop puzzle aspect and made it into Crazy Taxi in Space, or Space Truck Simulator, the game would still work.

I finished it in like 20h and enjoyed most of it. Only one or two of the last clues are hard to link, and it's not a mechanically hard game once you get used to momentum-based controls in 0G.

I'd put it on the 10-15 buck tier because it has more scope than say...Minit. Just the spaceship travel is worth throwing a few dollars in.
 
Last edited:

Jaedar

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
9,837
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
I've been curious about this game since SBH video on it.
As the game apparently has some top-notch Physics simulations.


I don't want to watch that for spoilers. I am not sure about the top-notchness. It certainly has some cool stuff, but I strongly suspect some of the coolest things are made by cheating, and not by simulation. For example, in the tutorial village, there's a science exhibit with 3 balls in a pen, that move of their own accord. The game claims this is because there's another heavy planet in the solar system, and the balls track that (similar to how tides track the moon on earth).

But I don't buy it. I feel the game cheats quite a lot with gravity, so I feel pretty sure this is scripted and not "emergent". There's a bunch of other stuff like this too. It's more fantastical theme park with space theme than coherent simulation of a solar system. But it does also have some cool stuff that seems fairly correct, like how the black hole distorts light as you near the event horizon.

It ain't no kerbal space program, that's for sure.
 

DJOGamer PT

Arcane
Joined
Apr 8, 2015
Messages
7,348
Location
Lusitânia
The video doesn't spoil much, SBH tries to avoid has much spoilers possible since the topic he's trying to analyse are the game's astrophysics not the game itself.

With that said no there's almost* no cheating, the game's dedication to simulating Newton's and Kepler's laws is pretty impressive.
The devs really went out their way to make a miniature solar system, you even have to account for different gravitational pulls when flying your spaceship.

*the obvious, but understandable, exception is that in the game the planets gravitanial pull is far stronger than IRL but the effect fades faster at distances; this is so the planets don't attract each other to much because otherwise they would totally colide with one another.

Also there's no time dilation, but then again that would too much work to implement for something of negligible effects.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,647
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I've been curious about this game since SBH video on it.
As the game apparently has some top-notch Physics simulations.


I don't want to watch that for spoilers. I am not sure about the top-notchness. It certainly has some cool stuff, but I strongly suspect some of the coolest things are made by cheating, and not by simulation. For example, in the tutorial village, there's a science exhibit with 3 balls in a pen, that move of their own accord. The game claims this is because there's another heavy planet in the solar system, and the balls track that (similar to how tides track the moon on earth).

But I don't buy it. I feel the game cheats quite a lot with gravity, so I feel pretty sure this is scripted and not "emergent". There's a bunch of other stuff like this too. It's more fantastical theme park with space theme than coherent simulation of a solar system. But it does also have some cool stuff that seems fairly correct, like how the black hole distorts light as you near the event horizon.

It ain't no kerbal space program, that's for sure.


There is a lot of emergent stuff tho so I'd buy it. For example if you leave your ship on Giant's Deep and the island gets sucked up, your ship might fly off in another direction. Or the sucky-suck on the Ash Twin could suck it in.

But calling the physics anything like "accurate" or "realistic" is fucking laughable.

Planets only a few hundred meters across and 16km apart?

A sun that goes from yellow to red giant to supernova in 22 minutes?

Tornados that suck entire islands into space?

etc.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom