alt Hacker NewsI'm really enjoying Order of the Sinking Star, but I'm in two minds about the length. It is long, I'm 20 hours in and still feel like I'm scratching the surface, and any story pay-off feels a very long way away, which isn't a great motivator.
However, so far I can't point to anything substantial that should have been skipped. Almost every level is teaching me something, and those things keep coming up later.
Ultimately, Order of the Sinking Star applies the same formula as The Witness (although hopefully with a little more story, but probably not a lot more), and dials it up to 11. I loved The Witness, so really it's exactly what I asked for, and I think the feeling of the distance left to go is an artifact of a desire for instant gratification.
I think the game is deeply rewarding and fantastic, as long as you understand you're signing up for a slow burn. That's not for everyone, and that's ok.
Replies
> I loved The Witness, so really it's exactly what I asked for
General problem in criticism/critique: we are different audiences. Different people want genuinely incompatible things. I wouldn't put that length of time into a puzzle game .. but I have into factorio, which is just a different kind of puzzle. Some people like extremely long RPGs. A lot of people play extremely short games, especially the kind of mobile games which give you about 30 seconds between adverts.
Can be hard to get people (critics and punters alike) to separate "this is not for me" from "this is bad".
My only problem with it is I feel like if I stop playing for more than a couple of days I'll forget half the stuff I learned and I'll be stuck when I return to levels that assume I know everything from before.
I felt this was true until 30 hours in, but after that, it starts feeling much more repetitive. Smaller ideas are stretched much further and IMO they're not nearly as exciting as the beginning ones.