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Vidya Games?
I got Order of the Sinking Star last night. Well, technically Thursday night, but it took so long to download on Switch 2 that I went to bed before it finished. Fucking love it. In typical Blow fashion, every puzzle is solvable when you first encounter it if you think hard enough. At least I think that's the case. Blasted though about 85 boards before I passed out around 1 am. Supposedly there are 1400 puzzles in the game, so that'll be fun.
Performance on Switch 2 isn't great. I almost wish I got it on PC. But I just have issues with too many distractions on PC. The compulsion to have youtube on in the background, discord notifications, etc. I drag my lovesac in front of the TV and zone in for hours on Switch. Single purpose devices are good for that I guess.
I guess Jonathan Blow has said some obvious common sense things, because the comments section of every review are about what a terrible piece of shit he is. In the year of our lord 2026 people are still mad at him on reddit and in game review site comment sections about thinking that COVID 19 was a lab leak. There was a time when this would bother me, but now I just laugh.
Playing Valheim again since it got 1.0 release.
I like that they changed some of the difficulty settings. Previously I had to install mods to not have their preferred hardcore experience.
There is still some slight annoyance with travel distances in the game. It is fun to build huge sprawling bases. But the default setting doesn't allow for ore and metals going through portals until you reach the end game. Sailing is painfully slow given the size of the map. So the game slightly encourages small bases next to resource nodes, but the resource costs of many bases is cost prohibitive since many of the crafting stations use up rare resources.
Fighting the bosses alone is a slog. They are definitely designed around multiple players. Melee DPS is much higher than ranged DPS and the bosses can tear through large health stacks with relative ease. So you are stuck with one strategy of run in a and take a few whacks then back off to shoot from range while health regenerates. You can't spam healing potions even if you stock up cuz they have a two minute cool down.
The boss fights are hour long battles where one mistake sends you to a respawn and erases 15 minutes of progress as their health regenerates and you spend time getting back in the fight.
Still a mechanically fun survival rpg with interesting and unique story aesthetics. Graphics are in an ok spot, better than minecraft but not by much.
At this point I just want to beat it and cross it off the list.
While I am always happy to hear people talk about Valheim, I disagree with many of your points. I find Valheim to be close to the platonic ideal of a survival game. People talk about video games as art and they generally are speaking of narrative and plot. I find the whole design of Valheim to be a superlative example of artistic expression.
Every part of the game has been carefully crafted and balanced around the the developers ideas and taste. Yes, the default setting are somewhat hardcore. There is friction. “Quality of Life” features are eschewed. The game is all the better for it and people should experience the game as they developers intend.
People also complain about the lack of “craft from chest” features. Or the limited inventory (somewhat relaxed in 1.0). People complain the developers are lazy and QoL like this should have been implemented years ago. It’s very clear at this point that it’s not a matter of prioritization, skill, or investment on the devs part. Those features fundamentally change the experience. Some people may be tuned off. Fine. But leaning into these features is what makes the game more of a pure survival game. Compared to every other generic slop/sandbox game. I find video games developers fairly loathsome. But I have supreme respect for Iron Gate for sticking to their guns and not giving the lowest common denominator NPCs what they want.
Compare Valheim to Enshrouded. A somewhat popular, perhaps more popular, survival game that is superficially very similar to Valheim. I found that game to be total trash. It’s got all the QoL that people ask for and more “fluid” combat. It’s also incredibly generic. No soul. I suspect most people would be lucky to get 50 hours of fun out of that game.
Valheim demands more. I’ve got like 500 hours on Valheim over the past 4 years. I am likely going to roll a new world and start fresh on no map, no portal (NMNP) settings. NMNP is an even more pure survival experience. Getting lost in the massive world is very possible. Get caught in a storm and get too far off course and you may never find your base again. No portal requires you to make a base in each new biome. It completely changes the dynamic and makes it much more fun in my experience.
Anyone who hasn’t played Valheim should give it a try. It’s not for everyone. But if you like spending time with games and being fully engaged, you may love it. It’s very different from the modern AAA slop that plays itself.
Ya I guess I'm an NPC, I prefer enshrouded. You are about to hate everything I'm gonna say.
I really can't spend endless time on a game. And the basic mechanics of Valheim are just not that interesting to me. It's smack things and avoid being smacked for combat. Or slowly run away while reloading a bow or crossbow.
The resource gathering has nothing interesting going on. At most it requires entering certain combat zones or dungeons to gather a particular resource, but that just brings it back to the standard fight mechanics.
The sailing is boring. I used cheat engine speed hack and literally sped up the game by 5x to take care of long sailing journeys. Even then I felt like I was barely paying attention and still easily avoiding stuff or going the direction I wanted.
Gear and food is the entirety of your progression. The default settings have you lose both on death and then make a corpse run. I fucking hate corpse runs. But fair enough that makes me not want to die. But that leads me to playing cautious and ultra boring all the time. I am absolutely not gonna risk a 50 minute meal count down on a risky and aggressive strategy. I turned the setting on so I at least kept my equipped gear, but I doubt you do that.
Finding specific locations on the massive sprawling map would take forever even if you are using portals and the in game map. Playing without them seems like insanity. I instead found an online tool that took my map gen key and revealed the whole thing locations and all.
Basically I'm shamelessly "cheating" at this game and barely finding my time worth it. I can see how someone with nearly unlimited time could enjoy the slow grind of this game. But that's not me. The combat just doesn't interest me, and the base building mechanics are strict. Resources don't go far in building, and height restrictions for all but the best materials kick in so fast that you always feel like you are making a crappy temporary base.
It’s an interesting discussion none the less.
It’s not a function of having time or not having time. I have 3 young kids and a demanding job. I have 2-3 hours of “me time” most days that I will sink into a good game. I’d rather spend 2 months making my way through Valheim than crossing new releases off my play list. Frankly, so few good and interesting games are released that I generally have a playlist of like 5-10 games I go back to. Very few of them are new releases.
I suppose it comes down to why you are playing video games. Seriously, why are you even playing Valheim? To cross it off a list? I’m sincerely asking.
Edit:
Yes. There are consequences to death. And with no map, it’s much more likely your corpse and inventory is not getting recovered. But maybe if you remember where you were you can pull it off. You described combat as boring. It’s definitely not boring with those stakes. And playing defensively is typically a mistake. That’s what makes it interesting. It’s fully engaging. That’s why I think it’s a best in class. Literally the polar opposite of those new release slop games that play themself.
I am having fun despite all my complaints. It's not just crossing it off a list.
Exploring the dungeons in the deep north has been fun. Sieging the forts in the Ashlands has been fun. Kiting bosses while they absolutely obliterate the environment around me is fun for thirty minutes, just not an hour or two.
The progression is always something I'm addicted to. I wish it was more tied to the character itself rather than just the gear and meals.
The building is fun at my super base once I had a huge backlog of stone or other raw material.
I like the size of the world but I just wish there was a faster way to traverse it. I'd love if there was an end game air ship. And a mid game ship with way more speed. Possibly some resource burning option for a flat boost to speed. So you would still want the wind for top speed, but aren't completely stuck dead in the water when you get a headwind in a narrow channel.
I mean this sincerely but I think we just have a very different definition of fun and we’re looking for different things in a game.
I need a game to be punishingly difficult and designed well enough to where I can practice and improve - sort of like golf. Mastery of a game.
Or I need a game that’s truly well designed and experiencing the interplay of systems is satisfying. I like building in games, all the way back to Sim City 2000. Valheim has a terrific building system where the pieces are small enough, clipable, and there’s a logical restrictions on weight/engineering. But if I’m given unlimited resources to build, and the building serves no functional purpose, I’m not satisfied. Valheim scratches that itch. Building is very functional. And at the same time you can get really flamboyant with the designs.
Enshrouded may have a great building system. But with no bare raids and no practical use (benches with craft from chest) , I am extremely bored by it.
So why do you play games? Is it just moment to moment fun? Second screen?
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