It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionRelease: Firewatch(160 posts)(160 posts)
(160 posts)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
This is my favourite topic
Posted April 08, 2016
Can you see the forest for the trees?



<span class="bold">Firewatch</span>, an engrossing first-person mystery about adult relationships under stress, is now available DRM-free on GOG.com for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with GOG Galaxy support for achievements and a 10% launch discount.

Isolation. Suffocating temperatures. The impenetrable Wyoming wilderness. It's one of those risky summer days when Henry's firewatch duty seems refreshingly important but a permeating sense of dread hangs in the atmosphere. Against his better judgement, he will soon find himself out into the wild, aiming to investigate a potential threat to the forest. Strange happenings will soon cause him to start questioning everything, including Delilah, his supervisor that accompanies him through this ordeal via a walkie-talkie.

Not unlike its beautiful setting, Firewatch is better experienced than described. This emotionally-charged mystery turns the untamed 1989 Wyoming setting into the perfect stage for an intense, surreal journey of an isolated man that struggles to stay connected with the outside world. The choices you make and the secrets you uncover will feed into Henry's narrative and ultimately determine how this curious story plays out.



Explore the temperamental human nature as revealed during one man's eventful <span class="bold">Firewatch</span> duty, DRM-free on GOG.com. The 10% launch discount will last until April 15, 1:59 PM UTC.


In the press :
"Gorgeous and clever, Campo Santo's debut is a triumph of craft" - Eurogamer
"Easily one of my favorite and most memorable game experiences of this decade" - IGN
"A rare and beautiful creation, that expands the possibilities for how a narrative game can be presented" - Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Posted April 11, 2016
avatar
shmerl: Nice game, but this camera shaking is giving me a headache. Really.
Firewatch? You can turn off camera shake in the game settings.
Posted April 11, 2016
avatar
shmerl: Nice game, but this camera shaking is giving me a headache. Really.
avatar
a4plz: Firewatch? You can turn off camera shake in the game settings.
Which setting is it?

UPDATE: Ah, found it. "Toggle head bob". Thanks for the hint, it's surely better! Before it was really annoying, especially when climbing on ledges.
Post edited April 11, 2016 by shmerl
Posted April 11, 2016
avatar
CharlesGrey: Hm, heard of this one a few times, nice to see it available here.

Any opinions from people who have already tried it? The only review so far is bullshit, and it's hard to figure out much about the game just by looking at the screenshots and description. ( Doesn't help that the feature list is basically just a list of game development "celebrities". )

Might pick it up eventually, just to see what it's all about, but not at the current price.
avatar
ZwaanME: It's a walking simulator that focusses on the conversations between the two main characters. One is the character you play as and the other is your 'boss' who you will only hear but never meet. The main character has fled his job and has become a fire watch because he has trouble dealing with the fact that his wife has early dementia and hardly recognises him and he is no longer capable of taking care of her. This is something you'll find out during the first two minutes of playing so I don't consider this a spoiler.
Your boss will send you out exploring every once in a while and you'll have to walk, run and climb in order to get around. So it's a bit more involved than in most walking simulators but don't expect complicated puzzles. It's mostly about enjoying the scenery and listening to the conversations.
At various points throughout the game you can choose to discuss things you see or find with your boss and during conversations with her you'll often get several replies to choose from. You can choose to keep it all in and pretend you're just fine or you can let it all out and tell her exactly how bad you feel. Choices you make will influence future conversations but have no impact on the game. The conversations are well written and very well voice acted. During one of your outings you'll discover a great fence in the woods that shouldn't be there and that's where the game's central mystery starts.
I enjoyed playing the game but the replayability is limited since, despite all the choices you can make, the outcome will always be the same. There is also a twist near the end which will probably not make a lot of sense when you play the game the first time. So replaying it is necessary to really understand what's going on.
It took me about six hours to complete and get all of the Steam achievements (sorry GOG, but if you're going to release game months after Steam does, don't be surprised if a lot of GOG subscribers have already bought it) and I enjoyed both play troughs. But after that there isn't really much more to discover. So you might want to wait until you can get it with a nice discount.
That's actually....an excellent review.
Posted April 11, 2016
avatar
ZwaanME: ... he has trouble dealing with the fact that his wife has early dementia and hardly recognises him and he is no longer capable of taking care of her. This is something you'll find out during the first two minutes of playing so I don't consider this a spoiler.
...
Does she have severe Alzheimer's' or just a general "dementia" catch-all label? My understanding of dementia (from personal experience and other sources) is that the general symptoms vary greatly and can come and go to a variety of degrees of severity and aren't normally constant/persistent or as drastic as "suddenly they can't even recognize their spouse and are a HUGE handful and hard/impossible for 1 person to take care of."

Do you have any insight into how realistic their representation of the condition is (even if it is only referential) because something like this, for me, could make the game really annoying if they are simply talking out of their ass and being hugely inaccurate about something that is very real.
Posted April 11, 2016
avatar
ZwaanME: ... he has trouble dealing with the fact that his wife has early dementia and hardly recognises him and he is no longer capable of taking care of her. This is something you'll find out during the first two minutes of playing so I don't consider this a spoiler.
...
avatar
drealmer7: Does she have severe Alzheimer's' or just a general "dementia" catch-all label? My understanding of dementia (from personal experience and other sources) is that the general symptoms vary greatly and can come and go to a variety of degrees of severity and aren't normally constant/persistent or as drastic as "suddenly they can't even recognize their spouse and are a HUGE handful and hard/impossible for 1 person to take care of."

Do you have any insight into how realistic their representation of the condition is (even if it is only referential) because something like this, for me, could make the game really annoying if they are simply talking out of their ass and being hugely inaccurate about something that is very real.
The game starts with a series of text segments that are written like diary entries from the main character and after each segment you get to choose how to react. All these text lead up to the dementia which starts rather innocently (her forgetting her keys and such) but leads up to a severe form. So it's not very detailed but enough to make you understand the difficult choices he (or rather you) had to make and also why he choose to leave his job and works as a fire watch. He needs to clear his head and decide how to continue his personal life. Should he divorce his wife or visit her more often? During the game you can choose whether you want to confide in your boss and tell her why you've taken this job or pretend you're just fine. If you do confide in her she'll tell you a bit about her troubled past in return. Since both the writing and the voice acting is very well done it felt genuine to me. I have no personal experience with demented people but it's treated in a serious way. It's not just used as a motivation to explain why he becomes a fire watch but it keeps coming back in their conversations throughout the game in a realistic way (depending on your choices of course). That's what they mean on the store page when they mention them having 'adult conversations'. And even though some parts of the game could have been (much) better, the conversations are definitely the high point of the game. If they would have left out the exploration and the big mystery it would have been a pretty depressing game to play.
Posted April 12, 2016
I hope the game has sold at least 1,200 units (maybe not since people who voted may have gone ahead and bought it on Steam; the game is way back on page 27 of 30). The mixed reception is interesting, given how this game was so well-received on Steam, and it seemed like there was a lot of interest in seeing the game come here.
Posted April 12, 2016
I don't think mixed reception means people necessarily regret buying the game.
Posted April 12, 2016
avatar
tfishell: I hope the game has sold at least 1,200 units (maybe not since people who voted may have gone ahead and bought it on Steam; the game is way back on page 27 of 30). The mixed reception is interesting, given how this game was so well-received on Steam, and it seemed like there was a lot of interest in seeing the game come here.
I expect a lot of people want the game, but will be waiting for a larger discount. I went ahead and bought it here on release since I voted for it, knew what kind of game I was getting, and had game budget left, but for games over $10 there are a number of customers who just can't buy on impulse.
Post edited April 12, 2016 by Luned
Posted April 12, 2016
avatar
ZwaanME: I enjoyed playing the game but the replayability is limited since, despite all the choices you can make, the outcome will always be the same. There is also a twist near the end which will probably not make a lot of sense when you play the game the first time. So replaying it is necessary to really understand what's going on.
I just finished the game (for the first time), and detective side of the story was explained pretty well. I explored quite a bit and the twist made sense. Would replaying it another time change anything in the story or reveal more information? Why do you think playing it another time is needed to understand the plot?
Post edited April 12, 2016 by shmerl
Posted April 12, 2016
I would say, I most definitely agree on this call, of Firewatch. That is all.
Posted April 12, 2016
avatar
ZwaanME: I enjoyed playing the game but the replayability is limited since, despite all the choices you can make, the outcome will always be the same. There is also a twist near the end which will probably not make a lot of sense when you play the game the first time. So replaying it is necessary to really understand what's going on.
avatar
shmerl: I just finished the game (for the first time), and detective side of the story was explained pretty well. I explored quite a bit and the twist made sense. Would replaying it another time change anything in the story or reveal more information? Why do you think playing it another time is needed to understand the plot?
There are a lot of early clues (objects, notes, events, conversation) that you might miss or dismiss as unimportant that get a different meaning once you know what really happened. When I first started playing it the Steam achievements weren't active so the first three achievements hadn't triggered. So I replayed a large part of the game and decided to make different choices in both the story at the beginning and in the dialogue options during the rest of the game. This won't give you more information about the plot but it does give more insight in the characters and their motivations. And it's funny to see how the dialogue changes tone when you make different choices. Your boss will either support your paranoia when strange things happen or be level headed depending on your choices. I also discovered a small location I had missed on my first play through and I recognized the clues that I didn't think were important the first time. Also some of the conversation doesn't change in itself but does get a new meaning. For instance when you first discover the locked door in the cave your boss makes a remark about how 'people have gone in, never to come out again'. She says this as a little joke but hearing it the second time gave me goosebumps.
Posted April 12, 2016
Are dialogue options "true" (as in NOT Mass Effect type "this is what they tell you the dialogue is like and then you say something completely different), you say exactly what is saidon the screen. This is absolute necessity for me.
Posted April 12, 2016
avatar
drealmer7: Are dialogue options "true" (as in NOT Mass Effect type "this is what they tell you the dialogue is like and then you say something completely different), you say exactly what is saidon the screen. This is absolute necessity for me.
That happened to me just once, but that was just me not reading properly.
You don't get exactly what you will say, but most of it.
Posted April 12, 2016
avatar
drealmer7: Are dialogue options "true" (as in NOT Mass Effect type "this is what they tell you the dialogue is like and then you say something completely different), you say exactly what is saidon the screen.
Nope. You don't even really get dialogue options, all get to do is to steer the conversations in whatever direction you'd like to. Remember, the game is not an RPG in any way - it doesn't even change ending or much of the content, all you can realistically influence is tone of the conversations and what you carry from them. It's a linear story with relatively linear progression giving player choices in dialogue not allow him to influence what is happening, but to allow him to get/reveal information and steer conversations in a way player deems important.

Firewatch is very much a walking simulator - but as opposed to other walking simulators, trough the subtle ways it reacts to conversation choices and what you discover when properly exploring it gives player agency as opposed to other walking sims which ... Well, don't.
Posted April 12, 2016
avatar
Fenixp: *snip*
The dialogue options aren't dialogue options? O_o
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRelease: Firewatch(160 posts)(160 posts)
(160 posts)