IMMORTALITY

[dumpster]

I fucking shrieked and jumped up out of my seat when 

Spoiler

I got 6 of a kind on iPhone Yahtzee.  

 

Emperor's new clothes, as someone said earlier.

 

 

If you have Die Hard 2 and a DVD player with a shuffle button it's just as good. Solve the Mystery of what happened to John Mclaine.

[Flanders]

I was trying to figure out why I deviate so wildly between being gripped and completely bored by this, and I realised it was because anything that’s ‘off-screen’ is interesting but in between that you literally are just watching three deeply tedious films via clips that are out of order. 

[therearerules]

53 minutes ago, dumpster said:

I fucking shrieked and jumped up out of my seat when 

  Reveal hidden contents

I got 6 of a kind on iPhone Yahtzee.  

 

Emperor's new clothes, as someone said earlier.

 

 

If you have Die Hard 2 and a DVD player with a shuffle button it's just as good. Solve the Mystery of what happened to John Mclaine.

?

 

It is what it is. Emperor's New Clothes implies it's trying to fool people who only pretend to enjoy it. I understand it's not for everyone, but what it sets out to do it does extremely well. I imagine the Edge 10 will have made a lot of people who hate VNs and the like try this to hate it as well, but I don't think the game can be blamed for that.

 

Also, I would love for Sam Barlow to make an explicit found footage horror game.

[deerokus]

The main actress is really good.

[Popo]

I think - and I’m willing to be proven wrong - but I think it’s not a game, in the traditional sense, and thinking it’s going to be will leave you disappointed, frustrated and maybe even angry, as demonstrated by some in this thread.
 

There’s no exploration (as such); there’s no  skill required to play and complete it; you don’t collect things, nor do you have to overcome any sort of challenge. It’s truly interactive fiction - a story told through choices the player makes. 
 

You may say that it’s a couple of bad movies jumbled up and played out of sequence, but that would be to miss the point entirely. The movies aren’t supposed to be good, or entertaining - they’re B-movies at best - the real story is the one you discover and piece together for yourself as you move from clip to clip and - things - start to happen. 
 

Why is it so much better than Telling Lies? Apart from the more natural, tactile method of interacting with the footage, Immortality takes the interactive movie format, breaks it and puts it back together again in a way that hasn’t been done before but works brilliantly. It knows what the player expects, and give you that - then it starts giving you what you didn’t expect, and that’s where the fun lies. 
 

I’ll confess - if you don’t enjoy the retro giallo aesthetic, or get pleasure from the schlock horror texture of the movies, I imagine they might be a chore to sit through. But really, there’s only about an hour of that before things… start to happen…

 

I’m genuinely scared to play it again alone, because I’m worried about what’s going to happen next. 

[Ravern]

I've nothing against the genres, but it feels harsh to "reduce" this to interactive movie/VN. The video scrubbing controls made me feel like I was "playing" this more than, to name a recent example, As Dusk Falls. That control gave it a lot of its creepiness for me.

[therearerules]

1 hour ago, Ravern said:

I've nothing against the genres, but it feels harsh to "reduce" this to interactive movie/VN. The video scrubbing controls made me feel like I was "playing" this more than, to name a recent example, As Dusk Falls. That control gave it a lot of its creepiness for me.

That's fair. The lack of an easily identifiable genre to place Sam Barlow's games into leads to people's expectations not being perhaps in the correct place. They're 100% not VNs (turn subtitles off and there's nothing to read), but it's an easy reference for anybody complaining about a lack of gameplay. Compare this to Raging Loop or Ever 17 and it's an overload of choice and gameplay options. But nobody would argue those games don't achieve what they set out to do excellently.

[Rex Grossman]

7 hours ago, therearerules said:

?

 

It is what it is. Emperor's New Clothes implies it's trying to fool people who only pretend to enjoy it. I understand it's not for everyone, but what it sets out to do it does extremely well. I imagine the Edge 10 will have made a lot of people who hate VNs and the like try this to hate it as well, but I don't think the game can be blamed for that.

 

Also, I would love for Sam Barlow to make an explicit found footage horror game.

I was the one who said Emperor’s New Clothes. I’ve not played it, although I want to. I said I wanted to see if the Emperor was naked or not because the comments were so polarised.

 

I think it applies because you do get cases where people will try to convince themselves they like something because a) they really want to like it, b) ‘cool’ people have said it’s good, c) they’ve spent too much time and money on it to admit it was bad.

There will be people fitting into a or b for this. 

I personally think I’ll enjoy it but who knows.

[therearerules]

That doesn't work with subjectivity though. Who is anybody to say to someone enjoying this that they're only pretending to do so to appear intelligent? I can't see anybody pretending to enjoy this, it's hardly a social game, and definitely not on rllmuk- the home of the contrarian.

[Meat]

Intrigued by this. Soaring expectations tempered by @CrichStand’s welcome insights and lynch contrasts. 
 

The passive aggressive ignore talk is kinda distasteful.

[Rex Grossman]

43 minutes ago, therearerules said:

That doesn't work with subjectivity though. Who is anybody to say to someone enjoying this that they're only pretending to do so to appear intelligent? I can't see anybody pretending to enjoy this, it's hardly a social game, and definitely not on rllmuk- the home of the contrarian.

Of course it works with subjectivity. I bet we’ve all tried to convince ourselves we like something.

And with a game that can be seen as high-brow or experimental it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that someone won’t want to admit they don’t ‘get’ it.

When a game is as polarising as this surely the only contrarian thing to say is it’s pretty good. 

[Stanley]

6 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Of course it works with subjectivity. I bet we’ve all tried to convince ourselves we like something.

And with a game that can be seen as high-brow or experimental it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that someone won’t want to admit they don’t ‘get’ it.

When a game is as polarising as this surely the only contrarian thing to say is it’s pretty good. 

Surely if it’s polarising then that’s proof alone this isn’t happening, unless you’re suggesting that anyone who finds merit in the game is lying? 

[Rex Grossman]

13 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Surely if it’s polarising then that’s proof alone this isn’t happening, unless you’re suggesting that anyone who finds merit in the game is lying? 

I’m saying that some people may tell themselves they love it while deep down thinking WTF.

 

I want to like it so I may convince myself I’m  enjoying it more than I really am. Who knows. 

[Stanley]

11 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

I’m saying that some people may tell themselves they love it while deep down thinking WTF.

 

I want to like it so I may convince myself I’m  enjoying it more than I really am. Who knows. 

If ever there was a game that made you think, I love it, but also, WTF, then this is it. But that’s not because you’d be lying to yourself, on the contrary it’d be quite truthful. 
 

I mean look at @CrichStand posts in the various Immortality threads. They bounced off it almost straight away, yet probably more than anyone here has delved deeper into analysis of its themes and meaning. So it’s not as black & white as saying you either love it or hate it, certainly not in gaining a deeper understanding, like most art in fact. 

[Rex Grossman]

17 minutes ago, Stanley said:

If ever there was a game that made you think, I love it, but also, WTF, then this is it. But that’s not because you’d be lying to yourself, on the contrary it’d be quite truthful. 
 

I mean look at @CrichStand posts in the various Immortality threads. They bounced off it almost straight away, yet probably more than anyone here has delved deeper into analysis of its themes and meaning. So it’s not as black & white as saying you either love it or hate it, certainly not in gaining a deeper understanding, like most art in fact. 

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, simply defending my use of a common phrase in reference to this particular game.

[Rudderless]

9 hours ago, therearerules said:

 

Also, I would love for Sam Barlow to make an explicit found footage horror game.

 

I mean, that's kind of what Immortality is, tbh (I know what you mean, though)

[Treble]

Considering @bradigor's obsession with Sam Barlow (which I personally feel is dangerously out of control...) it's no surprise we cover this on our latest podcast. Spoiler free, promise. Skip to 00:48:29.

 

 

[carlospie]

6 hours ago, Popo said:

I think - and I’m willing to be proven wrong - but I think it’s not a game, in the traditional sense, and thinking it’s going to be will leave you disappointed, frustrated and maybe even angry, as demonstrated by some in this thread.
 

There’s no exploration (as such); there’s no  skill required to play and complete it; you don’t collect things, nor do you have to overcome any sort of challenge. It’s truly interactive fiction - a story told through choices the player makes. 
 

You may say that it’s a couple of bad movies jumbled up and played out of sequence, but that would be to miss the point entirely. The movies aren’t supposed to be good, or entertaining - they’re B-movies at best - the real story is the one you discover and piece together for yourself as you move from clip to clip and - things - start to happen. 
 

Why is it so much better than Telling Lies? Apart from the more natural, tactile method of interacting with the footage, Immortality takes the interactive movie format, breaks it and puts it back together again in a way that hasn’t been done before but works brilliantly. It knows what the player expects, and give you that - then it starts giving you what you didn’t expect, and that’s where the fun lies. 
 

I’ll confess - if you don’t enjoy the retro giallo aesthetic, or get pleasure from the schlock horror texture of the movies, I imagine they might be a chore to sit through. But really, there’s only about an hour of that before things… start to happen…

 

I’m genuinely scared to play it again alone, because I’m worried about what’s going to happen next. 

How are you genuinely scared?

 

Are you ok Hun you barely touched your mashed potato?

 

I can't, I'm so scared about pressing controls whilst watching some video clips. 

 

 

[CrichStand]

5 hours ago, Meat said:

Intrigued by this. Soaring expectations tempered by @CrichStand’s welcome insights and lynch contrasts. 
 

The passive aggressive ignore talk is kinda distasteful.

I’d say it’s well worth giving it a go if you can play it for free on Gamepass or whatever. No way could I recommend this if you have to pay for it though.

 

4 hours ago, Stanley said:

If ever there was a game that made you think, I love it, but also, WTF, then this is it. But that’s not because you’d be lying to yourself, on the contrary it’d be quite truthful. 
 

I mean look at @CrichStand posts in the various Immortality threads. They bounced off it almost straight away, yet probably more than anyone here has delved deeper into analysis of its themes and meaning. So it’s not as black & white as saying you either love it or hate it, certainly not in gaining a deeper understanding, like most art in fact. 

 

The reason I was delving deeper into it and analysing it, was because I was convincing myself there had to be more to it. There isn’t, it has a very straightforward linear story, which destroys any lingering mystery and interpretation. The premise might be enough to fill a 30min TV Show.  At most a 1hr 30 film, if it was padded out to all fuck. 10-20hrs of  footage though? Heeeeeeeell noooooooooo!!! It left me feeling completely cheated. And the reason this bugs me is..........it could potentially, possibly, maybe, have been so much more than it actually is. So much is already in place but, you then realise..........it has to work within the context of a found footage story. That’s massively limiting. Telling Lies pretty much perfected that setup too.
 

Thing is, this doesn’t even work as a found footage story imo. When you step back and actually think about what you’ve played/watched for about 3secs or so, it all collapses in on itself and doesn’t make any sense. And if it makes no logical sense and has plot holes galore, then how the fuck can it be a revolution in video game story telling? I really don’t think the crazy reviews have done it any favours.
 

Basically, I enjoyed that Untold Stories game more. This would have made a decent episode in that.
 

[Wiper]

2 hours ago, carlospie said:

How are you genuinely scared?

 

Are you ok Hun you barely touched your mashed potato?

 

I can't, I'm so scared about pressing controls whilst watching some video clips. 

 

 

 

That's essentially the same as saying "why are you scared [watching a horror movie], you're just sitting in a chair watching a screen".

 

I can't say I've found Immortality scary per se, but it is disturbing in a way that I can understand why it would be for some.

[bradigor]

3 hours ago, Wiper said:

 

That's essentially the same as saying "why are you scared [watching a horror movie], you're just sitting in a chair watching a screen".

 

I can't say I've found Immortality scary per se, but it is disturbing in a way that I can understand why it would be for some.

 

It's disturbing in certain aspects. More effective than dull games like the Outlast series, which are boring and run out of ideas after the first jump 'scare'

[yakumo]

Does anyone else feel like the match-cut system is mostly just blind luck? As opposed to Telling Lies and the way you deliberately follow certain leads. With Telling Lies I was hooked right away and super intrigued. I'm a few hours into Immortality and I just feel like I'm being bounced around randomly.

[CrichStand]

29 minutes ago, yakumo said:

Does anyone else feel like the match-cut system is mostly just blind luck? As opposed to Telling Lies and the way you deliberately follow certain leads. With Telling Lies I was hooked right away and super intrigued. I'm a few hours into Immortality and I just feel like I'm being bounced around randomly.

Yep, 100%. I mentioned it earlier in the thread, as did a couple of other people. Literally cleared the game just clicking on anything at the end of each clip. It basically plays itself out. I didn’t even need to use the sort features. Finished the game without knowing who anyone was or caring! You couldn’t do that with Telling Lies. Also, because you were in control of your own searches playing that game it felt more interactive, more like a game, more like a real mystery too. Plus it meant the story branched in different ways, making it significantly different in the way it was told for each player. Really cool!
 

That game didn’t have the greatest plot but it made sense. From the fact that you were role playing a character, in a room, browsing footage on a cpu, on a deadline working through the night, the room changing as the sun came up.......to having to figure out the characters motives, who was lying, who was crossing who and all the twists and turns in between. Sure it was trashy, but it was entertaining, had good character development and it all held together well.

[BitterToad]

3 hours ago, yakumo said:

Does anyone else feel like the match-cut system is mostly just blind luck? As opposed to Telling Lies and the way you deliberately follow certain leads. With Telling Lies I was hooked right away and super intrigued. I'm a few hours into Immortality and I just feel like I'm being bounced around randomly.

So I think the match cut can absolutely be random. But with Immortality so much of the game is in your head. I'm sure it's really easy to just sit and click on things and eventually get to the credits but if you sit and randomly chuck Tetris blocks down you'll clear a couple of lines on the way to your game over. For me "the game" comes in trying to work out how or even if things connect. So I've spent three nights sitting with a notepad and the game and just writing down lines of enquiry. That can be characters or imagery or objects and it's been absolutely fascinating trying to follow them through both when it works and when it doesn't. Sometimes you'll learn about a new plot detail in Two of Everything, sometimes you'll work out something about the wider mystery surrounding the trilogy and sometimes... just sometimes... something really special will happen. And yes sometimes you'll sit clicking and bouncing through the same four clips, but if you don't spot something in the background of those clips you're doing it wrong. 

 

If the game in Mario is to reach the princess in the castle the game in Immortality is to work out what's going on, right? So grab a pen and click on things that stick out. It's not a film! It's not a series of clips banged together for no reason! It's a game! And you're the lead character. So get clicking!

[CrichStand]

22 hours ago, dumpster said:

I fucking shrieked and jumped up out of my seat when 

  Reveal hidden contents

I got 6 of a kind on iPhone Yahtzee.  

 

Emperor's new clothes, as someone said earlier.

 

 

If you have Die Hard 2 and a DVD player with a shuffle button it's just as good. Solve the Mystery of what happened to John Mclaine.

This may just be a joke (and a funny one at that) but it’s also just about the most accurate review/description of the game I’ve read. I’ve spent waaaaaaaaaay too long fannying  about with it now and.......

 

Basically it’s not just like playing the Die Hard 2 DVD...........it’s like taking the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset and chopping the 3 films up into an insane amount of clips. Said clips then link to faces/items/explosions in other clips seemingly at random, just by clicking on stuff willy-nilly. After waaaaaaaay too many hrs that you’ll never ever get back again, you’ll eventually see the end credits roll. “What the fuck was that shit? Must be well arty. Only proper brain bins can understand it. Oh yeah, I get it now. I must be a fucking genius” you’ll say to yourself, whilst noticing that you’ve only actually watched 25% of the footage. Yippee Ki-Yay motherfucker!

 

Then somewhere in the back of your mind you have a brilliant (not brilliant) idea. “What if I watch more clips from the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset and piece all this shit together and discover what’s 100% behind it all...........for absolutely no reason whatsoever. That sounds fun right”? RIGHT!!!

 

Off you go spending hrs and hrs looking at Bruce Willis’ balding head, trying to put clips into chronological order based on his disappearing hairline. Time becomes a meaningless blur. You spend hrs of your day at work in a Die Hard Trilogy Boxset dreamworld, wondering what if Willis had been wearing a hair piece in the later films, thus messing up your chronological flow? But then, on returning home........FINALLY! You’ve rearranged the clips and can now watch the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset in order and prove to yourself you’re a fucking absolute beast of a genius. “Oh, turns out it’s just 3 action films with lots of explosions and shit back to back”.

 

Here’s my point.........why not just watch the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset as a film and thus skip all the pointless bullshit?

 

Here’s another point.......interactive films are too restricted so nowhere near as good as straight up films. Interactive films are too restricted so nowhere near as good as games. So what’s the point of making an interactive film in the first place? I’ll take Returnal and OOT, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and National Lampoon’s Vacation over anymore interactive films thanks!

 

P.S my new album is out October 10th. It contains 20 songs that have all the notes and chords mixed up to all fuck. And for just the low, low, looooooow price of £199,99,99 you can fast forward and rewind through them until they start to sound good. 😂

[Stanley]

10 hours ago, bradigor said:

 

It's disturbing in certain aspects. More effective than dull games like the Outlast series, which are boring and run out of ideas after the first jump 'scare'

Outlast 2 is a straight up masterpiece. It’s not really like the first one either, it’s a lot more fucked up. 

[dumpster]

7 hours ago, CrichStand said:

This may just be a joke (and a funny one at that) but it’s also just about the most accurate review/description of the game I’ve read. I’ve spent waaaaaaaaaay too long fannying  about with it now and.......

 

Basically it’s not just like playing the Die Hard 2 DVD...........it’s like taking the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset and chopping the 3 films up into an insane amount of clips. Said clips then link to faces/items/explosions in other clips seemingly at random, just by clicking on stuff willy-nilly. After waaaaaaaay too many hrs that you’ll never ever get back again, you’ll eventually see the end credits roll. “What the fuck was that shit? Must be well arty. Only proper brain bins can understand it. Oh yeah, I get it now. I must be a fucking genius” you’ll say to yourself, whilst noticing that you’ve only actually watched 25% of the footage. Yippee Ki-Yay motherfucker!

 

Then somewhere in the back of your mind you have a brilliant (not brilliant) idea. “What if I watch more clips from the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset and piece all this shit together and discover what’s 100% behind it all...........for absolutely no reason whatsoever. That sounds fun right”? RIGHT!!!

 

Off you go spending hrs and hrs looking at Bruce Willis’ balding head, trying to put clips into chronological order based on his disappearing hairline. Time becomes a meaningless blur. You spend hrs of your day at work in a Die Hard Trilogy Boxset dreamworld, wondering what if Willis had been wearing a hair piece in the later films, thus messing up your chronological flow? But then, on returning home........FINALLY! You’ve rearranged the clips and can now watch the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset in order and prove to yourself you’re a fucking absolute beast of a genius. “Oh, turns out it’s just 3 action films with lots of explosions and shit back to back”.

 

Here’s my point.........why not just watch the Die Hard Trilogy Boxset as a film and thus skip all the pointless bullshit?

 

Here’s another point.......interactive films are too restricted so nowhere near as good as straight up films. Interactive films are too restricted so nowhere near as good as games. So what’s the point of making an interactive film in the first place? I’ll take Returnal and OOT, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and National Lampoon’s Vacation over anymore interactive films thanks!

 

P.S my new album is out October 10th. It contains 20 songs that have all the notes and chords mixed up to all fuck. And for just the low, low, looooooow price of £199,99,99 you can fast forward and rewind through them until they start to sound good. 😂

 

Post of the year.  It seems to me that this is getting rave reviews based on what it represents for the world of storytelling, despite the fact that it's clearly a proof of concept.  It's a new concept, intriguing, has had hours of footage made and presents a different approach to gaming.  But it's not much fun is it?

 

I think the reason I'm unimpressed by interactive movies and these Visual Novels etc is because movies and novels are not interactive and were never intended to be.  There's a point in Night Trap where you having nothing at all to do for two and a half minutes, because it's a film.  But even in Night Trap you can mess up, Trap Megan, get bollocked by Kelly. Game Over.  Night Trap, in context as a computer game, is far better than Immortality.  

[BitterToad]

41 minutes ago, dumpster said:

 

I think the reason I'm unimpressed by interactive movies and these Visual Novels etc is because movies and novels are not interactive and were never intended to be.  There's a point in Night Trap where you having nothing at all to do for two and a half minutes, because it's a film.  But even in Night Trap you can mess up, Trap Megan, get bollocked by Kelly. Game Over.  Night Trap, in context as a computer game, is far better than Immortality.  

This misses the point so completely and utterly it’s kind of stunning. 

[therearerules]

47 minutes ago, dumpster said:

I think the reason I'm unimpressed by interactive movies and these Visual Novels etc is because movies and novels are not interactive and were never intended to be. 

? Intended by whom? I feel like some posters have regressed back to arguing entire genres of videogames are invalid because they don't fit their narrow definition.

[Textface]

1 hour ago, dumpster said:

Post of the year.  

Please can you list previous post of the year winners over say, 48 years?