"What remains of Edith Finch" now on GOG

Hi,

"What remains of Edith Finch" has arrived on GOG and has -33% price discount. I read some gamer opinions and reviews and made a decision to buy it. Downloading didn't take too long, the size is barely over 2 GB.

The game looks nice and has already offered some interesting gameplay during first half an hour. The game is very easy to play with a gamepad. Unfortunately I can't play any longer sessions because 1st person view has very narrow field of view which very soon start to cause me bad motion sickeness. The only solution I have found so far is to use some game trainer and adjust it but I really don't want to do that. You never know what you may bring along such non-developer tweaks. Maybe it's only good thing to limit time and play a room/person at a time, at least it takes more days that way to finish the game with 4-6 hrs of expected play time. I still hope the developer would listen to numerous complaints about this matter and add a slider on game options for FOV.

Timo

I just saw this game at GOG and bought it.
It appears to be more like an interactive story than a true Adventure game - but I liked the look of it

I get motion sickness too TJL so thanks for pointing that out. I've been considering purchasing it right now but may wait until the price drops lower. I usually wait and pay less money for games that I might not be able to play but want to try to play. I also often end up using a walkthrough with games that give me motion sickness so I'm not wandering too much.

Hi,

@Mad
You are totally right, it is more like interactive story but in that short time I was able to play it it offered me already something new and fresh in gaming. You'll notice when you start.

@oldbroad
I usually wait the price of a non-AAA game to drop to 5-10€, AAA's 15-20€ or even 25-30 with Season Pass. I have several games just waiting their turn in queue, but now I desperately wanted something easy to play. I have started a new job two months ago and I'm still a bit stressed and carry work to home in my mind and find it too hard to start a new full length game and learn all new controls.

I find it reckless from the developer not to add a slider for FOV for PC version at least. Console players usually sit further from the screen and are not affected as bad. But today it should really be a standard option, so many people suffer from motion sickness. I realised I'm one of them when playing Sherlock Holmes: Awakened years ago and after maybe two hours felt so bad that I threw up. After that I started to recognise it much better and stop playing in time. Fortunately from those days developers that really understand and care about their customers have started to take it more seriously.

I don't know if I'm just too stupid, stubborn or ambitious but I usually avoid walkthroughs like plague. They are taken for help only after days or at least many, many hours of trying without. Nowadays a bit easier than years back as unfortunately there is sometimes some bug or glitch you can't solve even in hundred years. I work with computers and programming and have seen that tendency over decades, nothing is tested so well any more. It is the consumers that do the end testing, unfortunately. And you are lucky if you ever get something fixed or just have to wait for the next version and 'gladly' pay for that.

Timo

I get what you're saying Timo about the stress thing and the walkthroughs.

I hope you're job becomes less stressful. To me, it is not a good sign for a new job to stress me out. I think they usually only get worse.

I don't like to use the walkthroughs, but am much more okay with it now than I used to be. I'd rather use it than end up giving up on a game.

I also had trouble with Sherlock Holmes The Awakened and it was made worse because I had a video problem while playing it too. In retrospect, I think the video problem would have been solved by downloading the PhysX drivers (whatever they are called). Everything in the game was distorted.

FOV adjustments don't help everyone -- at least not with all games. Cyan added "Field of View" adjustments to Obduction and they didn't help reduce nausea for me at all -- just made things look weird and fake. There was no optimal in-between FOV adjustment in Obduction that reduced nausea.

When "Obduction" was still being designed, some people in the Obduction forum asked for snapshot-style navigation like in the original Myst and Riven (or elevation controls) to help them avoid nausea, but those people were ignored by Cyan because some loudmouths who played FPS games insisted that FOV adjustments solved everything. Ideally Cyan would have given players a choice of what solution worked for them instead of assuming that FOV adjustments worked for everyone. But Cyan chose to implement FOV adjustments because they were easiest to implement with their game engine -- and many Myst fans were unable to play Obduction, or gave up on the game fairly early because of motion sickness.

This is a nice little game with a rich and complex story and marvellous graphics. But those with the slightest hint of motion sickness should stay away, and I don't think that implementation of a FOV slider would be of much help. I remember a scene on a swing as especially nauseating. Interactivity is very limited, and there are no actual puzzles. I wouldn't call it an interactive movie though, as you sometimes have to think quite hard about where to go or what to do next. Playing with a gamepad is recommandable.

Thanks for the further info Mikael.

@oldbroad
I am used to work (for over 27 yrs) with only one or two bigger tasks at a time but currently I have to divide my attention to at least half a dozen minor or bigger things in parallel. As I have just started even the minor things that 'everyone' assumes me to solve with snap of finger take much time to investigate and make it right without any risk. Better be slow and sure than fast and in doubt. In 5 minutes you can do harm which takes a week to fix if you are not careful. I am replacing a colleague who's on vacation for 5 months but when he comes back it should be easier as we can divide tasks and I'll take more care about the technical side and leave more responsibility for internal client contacts to him with over a decade experience he already has. That model suits also best according to our education. I hope that works out as expected.

@Jenny100
Yes, FOV slider is no quaranteed solution but like you mentioned it's technically simpliest way to reduce the affect and help at least some people. For me personally it has usually worked quite well with every game it has existed.

@Mikael
Thank you for giving people better view what the game is like. I have played only the first half an hour but do not expect the rest of the game being anything like a guided tour either. I expect and wait it to be something like "Ether One" was. Exploring and finding out things little by little.

Timo

PS. Following player hints to reduce motion sickness in this game I set the Reticule on in options. That helped quite a lot, it isn't any attraction visually though.

I just finished this game and have to say, I think, it was one of the most unusual games I've
played in a long time.

It took a while to realize a few things, such as there are no instructions so you have to learn
as you go along and the save games are at certain points in the game so I found myself leaving the
game running (with the monitor off) if I had to quit for the day and didn't want to lose my progress.

Even though, to be honest, the automatic saves aren't really that far apart.

I could see why people with motion sickness might have a problem with a few places in the game, hopefully
there is a way to remedy that.

There is a pretty good video walk through on youtube here if anyone is interested.

I did find the visuals to be somewhat on the dark side (that may have been my monitor.) But all in all
I hope the developers who designed this game make another as they have an interesting way to tell a story.
Maybe they already have but I'm not aware of it yet.

Robert

I gave up playing when I found the progress I had made playing as different animals hadn't been saved.
To be honest I didn't like the game anyway.