Outer Wilds
I wrote the following note after completing the game. It has now been months since I’ve finished and I can’t stop thinking about how amazing it is. #todo write more thoughts now that I’ve been able to think harder about it.
Here's a review of the game without spoilers
Absolutely one of my favorite games. I say that a lot, but honestly I only have time to play really good games.
It’s insane how well they crafted the mystery. Mystery games are hard to make because what if people don’t get it, how do you lay out the clues, etc. but outer wilds had so many unique challenges with super clever clues that made you feel like a goddamn genius when you got over them.
Possibly my only criticism is: There were times where I was unsure if I had the tools required to solve a puzzle or not. Sometimes puzzles had solutions I just had to think hard about, sometimes I needed to explore more. Because I didn’t know, I would find myself looking up guides for the sole purpose of knowing whether I had the info I needed or not. I wish they added a system where your notes for a location would say “I don’t think I know enough about this place to be able to find it”, that way you could keep exploring without thinking that you would need more info.
In open world games there’s this notion of locks and keys. You don’t want players to accidentally go too far, so you lock area (A) with a key that can only be found in area (B). The simplest way to do this is with literal keys, but Outer Wilds is fantastic in that the only gates are player knowledge. They leave enough clues that you can figure out how to get places. Even if you sequence break, the game still doesn’t “break”, just lets you
#todo write about mandatory death in the Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds medley
