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Rain World |OT| Concrete Jungle

Azralynn
When I first started the game, I felt sort of bored and think others may feel the same way. I kept playing though, and realized this game is not as easy as it looks; since then, the game has really grown on me. Despite my innumerable deaths, I keep wanting to try again. Rain World is a niche game, and will certainly not appeal to everyone. However, those who love somewhat challenging exploration platformers, and don’t mind that there isn’t much in the way of combat are sure to get a lot of enjoyment out of Rain World.
CGMag
Think Limbo, but more haunting and with better controls, and you'll have a basic idea of what Rain World is about.
GameSpew - 9/10
Not since Mark of the Ninja have I played a stealth game that felt so impactful, lingering in my thoughts long after I put the controller down. It doesn’t wait up for you or make sure you’re comfortable. It forces you into a corner, snarls its teeth and dares you to try again. It can be frustrating, God knows I cursed plenty of times while playing it. Yet at the end of the day, Rain World does what it seeks out to do with such finesse and vision that it feels like a game that was meant to be made.
BrashGames - 10/10
Rain World is a vastly solitary experience and you will probably feel lonely at times, especially considering completing this game will take most players about 30 hours. There are plans to introduce local co-op and versus multiplayer too as a free update. Co-op would greatly change the experience, for better and for worse, but it’s impossible to say for certain until I try it for myself. However, no game has had me glued to the screen like Rain World has. I don’t know how Videocult have managed to preserve such a fascinating simulation of an ecosystem, while maintaining playability. Rain World is the definition of emergent gameplay, Slugcat will go down in history.
 
I'm quite surprised at these scores. The game's definitely not a 6 or a 5, even with it's issues.
It's a divisive game. When the devs wanted to specifically create a "de-empowerment fantasy", that's kind of expected

It is telling that even the lower reviews like Polygon praise the game, and say if you like what the game is doing, you'll have a lot of fun
 

FelipeMGM

Member
I expected to be a bit divisive too.

My review isnt officially up because our website is down so I cant post it, but if there are any portuguese speakers out there, a backup is on my Medium as well.

Gave it a 8.3/10
 

deadfolk

Member
Seems like this is going to be very divisive.

I like the look of it, but the only way I could ever see myself playing this is in portable form.
 

FelipeMGM

Member
Can you give me a blurb in English? I'll add it to the OT

Translated my verdict paragraph:

Rain World to me is an example of how independent projects can advance some of our basic conventions of fields like animation design and world building, but how they can ward off some players with their quirks as well. It is a game that instigates you all the time to experiment but also reminds you how risky your mistakes can be, keeping you always alert and focused. At times I was extremely annoyed with the game but for the most part I would soon see that I was the one to blame for most of my deaths and realized that I could abstract knowledge from my mistakes to conquer the world. The subjectivity here sure can be a problem for many, and it even was for me in some moments, but in the end I feel that experiencing Rain World is not so much about progressing in this world to reach the end, but to understand and to experience vivdly how this world works.

About the other reviews, I think if people analyzed this more from the survival perspective than for the metroidvania perspective, they would be less hard on their reviews. Not saying thats how anyone should necesseraly approach thism but thats how I viewed the game a bunch of times
 
Translated my verdict paragraph:



About the other reviews, I think if people analyzed this more from the survival perspective than for the metroidvania perspective, they would be less hard on their reviews. Not saying thats how anyone should necesseraly approach thism but thats how I viewed the game a bunch of times
Considering that the defs are adding nee narrative loops to the game post-release, I think the notion of being in the world rather than trying to progress to the end is something they were going for. They've actually said as such, that they didnt want to give the game a linear story but rather let the player be in the world and create their stories through exploration and emergent interactions.
For us, Rain World is a mood piece, and the experience that we are trying to create is that of a lost creature in a strange world
The game will not have a "story" like a Castlevania game, with characters, dialogue and a pre-written conflict that ends with "last boss, destroy the 'base'". Still, we do plan to have a narrative - but instead of applying the narrative on top of the game mechanics, we want to build the narrative inside the game mechanics. The core gameplay will be about nothing but survival, but by adding a few twists to that, we want to evolve from that core and create something that makes it less monotonous and gives a meaning to what you're doing in the game world. At the end of the game, there should obviously be a sense of accomplishment.

Think of how a game like Castlevania has a pre-written story, and a game like Minecraft has no story at all, but you make your own goals in a sandbox-type world. We want to be somewhere between the two, not entirely giving up the sense of progression that Castlevania has, but neither the feature of creating your own goals and completing them within the frame of the game mechanics that Minecraft has.
 

data

Member
I don't get it, does the game have an end or not? How will you even know if you're at the end. I really have no idea about this game and I watched a 1 hour long gameplay video yesterday
 
I don't get it, does the game have an end or not? How will you even know if you're at the end. I really have no idea about this game and I watched a 1 hour long gameplay video yesterday

Seems like one of those games that doesnt want to have an end but eventually it will end. Something of a rogue-like but not quite like a rogue-like. At least thats what I'm getting from these reviews. And the narrative is kinda like Hyper Light Drifter, a visual one.
 

Crispy75

Member
I don't think any streamers or lets players have finished it yet. Reviews are ambiguous about that too.

I have to admit I'm getting worried about the difficulty. I'm no slouch but my gaming time is limited and I'm afraid that I'll spend one too many play sessions getting exactly nowhere, and then never play it again.
 
I'm quite surprised at these scores. The game's definitely not a 6 or a 5, even with it's issues.

My stance is that I consider solid difficulty options as hugely important in a video game. A game designer has to understand that not having difficulty selector isn't going to make a single, "canon" game experience for everyone, the gold-standard experience that exist in the game's designer mind; as every player has different past experiences and skills it will be for them harder or easier than the designer intended.
Imagine a simple jump in a platform game like this, that the game designer considers pure routine, but it's a hard more a player.

In fact difficulty in platform games is super hard to control because of that, you can't adjust difficulty touching up the health/damage of enemies like in an action game.


In summary, I can understand them.
 
I don't get it, does the game have an end or not? How will you even know if you're at the end. I really have no idea about this game and I watched a 1 hour long gameplay video yesterday
Most apt description I'd give is that it has the moment-to-moment structure of a roguelike (short runs, emergent moments and replayability due to systems and AI, learning how the world and items works, really challenging until you understand the systems) within the overarching structure of a metroidvania (interconnected map, different regions, progression through exploration)
 
I don't get it, does the game have an end or not? How will you even know if you're at the end. I really have no idea about this game and I watched a 1 hour long gameplay video yesterday

I think the game has a definitive end. In fact even if locally it's non-linear with lots of interconnected rooms, overall there is a linear progress where you go from 'industrial area' to 'wasted gardens' to 'desolate tower' or whatever, and usually don't come back, until reaching the end of the game.
 
My stance is that I consider solid difficulty options as hugely important in a video game. A game designer has to understand that not having difficulty selector isn't going to make a single, "canon" game experience for everyone, the gold-standard experience that exist in the game's designer mind; as every player has different past experiences and skills it will be for them harder or easier than the designer intended.
Imagine a simple jump in a platform game like this, that the game designer considers pure routine, but it's a hard more a player.

In fact difficulty in platform games is super hard to control because of that, you can't adjust difficulty touching up the health/damage of enemies like in an action game.

Miyamoto would disagree with you. A need for difficulty levels come down to bad level design and the designer not adequately teaching the player how to use the mechanics. This doesn't have to be an explicit tutorial section, but by showing the player a new mechanic within a safe environment. And then repeating that mechanic so that the player gets used to it before it becomes necessary.

The problem I've seen in my limited watching of Rain World is the game doesn't explicitly teach you anything, and certainly not in an organized, thoughtful way like Super Mario Brothers. The only way to learn how to avoid danger and deal with situations is through noticing the environment on your own and experimenting. (I'm sure More_Badass will correct me here if I'm wrong)

But the teaching of mechanics in SMB is in a way an empowerment of the player, and that's exactly what the game's designers wanted to avoid, so I can see why they just threw the player into the world.
 
Sounds like it's insanely difficult but very rewarding if you're willing to put in the time to master it. Really looking forward to it and sad that it looks like it'll get a bad metacritic score because it's not for everyone and most reviewers don't want to make the time investment to master it.
 
The reviews for this are strange as they tell me almost nothing and the score often doesn't seem to reflect the text. I also expected there to be quite a few more reviews

This is a tough decision
 
Reviews are coming in where I personally expected. Played at PAX East last yr and this yr. Cool looking, but gameplay just isn't fun. Real star of the ASG booth was Katana Zero and Death's Gambit. Surprised this one got highlighted as much as it did.

If you get it and enjoy it great, but everything is coming in as I thought.
 

CHC

Member
Hm the reviews aren't really the hottest. I have it pre-purhcased on Steam so I'll check it out for myself. Miiiiiiiight refund if it's something that I feel would be improved by some patches.
 

Mutagenic

Permanent Junior Member
The game feels at odds with itself. It expects you to learn the mechanics on your own, while at the same time punishing you for your experimentation until you do learn.
 

Dascu

Member
The RockPaperShotgun review is quite in-depth and explains the frustration of the reviewer well. I think I will also hold off until a patch with difficulty tweaks is released.
Here there is only the obstacle of repeating the same awkward platforming sections over and over again, sometimes being put out of your misery by a creature that gobbles you up out of the blue or makes your intended route suddenly impassable. It takes everything platformers have learned not to do over the last 10 years and throws each lesson over its shoulder into the waste basket. It definitely gains some originality thanks to this exercise, but it is often at the expense of basic playability.

I’m wailing on it quite a lot here, which may seem unfair. But it’s only because so much potential has been lost. There’s a ton of things to fall in love with. The world is vast and wonderfully drawn. The process of discovery is wonderful, and it puts an encouraging amount of trust in the player to figure things out by themselves. As for the natural world it conveys, it can feel like living through a surreal season of BBC’s Planet Earth, set thousands of years after mankind’s demise. I have had run-ins with animals that have made me shiver, squeal or grin from ear to ear. A particular creature was so instinctively frightening that I had to take a short break to regain my courage before taking the slugcat on a long swim across some open water. He did not survive.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Watched a Youtuber play this.

Got to the point where 3 different colored creatures had cornered him and he was balancing on poles, relying on haphazard jumping to stay alive. Dude was actually whimpering during the desperate scramble.

Then a bird ate him.

Fantastic.
 

Dascu

Member
Shame about these review scores.
On the bright side, all reviews, even negative, appreciate the core concept and style of the game. I haven't read anything that could not be fixed by a patch and some tweaks. I think in particular some less randomization to enemy spawns, keeping explored regions on the map, less food needed for hibernation and perhaps a 'second chance' to dodge a one-hit-kill mechanic would make a world of difference.
 
On the bright side, all reviews, even negative, appreciate the core concept and style of the game. I haven't read anything that could not be fixed by a patch and some tweaks. I think in particular some less randomization to enemy spawns, keeping explored regions on the map, less food needed for hibernation and perhaps a 'second chance' to dodge a one-hit-kill mechanic would make a world of difference.
And that's all what I loved pre release, and everything they don't like seems exactly what I wouldn't like too. Unfortunate.
 
I really wish I had the cash for this. I have a backlog of AAA shit that I've yet to even start (Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn etc.) but would rather jump in on this.
 

Mutagenic

Permanent Junior Member
On the bright side, all reviews, even negative, appreciate the core concept and style of the game. I haven't read anything that could not be fixed by a patch and some tweaks. I think in particular some less randomization to enemy spawns, keeping explored regions on the map, less food needed for hibernation and perhaps a 'second chance' to dodge a one-hit-kill mechanic would make a world of difference.

And even mentioning all that, RPS loathes the controls above all else. They sound brutal, and that mixed with the randomness of the enemies and screen transitions, makes it seem there is a deep level of poor execution in game design. Even still, I want to explore the world, and the artwork will probably carry my curiosity towards a purchase.
 
saw a cool AI story from the dev i'll post it here.

Ah! There is one that I'll always remember...

To start out the story, note that each of the limbs of the creatures can take damage. Like, if you hit a lizards arm or leg with a rock, it can cripple that limb, meaning that the lizard cant use it for locomotion; it will move slower, and if it is trying to climb a pole or something and it weighs too much for the other limbs to support it and will probably slide down, with its broken arm or leg dangling, etc.

Another thing to note is that the creatures pathfinding will learn from its mistakes, so if it attempts a path a few times and is unable to for whatever reason, it will seek out alternate routes.

SO! We are testing all this on a white lizard, which can normally walk on walls etc., making sure that when its limbs break, its pathfinding AI chooses a floor based route rather than trying to climb a wall and fall off over and over. We break the legs and then the arms and everything seems to be fine.

What we DIDNT take into consideration was its tongue. White lizards have a long sticky tongue like a frogs that can be used to grab onto prey and into its jaws. So after the lizards legs are crippled and it should be just a pile of twitching meat, we notice the tongue starts flailing around. Then it starts sticking to things. Then the lizard starts PULLING ITSELF ALONG using its tongue, grabbing onto things, reeling itself over, etc etc. :O :O :O

None of that was programmed or intended in any way. The pathfinding AI just found a way to solve the locomotion problem using the limbs it had available. But it was SPOOKY AF.
 
On the bright side, all reviews, even negative, appreciate the core concept and style of the game. I haven't read anything that could not be fixed by a patch and some tweaks. I think in particular some less randomization to enemy spawns, keeping explored regions on the map, less food needed for hibernation and perhaps a 'second chance' to dodge a one-hit-kill mechanic would make a world of difference.
It should be noted that there is a second chance mechanic in the game, but it's...random (or at least hidden). If you've watched a steam, you might have seen it. A Game Over pops up, but if the slugcat gets knocked from a lizard's jaw, the player sometimes get to play again. It's based on the strength and species of lizard, and usually occurs when the lizard carrying you gets into a fight with another lizard.

It seems to be a hold-over from when the game was more co-op focused, so a friend could free you from a lizard carrying you away.

Think it would be useful if you could wiggle free or use the spear/stone in your hands to make a predator let go
 

bosseye

Member
Once this hits EU PSN and once Friday (payday) rolls around, I'll get a copy. It looks fascinating; reviews be damned I want to try it for myself.
 

hydruxo

Member
Whoa did not expect some of those lower scores. Good thing is it looks like they mainly gave it 5's or 6's because it was just really difficult for them and they couldn't get into it. Seems like a very challenging game.
 

Granjinha

Member
It's my understanding that these two points are in fact true. You can't just keep picking the same fruit over and over.

You can. At least In the same cycle. I show it in my review.

And there IS a plot. A pretty great one at that, too.

Reviews are coming in where I personally expected. Played at PAX East last yr and this yr. Cool looking, but gameplay just isn't fun. Real star of the ASG booth was Katana Zero and Death's Gambit. Surprised this one got highlighted as much as it did.

If you get it and enjoy it great, but everything is coming in as I thought.

Nah, it's pretty fun.

I can see why it would be boring in a venue though

My stance is that I consider solid difficulty options as hugely important in a video game. A game designer has to understand that not having difficulty selector isn't going to make a single, "canon" game experience for everyone, the gold-standard experience that exist in the game's designer mind; as every player has different past experiences and skills it will be for them harder or easier than the designer intended.
Imagine a simple jump in a platform game like this, that the game designer considers pure routine, but it's a hard more a player.

In fact difficulty in platform games is super hard to control because of that, you can't adjust difficulty touching up the health/damage of enemies like in an action game.


In summary, I can understand them.

I can understand your point, but even so, i disagree with some of the scores. They don't factor in the lore and the worldbuilding which is amazing, the dynamic soundtrack, the interactions between the beasts and how you can manipulate them once you understand more deeply their behaviour, the absolutely gorgeous aesthetic, the contemplative moments and the batshit and insane ending the game has.

The sum of it's parts really outshines the frustating aspect of it. Well, at least for me.

It's like they only counted the frustrating moments and some of the bad design decisions (like the rank system, which i don't really find good at all), not the fun and good moments.
 

bender

What time is it?
The Limbo comparison is bumming me out. I really didn't care for that game. Guess I'll see for myself in a little under nine hours.
 
The Limbo comparison is bumming me out. I really didn't care for that game. Guess I'll see for myself in a little under nine hours.

I don't know why that comparison. They are clearly pretty different games. They are hard 2d platform games but they couldn't be more different.

Limbo was totally scripted and linear. This is about exploration, stealth, and survival, using more dynamic gameplay with AI agents.
 

CHC

Member
I dunno I mean I am still kind of excited for this but it just sounds too fucking hard. Like, potentially not in a fun way.
 
Chris Priestman did a good write-up for Waypoint
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/art...e-stalker-but-a-platformer-and-youre-a-rodent
Rain World' Is Like 'STALKER' but a Platformer and You're a Rodent

Many have enjoyed watching Rain World in action as it has been developed over the years since 2011. Short clips of its horrible beasts scrambling after slugcat for it to triumphantly escape will always be entertaining. But the play experience of Rain World is often the opposite of that. For most of my 28-hour journey I felt bruised and exhausted. It's the difference between watching the BBC series Planet Earth from your comfy sofa and actually being the one fleeing from hungry lions as they stick sharp claws into your hide.
This is subversive game design. We're used to games catering to our fundamental understanding of life and the way we comfortably meet our end. Good game design always gives us a chance while bad game design is unfair.

In other words, traditional game design flatters our humanity, acknowledging our history of overcoming whatever stands in our way. A lot of games throw challenges at us in order to feed our fantasy of conquering their virtual worlds. But Rain World angles its world and the many challenges within from the perspective of an animal that sits in the middle layer of a food chain. It's from here that its approach to design comes from, as opposed to the privileged position of being the dominant species that we're so used to.
 

They seem to be awfully oblivious in the economic aspect of game making. Or at least unfazed:

"We had one streamer who opened up the game and the RNG wasn't with her and so it was extremely difficult. It was a bunch of no-win situations that she was presented with really early on. And she's just like 'screw this, I'm not playing this game, it's impossible'," Therrien tells me. "And then you'll have another player who'll get into it and the algorithm will provide a pretty clear path at the beginning and so they're like 'this game is pretty cool'," he adds. "So, yes, dice rolls."

While the divide in experiences evidenced by those streamers is one of the defining features of Rain World, it still needs tweaking, and its creators know this. But it's a careful balance that they're looking to hit as tipping the game too far one way could compromise the second idea that sits at the heart of the game.

One week before the release, and they see the realities of their game's design, which can throw nigh impossible situations to the player (even in the dev's eyes) and they don't seem worried. They are more like "yes, dice rolls" or "oh yeah we will have to tweak this part to improve the balance..."
 

Crispy75

Member
They seem to be awfully oblivious in the economic aspect of game making:



One week before the release, and they see the realities of their game's design, which can throw nigh impossible situations to the player (even in the dev's eyes) and they don't seem worried. They are more like "yes, dice rolls" or "oh yeah we will have to tweak this part to improve the balance..."

By their own admission, they didn't set out to make an accessible, profitable game. It's always been a quirky art project, that just happened to blow up in terms of potential audience.
 
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