Is A Machine For Pigs best suited to a 'mature' audience?

[Paddy™]

PSA: Please stop rubbing so much stank on your posts. I'm getting reports XD

[MyRedNeptune]

What's with all those hipster "2deep4u", "you just can't understand", "not for everyone", "elitist" fallacies when game studios produce something art-house which many people just do not want/appreciate (original ME3 ending, Gone Home and so much more indie visual novels)?

Excuse me, but the story of TDD is ridiculously complex and there are many questions left unanswered. You ask many people what they understood from TDD, unless they loved the game so much as to play it multiple times and look around for LPs, they will not have a lot to say about it. The game was loved (and rightly so) for its scares and nothing more.

But I loved TDD's story. 3: It was just a pity the game didn't take itself seriously in that department. I don't think it's complex per se, it just has some cool undertones that could be missed by the inattentive/disinterested player.

[Ossie]

Just to add to my thoughts: I've spent quite some time browsing through bits and pieces of random YouTube LPs - the results aren't exactly surprising. Those moaning and griping as they play the game (and giving bad summaries (or rather, childish rants)) at the end are those who are basically running through the game as much as possible and not reading the notes or journal entries, therefore they have bugger all understanding of the story and have even tried to immerse themselves in the game (they don't even bother to linger on any aspects of the environment) - they're just racing along trying to find a jump scare.

Those YouTube LP'ers that really appreciate the game (ChristopherOdd springs to mind) are taking their time, reading (and understanding) the notes and are obviously immersing themselves in the game. I'd also recommend watching Markiplier's LP - he gives a good and very thoughtful summary at the end which is worth listening to. Did he like the game? Why not listen for yourselves.

[Cuyir]

@Ossie:

Yep, everyone's playing it as a haunted attraction (how people played TDD) and thus missing the point entirely. But hey, some people like to enjoy slushies and others like to gulp it down in one chug and complain about the brainfreeze afterward.

[bluel0bster]

I can't help but think the narrative in "pigs" might be better suited to novel or movie form.

[SurvivalHorror]

I think before you head off on a 'purple prose' trip, you should consider this. The visuals and sound FX in the game aimed to create something like a sense of an authentic Victorian world (at least in the non-fantastical areas, not suggesting clockwork nuclear reactors are actually authentically Victorian of course) - so why not the language as well. Maybe go read some Victorian novels, or newspapers and then see whether it's really so different. And ask why it might be important to try and capture the feel of the language or if not, why a sense of an authentic world is paramount to visuals so should be avoided in the text...

You make valid points, but I really felt the vocabulary was embellishment to cover up for a rather uninteresting story.. Perhaps coming into the game after outlast and the first amnesia made me expect something similar.. I was just so frustrated at the lack of any semblance to survival horror.

[Mjarr]

I think before you head off on a 'purple prose' trip, you should consider this. The visuals and sound FX in the game aimed to create something like a sense of an authentic Victorian world (at least in the non-fantastical areas, not suggesting clockwork nuclear reactors are actually authentically Victorian of course) - so why not the language as well. Maybe go read some Victorian novels, or newspapers and then see whether it's really so different. And ask why it might be important to try and capture the feel of the language or if not, why a sense of an authentic world is paramount to visuals so should be avoided in the text...

Reality is unrealistic combined with plenty of dissonance with cultural values or plain ignorance. Especially those few lines which might be more appropriate to be found in Victorian (or even Edwardian) era porn novel.

[chineseroom]

You make valid points, but I really felt the vocabulary was embellishment to cover up for a rather uninteresting story..

I think that's a completely bizarre comment, to be honest with you. So we wrote a story, looked at it, thought "Damn, that's boring - I know, let's pile on a load of poetics, you know, the stuff we got criticised for with Dear Esther, because we have so much contempt for gamers and fans that we think they won't be able to tell the difference" - really?

[PutraenusAlivius]

Certainly. Immature audiences will kept bitching about this game being not scary. Although it was leaned more to Story right Dan?

If you're asking me if the whole Amnesia franchise should be better made for 18 and up, well, ignore me.

[Paddy™]

Like it or not, to say that this story is "uninteresting" is truly baffling. What the fuck kind of uber-jaded audience are we dealing with here when this could be considered uninteresting?

"Yeah, it had mutilated Frankensteined pigmen zombies working as slave labour in a giant secret underground machine by a man haunted by his own conscience for what he's done to his family and the people in his community as he pieces his memory back together after visiting sacrificial temples in Mexico, but it just didn't grab me and I was kinda distracted by the sound of paint drying on my walls".

Sheesh. I don't know what else TCR needs to do to impress you!

Spoiler below!