I remember when barely anyone knew what Fear and Hunger was and now everyone knows it what it is so yeah this definitely feels like another one of those games
Funny - I also covered Fear & Hunger way before it was cool. Back in 2019 for RPS, I believe, and some people acted like I'd lost my mind. @@thegammelier
the best defense i can give for the validity of story spoilers is that in many stories especially in video games, having very little knowledge for the possible paths a story could take is a very enchanting experience, am not just talking abt spoiling a smart plot twist or whatever, i mean spoilers that give away the directions the story is going, having ur expectations continously shift throughout a well written original story is an experience that is both fun as hell and impossible to get if you've already been spoiled on major story elements
yeaa, agreed, the point he brings up in the first two minutes of the video can be said about any media and he kinda just disregards it in anything except videogames
Some people apparently cant feel that joy of continuously shifting expectations, but they too often just start "what is this spoilers that all worried about? As for me its pretty okay" instead of realising that its different for other people, lol. And yes twist itself dont make bad story good, but if good story benefited from twist and become worse without it this is not make this story less good than other, that is dont contain twists or not actually relies on them. Best stories i ever read/played in my life are contained very important twists... aaand i also attracted to almost all of them only after i gor spoilered small part of their awesomeness, so its really a balance, small amount of spoilers can instill additional curiosity but the more of them the less overall enjoyment
@@slyfox3853 LOL right? Mystery games are my favorite genre, and if there's no mystery, there's no game? It's the same with mystery books, and they don't usually have much replay value once you've finished them. It's a very bad argument.
Exactly. Not knowing where the story is going is part of the enjoyment itself. The feeling of that moment of learning what's going on is something you can't get back a second time, and it's often vital to the presentation of the story. An example for me is the original Nier (Gestalt specifically.) I was going along, doing my thing, and then I get to the end and suddenly realize what's *actually* happening. If that had been spoiled for me... Some people might not understand spoilers and think they're not a big deal, but spoiling things for others takes away from the intended impact and emotions that the creators were trying to convey with the story. Having something spoiled doesn't make the media worse, but it makes the first experience worse.
It feels incredible to know ‘the next big thing’ before it reaches that point. I can’t wait to eventually see my favourite content creators play this. In the meantime, I’m glad it introduced me to a potentially new favourite content creator. Thanks so much for covering such a hidden gem!
A spoiler without context usually won't make or break a story, but being totally spoiler free is still the best way to experience something. Even when I rewatch or replay something I love, I lament not being able to experience it for the first time again without knowing what happens.
It's not just about it being better,. it's about experiencing the story as it was meant to be. There are some stories that are simply better when experienced blind. The twists and turns some authors can pull off are incredible, and saying "spoilers don't ruin them" is borderline disrespectful to the author. There is no way you read something like Dune and aren't affected by knowing its later plot. Or to be a weeb, in the realm of Visual Novels, the entirity of Umineko. Umineko is something I would have actually got angry over if people spoiled It for me on purpose. It's such an incredible story that goes to so many places at once it's incredible it doesn't fail. For reference, Umineko is made up of 8 episodes. All episodes build up a single story, but also are a retelling of the same events: "During 2 days, in an isolated private island, the members of a rich family meet up and discuss inheritance issues. After the first night, murders happen, and of the 18 people on the Island between relatived and servants, only 5 are alive by the end, which doesn't actually tell you how things end for these 5 and who the murderer is. But with each episode, more things are added to this puzzle. In episode 2, the story is followed by a sort of metanarrative plane from the protagonist and the self-declared Witch that is making these stories as a game to challenge the protagonist, with them fighting over the existence of magic and witches: these two watch the events of the second story, and debate and discuss it. By episode 4, there is an entire cast of this metaplane actively having their own plot while the murders happen. And each story also expands new characters, revealing more and more secrets of the setup of the story. One can say that this is because it's a Visual Novel, thus a reading experience and not a game, but that's besides the point. There are books and stories that work the same way even if you know some spoilers. Learning about Frodo's failure to destroy the Ring and the role of Smeagol in it doesn't ruin LOTR Spoilers of Umineko simply kill the experience.
im legit kinda sad I watched this, but I know I would NEVER play this game if I did not watch this, heck I still prob wont, but its insanely interestin
Nah I play Mystery games and if there's no mystery as to who the culprit is, that kills a lot of it. The genre generally lacks replay value too. Even some of my favorite Light Novels like The Empty Box and the first volume having the protag and a girl who's accused them as the culprit, repeat the same day 10k+ time, and twists from buildup immersion reward you, from even the smallest things. Like as a toy example, if even just a pen on the protag's desk is gone and never returns, that implies someone is taking it everyday but is pretending they cannot remember like other classmates. This would be a breakthrough for the reader because what made them act up later? If I know the culprit in this case there is no shock LOL, I'm just waiting for the characters to catch up, who don't even exist. It's suppose to be for me. Or remembering day 1200, and the book finally shows you day 1199 (another fake example but is a trick with the author's writing in his works), which completely flips 1200 on its head. If I were to know I'd Day 1199 first, 1200 becomes pointless. Knowledge based titles aren't just gameplay lol
@@lorenzomeulli750 yeah dudes out here are capping I completely agree. Lol what the youtuber described as "knowledge based" is the core of the Mystery genre itself, and without mystery.. there is no Mystery? Sure if someone cares more about the combat in Devil May Cry, go for it, but in games like AA, or more obscure ones it matters.
@@Gloomistic Kinda, but with AA it's less about the mistery and more about the Logic as far as I am concerned. I don't mind checking a walkthrough, but I don't want to know a step of the logic of the case before reaching it. For example, in the first game it's not really hard to understand what the fuck is going on in the last case. The problem is the Logic that you need to reach that relatively easy to guess solution
Dominic Tarason here from that PC Gamer piece. You got my name right first time! It's so good to see people actually read my stuff! Yeah, Void Stranger is real special. Probably my game of the year, and 2023 was ABSOLUTELY BANANAS GOOD for videogames. Not so much the industry. But the games were fun. The article's long title was the editor's pick - it seems to be a PC Gamer style thing these days! The hype was real though. Game took me 50 hours to see fully through. I don't normally do puzzle games, so I know it can be done a lot quicker if you're not sludge-brained like me, but goddamn, it was worth the MONTH OF OBSESSION.
Haha, I'm glad I got your name right (and the title line was just an easy joke, it clearly worked because I clicked on it)! Thank you so much for watching and for writing the article in the first place. I don't know if I'd have ever given it a shot without it, since it's still so far under the radar (only on a couple GOTY lists that I've seen)
I've watched the whole game being played by a streamer and every time we thought the game was over we jokingly said "But wait! There's more!" Just play the game, whenever you think this is all it has to offer there will be always more.
@@d4s0n282 Sorry just saw this. I shamefully am only about 20 hours in, around where I stopped to make the video. I haven't been able to go back and see the rest yet but I will one day
@@josephchambers4509 You can always watch other people play it or look up the answers if you care about the story but hate the puzzles, thus skipping the boring parts. If you want to experience the game by yourself there is not much else to do other than to be resilient and keep trying, there is people who genuinely love the struggle but it's ok if you don't.
Gotta love it when the algorithm works and you stumble upon an up-and-coming content creator of such high quality. Great video, looking forward to exploring the rest of your channel.
I’ve played this game for 3 months on and off and I agree this game couldn’t have been made without love and organization this game was beyond what I expected and I’ve played games most people don’t even know about and it’s very clever.
Alright my man, I like to go in as blind as possible, so I'll come back to watch this one later. But you already sold me on the game in the first 2 minutes lol. I trust your judgement and will dive in when I get some more free time. But congratulations on the success of this video and for passing 1k subs! Heck, passing 1.5k! It's not all about the numbers of course, but it's still a huge milestone to achieve!! I'm super happy to see your progress as a creator, your videos are so insightful and always filled with so much passion for your craft. Here's to the next thousand! 🥳
Thanks, TJ, that means a lot coming from a creator as talented as you. Your channel should be much MUCH bigger, but I'm confident we'll get there in the end
You 100percent successfully baited me into buying this game. Moreover, you reminded me, or to put it better, made me realize that the question 'Why do I love to play games?' is such an important question that could change a big part of me forever. Thanks mate keep up the good work.
This is the first time I really regretted not taking the "do not watch before playing" warning seriously, stopped the video before the end and I'm going to play it asap :)
One of the best things is spreading the game like wildfire through a friend group and watching as the chat around it the next few days starts looking like a declassified CIA document with all the spoiler text and images with people sharing notes, ideas, and puzzles they're stuck on/solved. Probably my GotY 2023, and ended up that for at least 2 others I've introduced it to! I'm super impressed by the development too, after listening to some interviews. System Erasure's just 2 people, and their only other game was ZeroRanger, a shmup. So a big genre shift, but not only that, they swapped who was programmer and who was game designer between them for Void Stranger too! The fact they did so well on so many different areas of "first time trying this" is crazy.
I somehow found this whilst browsing on RUclips and I'm surprised by how well this video was made. Never heard of the game neither but I'm thinking about giving it a try.
I knew how Edgerunners ends before I even started watching it and it didn't take anything from the experience. And while sometimes spoilers genuinely do suck, the whole spoiler fright seems to be a social construct and nothing else.
I'm here thanks to the youtube algorithm and I am not disappointed, it's a good sign you're well on your way to shine a light on this game I now can't wait to play, and relieve some of your existential dread as a youtuber. Well done.
Something really funny happened on my first playthrough. In the room where you get the scepter, I used it and immediatelly fell into the holw I just created. I ate the fruit the demon gave me because I juts assumed "Ah, this is how we're contextualising death. Cool." For my entire first playthrough, I had no idea that memory tiles existed or that locusts acted as your lives XD. Safe to say when I went for my second run and saw a locust consumed when I died, it clicked for me what I hda to do.
same. I honestly think that's the best way to go through the first playthrough. Unafraid to experiment, just focused on the puzzles. Then when you start again you've got enough ground work that you can A) start tackling the extra puzzles of getting the memory crystals and B) probably make it to the bottom without having to restart again (though in my case it got pretty close)
Glad to have discovered this game when its reviews were in the 10's. I hope it gets to become the thousands it deserves. Nothing can really describe that feeling that the song provokes when you hit the bottom for the first time. But you start, again, and you do it, again. And it rewards you, tenfold
My friend has been trying to talk me into playing Void Stranger for ages, and this video finally convinced me to pick it up for real! Great overview of the game and what makes it special, with just enough left out to leave me wanting more. Good job my man.
I laughed out loud when you asked "what do I have to lose?" and answered the question with my own thoughts. It really does consume your soul. Subbed. My favorite part of the game is the one that happens when the bgm Void the Sky calls back to the Voided Song. Here's to hoping your background switches from Voided Song to Void the Sky soon!
In theory, Void Stranger should have been right up my alley. Secrets, sokobans, hardcore puzzles, interesting narrative, all things I love. But I found myself very frustrated and I just couldn't complete it. My biggest frustration was the rogue-like nature of it. If you just got to level 101 and there was a secret on 99 and you just realize how to complete it, then you have to go back to the beginning and do everything back up to then. I understand why this was done, the point was so that after you get power-ups, you suddenly feel a lot more powerful. But it doesn't didn't work for me. Having to redo the same puzzles with very precise solutions before you get to that point was extremely unfun and it killed my desire to play on.
I agree heavily with the opening of this about spoilers. Some media I have only gone into knowing how it ended yet was still surprised or blown away at the ending. Some ending I can watch over and over and they fill like it's the first time with all the heavy emotion. Spoilers can't ruin something that's already really good. However, we do have to acknowledge that not everything is "really good". Some things rely on a lack of information and while it's no exactly going to draw someone like me in as much, I can understand how lots of less media literate people might want to enjoy their media and be happy shocked by what is presented to them. So many of us guess the endings of things due to "media literacy" and that has it's own downsides such is mysteries being a hard genre to really enjoy due to how obvious they have to be to keep the audience understanding the case.
I can agree with this. I think a lot of people aren't looking for something necessarily "good" but "surprising" or "novel." So, for them, that first experience may be the only experience they want to have and can feel it's spoiled it they know how it ends. I'm always hungry for "good," though. If it's good, I find I enjoy it, knowing the ending or not. I want to be clear, though, that I don't think people are *wrong* for wanting a spoiler free novel experience. Different folks, different strokes.
Wow. This was one of those very rare, well written, and really compelling videos that I'll definitely be thinking about later. The commentary and progressive reveal of what looks like a game with a lot of depth and interesting story itself, was really well done. Keep in mind, the numbers don't always tell the full story. Regardless how you might feel about algorithm strats and engagement metrics, this was a really well told story which is what really matters to me. Thank you!
Another example is Noita. While it isn't puzzle game (although it has some puzzles in it), it's definitely a knowledge based game. Without any knowledge you will die in 5 minutes. But With knowledge you can go far beyond just completing the game.
I think it's wild that your experience on the first run with the lives system/being voided was so different than my own. like, I died almost immediately, met the little guy, said "no" to the fruit, got booted out of the game, and said "oh so I guess I have to take it." I started it up again, died on purpose, and took the fruit. I never even knew that the locusts functioned as extra lives until I had gotten to the end of gray's playthrough.
Aye bro, this video is really really good. I immediately bought the game and played it for 7 hrs. Then played the rest of the vid. The delivery, editing, description and jokes. Needless to say I liked and subscribed. Great vid my man. Cheers
> I don't believe in story spoilers. > I do believe in gameplay spoilers. > Proceeds to explain how experiencing a games hidden mechanics for the first time is important to the experience. > Doesn't see that, that is also a component of experiencing a story and what emotions and thoughts it can provoke in you, without having the experience diluted by having something forewarned. I'm not gonna name call, but I certainly made a mental list.
Great video! I hope the game and this video blows up. Void Stranger certainly isn’t for everyone but I don’t regret my unhealthy obsession I had with it
Your intro convinced me to go play the game for myself. 3 months and 80 gameplay hours later, and now I have another game I'll never be able to convince my friends to play
Aside for the fantastic game you talk about, i really want to say how well the video is presented and scripted. You clearly have a voice. It show that you draw inspiration from other youtubers, in the way sections are structured and expressed, but you impressed me. You got yourself a subscriber!
Welp, I saw this game, bought it, and 60 hours later I have officially completed the entire game. I'm sure we can all relate to staring up into the sky, trying to find our mother's star. What an amazing experience. Thank you for the recommendation.
Honestly, for the longest time it felt like I and perhaps some other people were the only ones who knew of this game thanks to being familiar and old fans of the creator (the same ones behind ZeroRanger as well as a prominent creator within the Fraxy scene) so it is nice to see that it has gained more attention as time goes on.
Man watching other people's journey in this game is fucking wild to me. I already had the sword & wing thing spoiled to me, but despite doing a full voided run, I still have only the barest hint of where to even start looking for them, but I discovered the ability to walk over the bottom UI & enter the darkness super early on.
So I watched your video and immediately went and bought the game, so kudos on that. I finished a playthrough and have some thoughts. To say this game is hard is misleading. Like you alluded to, the difficulty is really about the player being willing to press on after realizing how many times they'll need to "beat" the game in order to actually complete it. In the middle of my second run, I realized that I didn't want to play the game enough to see the rest of the story unfold. Definitely the kind of game most people would just want to see a summary video on. Fear & Hunger is also that kind of game. I saw Zuldim's video, bought the game, realized I'd need to seriously dedicate a lot of time to see most of everything, and started looking for another RUclipsr who did the legwork. Worm Girl has this great series called "What really happened in..." and she summarizes the story amazingly well. So that's where I'm at. I've just seen Zuldim's vid on Void Stranger and I'm waiting for another Worm Girl to pop up. lorgon111 has a great recap video for anyone else in my boat. Anyway, great video. Definitely gonna check out more of your stuff
I've yet to get back to the game since finishing the video, to be honest, so I've got a ton more to see myself. I think I'm going to stream it, so people who don't want to push through the pain can follow along!
I played 20 hours of this game (and more on paper when the game was closed) and it feels like i need to play 3 times that to see some satisfying conclusion, not to mention the hard puzzles are hard, redoing them is annoying and skipping them with wings feels cheap. If that was time spent actually doing new stuff, interesting stuff, then I would have loved this game, but so much of it was spent backtracking, and trying to just keep my mountains of notes organized. I love drawing diagrams and taking notes and games that make you do that, but not when it becomes tedious, and in this game it becomes tedious. My first run was purely voided, I in fact did jump into the first pit in that first room, and that meant I discovered a lot in my first run, basically everything directly mentioned in this video (except the crystals, I did a dedicated run for that). So runs 2-5 weren't eventful for me, just tediously needing to do the things that I already figured out how to do in previous runs. And that tedium made me quit, and I suspect that tedium is the only thing stopping this game from getting bigger. I want to like this game but it is just too hostile to the player experience. It is so clearly my type of game, but it also doesn't respect my time and I don't have a lot of that free these days.
Sorry, I don't want to sound like "that guy", but a thing that stood out to me in the beginning was saying that (verbatim) spoilers can't ruin the game. It's not really true; you can enjoy the media but that spoiler _does_ actually lower the overall enjoyment. It's that extra juicy part that can take something from a 9 to a perfect 10. I understand wanting to convince others that something is great, but if you have to take some of the fun and mystery out of it, then you're doing something wrong.
I love how at some point you're about to talk about intertextuality but decide to "cut the explanation from the video" since it's kinda nerdy stuff and might be a little boring for some people, yet the whole video is done with this undertone of actual intertextuality in it (that very moment being one prime example of it) in a kind of cheeky "if you know, you know" exposure. Very well played, that's masterful writing right there.
I gave the game a try and it went like this: fell on the very first floor, ate the fruit, and then played 50 levels of sokoban with empty chests and locusts that did nothing. After reaching the second tree and the game closing, I didn't bother to come back. Came here to find out what I had missed
This is the first of your videos I have watched. I really liked it, might pick up Void Stranger now, but not sure how I feel about the Eyepatch wolf style imitation, especially when you already brought attention to Eyepatch wolf.
That's so great, thank you for the recommendation! I'll save it and play it the next time I'll get a vacation) Because I know I'm very slow and a terrible overthinker, thus, the game would probably occupy my mind for a few weeks or even a month. Another point to note is that games like this are the only environment where this approach works. Any other form of media cannot convey a secret hidden in plain sight or the feeling of hopelessness and unfairness because of your lack of agency, and control over what's happening. It makes all the revelations more satisfying, Telling you as a Dark Souls fan)
You made such a compelling argument in the first 2 mins, I didn't bother to finish. I'll go "fuck around and find out" in Void Stranger and then return here when I'm done, to finish the video.
Your point about story spoilers is kinda crazy considering you don’t dismiss the impact of gameplay spoilers. What you said about gameplay spoilers fundamentally impacted your experience of a game and being something you can only experience once is just as valid for stories where the twist makes you see the story in a completely novel angle. The same way you could say that you shouldn’t worry about spoiling Usual Suspects because the story should stand tall even when the surprise is gone, I could say the same about spoiling Witness. You lose an valuable part of the experience when that happens. In both case, it doesn’t make those pieces of media per se but they rob you of something.
I remember finishing Void Stranger, rushing to La-Mulana discord to tell lads there's a game they would probably enjoy only to find out they been playing it already. It's a game for that kind of person, and that kind of person will usually find out. I mean i did. Kind of puzzle game that even when frustrates you - you can't help yourself being obsessed over until you finish-finish it. I don't think it will ever be Fear & Hunger popular, but it does deserve more. Also generally 1-3 Finnish indie teams makes strongest deep indie games for some reason. From Hempuli to Hakita, from Lakeview series to Fear & Hunger and Cruelty Squad.
I somewhat disagree with not believing in story spoilers. People absolutely watch things again and enjoy them, hell there was even a study showing spoilers can enhance one’s appreciation of a story. However what it does do is take away the “first experience” that is something you can only do once and people value that deeply (for example take the i wish I could watch it for the first time again). Spoilers essentially do the same thing as watching the move they make the time you watch after the “second experience” and I think loss of one’s “first experience” with something is a bad thing that shouldn’t happen
Thanks for sharing this video. I didn’t watch it so I can enjoy the game without spoilers but I fast-forward your video to the end so you might get some credit.
I’m putting this vid on pause for now but I love what I’m seeing/hearing. Great video! I’m excited to play this game and I’m looking forward to coming back and watching this
I love fuck around and find out games. They are the only games where the player themselves grows, changes or learns. The best ones use this fact to give replays new meanings
i wish i could play this because it looks really interesting, but id get frustrated just failing the same level for a while, much less having to restart the entire game multiple times
I understand and, to be honest, that's partly why I made the video. There's plenty of games I'll never play but greatly enjoyed videos about (Pathologic, Tokemeki Memorial, etc) so I wanted to give that experience to others
update on this: I eventually decided to give it a try, and while it was frustrating, for once it was definitely worth it! I have completed all of the main story and am now working on uncovering deeper secrets, though I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface
I watched about 8 minutes of this video about a month ago and became super interested in this game. Bought it. Beat and saw all of the possible endings, including the "true" ending. This is one of the best games ive ever played... And i dont play puzzle games at all... This game is incredible. Thank you for making this video. I might have never learned about Void Stranger otherwise.
Of all the games I wish I could play again for the first time, it's this one. Just when you think it's ended, it has more secrets to reveal, and more stories to tell. One of the most beautiful, heartrending games I've played
"I often wonder what kind of future awaits us. As our world grows older... Everything feels less and less stable. Despite being more connected than ever before... We can no longer reach each other, even when we desperately wish to be heard, to be understood. I've struggled a lot with this feeling. Feeling like my work is meaningless. Maybe, just maybe... The fact you made it this far means you feel the same longing as I do. Can you hear me now? I can hear you."
Granted. Given the fact that I was even able to see your video. I suppose that's sign enough, that the machine humans have constructed has allowed you to be heard. So. I can hear you. May you reach enlightenment.
The amount of time this weekend that I have dedicated to this game. The amount of people that I have turned on to playing this game by streaming it this weekend. And even watching this video did not spoil it for me because there is literally so much.
So i saw this video a while ago, maybe on the week you released it, no idea when and i had been searching for "knowledge based games" and found this video and thought: "wow this looks horrible, lets play it" like two or three minutes into the video, i didn't immediately play it but i did make sure to NOT watch the rest of the video, two or tree days later after. i finally played it and yeah i was right, it felt horrible to go through hundreds of levels with no real progress and i even ate the fruit on my first run... lets just say i got beyond stuck So i quit playing because i couldn't reset the run and i went "might as well finish the video" just to see that you have items that let you fly and kill monsters in areas that i already went through hours ago, but the thing that got me back was seeing you interact with the hud, it just clicked, i was looking for secrets as if it was a zelda game or something, WRONG, you need to think outside the box so i unistalled the game, deleted the save files and installed again and i went through the game screenshoting everything that looked "important" And over time i started to understand the real game... I will stop here or i will go into spoiler territory, just know that this video has "just enough" spoilers to make the game do its thing and now i have 30 hours of a game that i should hate but now i will remember for my whole life as an incredible experience, not a game, an experience.
I don't know if this is going to blow up, but it ended up in my recommendations, so it must be getting picked up by the algorithm. I hope I see this past 100k when I come back after finishing Void Stranger. Until then, godspeed.
I remember a friend of mine told me he didn't believe in story spoilers once. Then I told him the ending of 1989, which he was reading at the time. It crushed him, and he never let me spoil another story for him again.
see the vid in my recommended and give it a whirl, get the "hey you should play this before you watch" think yeah why not you still got a day to kill one handed and this seams feasable. its only 13 bucks so why not" and then its 11 hours of playtime later, almost 2 am on the 2nd "Hard Mode" playthrough tearing up 10/10 good stuff my brain hurts and the VOIDed ending song was abolutely great
Thanks for the great video - Void Stranger is crazy and it's one of my absolute favorites of 2023. It absolutely deserves TONS more recognition! As an aside, your channel deserves more as well and I'm glad I discovered it through Dominic Tarason's tweet about the video :)
Crazy that your video about a game nobody has played, has become your most popular. Also how dare you inject this game into my life. I can't stop playing.
So I got the game after watching the begining of your video. So, I heard this game was full of meta secrets and an endless rabbithole of stuff to discover. Sounds like my kind of game. So I bought it and started playing. I'm not a fan of Sokoban type stuff, but i pushed through hoping I would get that meta stuff. I am now 7-8 hours in, painstakingly solved all the floors, got what looked like an ending, then the game stopped and I restarted it. I got a special brand, started playing again, and it seems... The same. I figured out a few things, such as brand and locusts related stuff (trying not to spoil), as well as bottom menu related stuff (those who played will know what I'm talking about). My problem is that : From watching a video about the game, I've been spoiled a discovery that is supposed to happen after around 2-3 hours of gameplay supposedly (regarding boulders, those who know know). The guy who made the video said it wasn't that big of a spoiler cause it was pretty early, and that there would be many more such surprises and mind bending discoveries. Well, I'm 7.5 hours in, I've solved over 200 puzzles and I feel like the game has given me basically nothing of importance. I didn't find how to do the boulder thing, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, and I don't feel one step closer than before even lauching the game to uncovering anything. All I saw was a pretty regular boulder pushing puzzle game, without anything relevant or any hint as to where to start looking. I heard that the game expects me to finish all the floors without doing the thing they tell you to do when you fall (wink wink) which honestly seems like way too much to ask of me and not worth my time. Honestly at this point, I feel like the game isn't doing anything to keep me interested, and I just don't feel like pushing through. But I feel like I'm missing something amazing because I just... Don't get it. I turn to you people as a last resort, because I just feel sad about that. Has anybody felt the same ? Without spoiling too much, could you help me somehow ? Maybe there's a specific mindset to be in ? Or maybe one clue that I missed ? Please give me just something, anything, so that I don't give up on this game right now. Thank you for reading :)
This here is the reason why this game didn't reach general public. Either way, here's your reminder to try this game again if you have stopped playing it 5 months ago. My advise would be, whenever you stop having fun solving sokoban puzzles, using your current knowledge try to find light spoiler or two, this will relieve some of frustration and give you the ability to explore something new and interesting, maybe give you some ideas as to what other secrets there might be in the game. When you discover enough secrets you will be able to easily traverse the game levels and hunting for secrets will be easy.
I played the hell out of this last year, Second Wind's team shared it and this video highlights so much that I missed never finishing this game. It's so in depth in its puzzles its incredible
I dig the video and the commentary, but I left it unfinished in order to go experience the game blind. Thanks for shining some light on it! (I'll be back, beloved.)
Looks like a great, surreal game absolutely not made for me. The difficulty would piss me off tremendously, but I'm glad it exists and someone is talking about it! I hope more people will play it, love it and spread the word that video games are still art!
I’ve been following System Erasure ever since I played Zero Ranger, and I knew immediately that they were cooking with this game. Great video! I’m glad Void Stranger is slowly but surely getting the attention it deserves.
"I mean, you can only experience a story for the first time only once, so why spoil it for yourself?" is my logic No disrespect if you don't mind such things tho
When someone described this game to me as "sokoban, but also La-Mulana", I knew I had to check it out. And that feeling of messing around with some unassuming element in the game and then falling into a massive rabbit hole that makes La-Mulana so special is definitely here. A very special game and I also hope it gains more popularity, it really deserves it.
@@thegammelier La Mulana 2 is also very good! Has a bit of a gentler difficulty curve (still very challenging, but doesn't go for your throat right from the start) and better controls than 1, and although IMO it doesn't reach the highest highs of 1, it's very worth playing! Also thanks for the video, very well done!
It's made by the devs of ZeroRanger, another criminally underrated game. I still await the day that blows up too, System Erasure is just an awesome developer
RUclips randomly recommended a song from the OST of Void Stranger to me when the game released. I figured it sounded nice, saw it's super cheap and figured a good OST while teasing my brain with a retro style sokoban game is worth a couple of bucks. Had a lazy weekend ahead of me, so it'd be great to just kill some time during that. Boy howdy, was I wrong. In the best way I have and will ever be wrong. The game sucked me into a rabbit hole that never seemed to end. A mixture of curiousity to find out more, frustration from beating my head against a wall when I was stumped with a puzzle only to take a break and be drawn back to the game because I just HAD to keep going and find out more, the eventual joy upon finding the solution. It was such a wild ride and I enjoyed it thoroughly. So I agree with you saying this game deserves to stand amongst the great indie hits like Tunic, Undertale, Inscryption or Outer Wilds. It genuinely is amazing, though I do concede it is less approachable than the aforementioned games. The inital "hook" to draw players in isn't as strong and it's a slow buildup until you realise this goes deeper than one initially thought. So thank you for making this vidoe and signal boosting the game. I've tried recommending the game to others as well and it's really hard to try and make a convincing argument on why someone should play this game or why it's great when you have to be super careful toa void spoilers. I feel like you navigated that pretty well in this video.
"Best Game You've Never Heard Of". Okay, disclaimer, I'm not watching this video because I don't know if there's any spoilers, but I DEFINITELY have heard of this game and have been soooo excited for it since I saw it come out. I played System Erasure's previous game, Zero Ranger a couple years ago on Stream and it was literally probably my favorite game I had ever played that year. The moment I heard they released another game, it immediately went onto my steam wishlist and I fully intend to pick this up soon to play on stream as well!
There has been some research that suggest spoilers can make enjoyment better. Because you know something really cool is going to happen, you are constantly anticipating it and it puts you on the edge of your seat. You are not taken by surprise but will enjoy it all the same.
"Fuck around and Find out" is the genre of games I'm starving for like an addict ever since I got Outer Wilds. Now I got new titles to try out, thanks!
Exactly, for a good story/movie i often wats 2-3 explanation videos before i watch the actually movie, and it makes it even better if its actually any good :]
I don’t mind when a story is spoiled, for myself.
*Personally*
Is that better, people? JFC
I remember when barely anyone knew what Fear and Hunger was and now everyone knows it what it is so yeah this definitely feels like another one of those games
It will be, only a matter of time
Funny - I also covered Fear & Hunger way before it was cool. Back in 2019 for RPS, I believe, and some people acted like I'd lost my mind. @@thegammelier
And it was the worst thing to happen to it
Same probably happened to Quinns when he did the three parter on Pathologic for RPS years back@@DomTarason
@@AnprimGang who is to say something becoming more popular makes it worse?
the best defense i can give for the validity of story spoilers is that in many stories especially in video games, having very little knowledge for the possible paths a story could take is a very enchanting experience, am not just talking abt spoiling a smart plot twist or whatever, i mean spoilers that give away the directions the story is going, having ur expectations continously shift throughout a well written original story is an experience that is both fun as hell and impossible to get if you've already been spoiled on major story elements
yeaa, agreed, the point he brings up in the first two minutes of the video can be said about any media and he kinda just disregards it in anything except videogames
Indeed. Like Shin Megami Tensei for example. You should play your first SMT game barely knowing much about the alignments.
Some people apparently cant feel that joy of continuously shifting expectations, but they too often just start "what is this spoilers that all worried about? As for me its pretty okay" instead of realising that its different for other people, lol. And yes twist itself dont make bad story good, but if good story benefited from twist and become worse without it this is not make this story less good than other, that is dont contain twists or not actually relies on them.
Best stories i ever read/played in my life are contained very important twists... aaand i also attracted to almost all of them only after i gor spoilered small part of their awesomeness, so its really a balance, small amount of spoilers can instill additional curiosity but the more of them the less overall enjoyment
@@slyfox3853 LOL right? Mystery games are my favorite genre, and if there's no mystery, there's no game? It's the same with mystery books, and they don't usually have much replay value once you've finished them. It's a very bad argument.
Exactly. Not knowing where the story is going is part of the enjoyment itself. The feeling of that moment of learning what's going on is something you can't get back a second time, and it's often vital to the presentation of the story. An example for me is the original Nier (Gestalt specifically.) I was going along, doing my thing, and then I get to the end and suddenly realize what's *actually* happening. If that had been spoiled for me...
Some people might not understand spoilers and think they're not a big deal, but spoiling things for others takes away from the intended impact and emotions that the creators were trying to convey with the story.
Having something spoiled doesn't make the media worse, but it makes the first experience worse.
It feels incredible to know ‘the next big thing’ before it reaches that point. I can’t wait to eventually see my favourite content creators play this. In the meantime, I’m glad it introduced me to a potentially new favourite content creator. Thanks so much for covering such a hidden gem!
Thanks for watching! I'm sure this'll get pretty big on Twitch someday soon. I'd do it myself if my webcam wasn't utter trash
@@thegammelier do it with the trashy one and laugh at it. Don't let money limit you anymore.
I agree I’m glad I got to play this game as one of the first people when it came out :)
I still remember playing minecraft before it got big. Sometimes gems get the recognition it deserves sometimes it doesn't.
ye same, man im not that big of a fan of puzzles but I might need to try this game@@robincray116
A spoiler without context usually won't make or break a story, but being totally spoiler free is still the best way to experience something. Even when I rewatch or replay something I love, I lament not being able to experience it for the first time again without knowing what happens.
It's not just about it being better,. it's about experiencing the story as it was meant to be.
There are some stories that are simply better when experienced blind. The twists and turns some authors can pull off are incredible, and saying "spoilers don't ruin them" is borderline disrespectful to the author.
There is no way you read something like Dune and aren't affected by knowing its later plot.
Or to be a weeb, in the realm of Visual Novels, the entirity of Umineko.
Umineko is something I would have actually got angry over if people spoiled It for me on purpose. It's such an incredible story that goes to so many places at once it's incredible it doesn't fail.
For reference, Umineko is made up of 8 episodes. All episodes build up a single story, but also are a retelling of the same events: "During 2 days, in an isolated private island, the members of a rich family meet up and discuss inheritance issues. After the first night, murders happen, and of the 18 people on the Island between relatived and servants, only 5 are alive by the end, which doesn't actually tell you how things end for these 5 and who the murderer is.
But with each episode, more things are added to this puzzle.
In episode 2, the story is followed by a sort of metanarrative plane from the protagonist and the self-declared Witch that is making these stories as a game to challenge the protagonist, with them fighting over the existence of magic and witches: these two watch the events of the second story, and debate and discuss it.
By episode 4, there is an entire cast of this metaplane actively having their own plot while the murders happen.
And each story also expands new characters, revealing more and more secrets of the setup of the story.
One can say that this is because it's a Visual Novel, thus a reading experience and not a game, but that's besides the point. There are books and stories that work the same way even if you know some spoilers.
Learning about Frodo's failure to destroy the Ring and the role of Smeagol in it doesn't ruin LOTR
Spoilers of Umineko simply kill the experience.
im legit kinda sad I watched this, but I know I would NEVER play this game if I did not watch this, heck I still prob wont, but its insanely interestin
Nah I play Mystery games and if there's no mystery as to who the culprit is, that kills a lot of it. The genre generally lacks replay value too. Even some of my favorite Light Novels like The Empty Box and the first volume having the protag and a girl who's accused them as the culprit, repeat the same day 10k+ time, and twists from buildup immersion reward you, from even the smallest things.
Like as a toy example, if even just a pen on the protag's desk is gone and never returns, that implies someone is taking it everyday but is pretending they cannot remember like other classmates. This would be a breakthrough for the reader because what made them act up later? If I know the culprit in this case there is no shock LOL, I'm just waiting for the characters to catch up, who don't even exist. It's suppose to be for me.
Or remembering day 1200, and the book finally shows you day 1199 (another fake example but is a trick with the author's writing in his works), which completely flips 1200 on its head. If I were to know I'd Day 1199 first, 1200 becomes pointless.
Knowledge based titles aren't just gameplay lol
@@lorenzomeulli750 yeah dudes out here are capping I completely agree. Lol what the youtuber described as "knowledge based" is the core of the Mystery genre itself, and without mystery.. there is no Mystery? Sure if someone cares more about the combat in Devil May Cry, go for it, but in games like AA, or more obscure ones it matters.
@@Gloomistic Kinda, but with AA it's less about the mistery and more about the Logic as far as I am concerned. I don't mind checking a walkthrough, but I don't want to know a step of the logic of the case before reaching it.
For example, in the first game it's not really hard to understand what the fuck is going on in the last case.
The problem is the Logic that you need to reach that relatively easy to guess solution
Dominic Tarason here from that PC Gamer piece. You got my name right first time! It's so good to see people actually read my stuff!
Yeah, Void Stranger is real special. Probably my game of the year, and 2023 was ABSOLUTELY BANANAS GOOD for videogames. Not so much the industry. But the games were fun.
The article's long title was the editor's pick - it seems to be a PC Gamer style thing these days! The hype was real though. Game took me 50 hours to see fully through. I don't normally do puzzle games, so I know it can be done a lot quicker if you're not sludge-brained like me, but goddamn, it was worth the MONTH OF OBSESSION.
Haha, I'm glad I got your name right (and the title line was just an easy joke, it clearly worked because I clicked on it)!
Thank you so much for watching and for writing the article in the first place. I don't know if I'd have ever given it a shot without it, since it's still so far under the radar (only on a couple GOTY lists that I've seen)
I see you, fellow Pendulum fan!
Oh my god, I also found the game through your article, thank you so much!
I was already sold on Void Stranger, but this video definitely sold me on your channel.
I've watched the whole game being played by a streamer and every time we thought the game was over we jokingly said "But wait! There's more!"
Just play the game, whenever you think this is all it has to offer there will be always more.
Agreed, it just keeps going, that’s why I felt okay talking about as much as I did
how deep are you hour wise?@@thegammelier
What if I hate the puzzles though. I keep hearing people say oh it gets good. But I'm at like B130 and its just been such a boringggg slog
@@d4s0n282 Sorry just saw this. I shamefully am only about 20 hours in, around where I stopped to make the video. I haven't been able to go back and see the rest yet but I will one day
@@josephchambers4509 You can always watch other people play it or look up the answers if you care about the story but hate the puzzles, thus skipping the boring parts.
If you want to experience the game by yourself there is not much else to do other than to be resilient and keep trying, there is people who genuinely love the struggle but it's ok if you don't.
Gotta love it when the algorithm works and you stumble upon an up-and-coming content creator of such high quality. Great video, looking forward to exploring the rest of your channel.
I’ve played this game for 3 months on and off and I agree this game couldn’t have been made without love and organization this game was beyond what I expected and I’ve played games most people don’t even know about and it’s very clever.
Alright my man, I like to go in as blind as possible, so I'll come back to watch this one later. But you already sold me on the game in the first 2 minutes lol. I trust your judgement and will dive in when I get some more free time. But congratulations on the success of this video and for passing 1k subs! Heck, passing 1.5k! It's not all about the numbers of course, but it's still a huge milestone to achieve!! I'm super happy to see your progress as a creator, your videos are so insightful and always filled with so much passion for your craft. Here's to the next thousand! 🥳
Thanks, TJ, that means a lot coming from a creator as talented as you. Your channel should be much MUCH bigger, but I'm confident we'll get there in the end
You 100percent successfully baited me into buying this game.
Moreover, you reminded me, or to put it better, made me realize that the question 'Why do I love to play games?' is such an important question that could change a big part of me forever.
Thanks mate keep up the good work.
heard about this from the year's best list of a streamer. this game really deserves to blow up into cult status. thank you for amplifying the signal
It deserves it. Probably my GOTY if not for TotK
You know you have good taste if you consistently predict the "next hot thing" in any community, it happens to me from time to time.
Electric underground?
This is the first time I really regretted not taking the "do not watch before playing" warning seriously, stopped the video before the end and I'm going to play it asap :)
I warned ya, have fun!
Am I witnessing another brilliant gaming video essayist emerging from the horizon? I'm grateful.
This video was perfect, you absolutely nailed the style
One of the best things is spreading the game like wildfire through a friend group and watching as the chat around it the next few days starts looking like a declassified CIA document with all the spoiler text and images with people sharing notes, ideas, and puzzles they're stuck on/solved. Probably my GotY 2023, and ended up that for at least 2 others I've introduced it to!
I'm super impressed by the development too, after listening to some interviews. System Erasure's just 2 people, and their only other game was ZeroRanger, a shmup. So a big genre shift, but not only that, they swapped who was programmer and who was game designer between them for Void Stranger too! The fact they did so well on so many different areas of "first time trying this" is crazy.
I somehow found this whilst browsing on RUclips and I'm surprised by how well this video was made. Never heard of the game neither but I'm thinking about giving it a try.
Thanks for taking a chance and clicking on my video, appreciate it
I knew how Edgerunners ends before I even started watching it and it didn't take anything from the experience. And while sometimes spoilers genuinely do suck, the whole spoiler fright seems to be a social construct and nothing else.
Church
I'm here thanks to the youtube algorithm and I am not disappointed, it's a good sign you're well on your way to shine a light on this game I now can't wait to play, and relieve some of your existential dread as a youtuber. Well done.
Something really funny happened on my first playthrough. In the room where you get the scepter, I used it and immediatelly fell into the holw I just created. I ate the fruit the demon gave me because I juts assumed "Ah, this is how we're contextualising death. Cool." For my entire first playthrough, I had no idea that memory tiles existed or that locusts acted as your lives XD. Safe to say when I went for my second run and saw a locust consumed when I died, it clicked for me what I hda to do.
You’re not the first to say that happened to you, so you’re in good company
same. I honestly think that's the best way to go through the first playthrough. Unafraid to experiment, just focused on the puzzles. Then when you start again you've got enough ground work that you can A) start tackling the extra puzzles of getting the memory crystals and B) probably make it to the bottom without having to restart again (though in my case it got pretty close)
Glad to have discovered this game when its reviews were in the 10's. I hope it gets to become the thousands it deserves. Nothing can really describe that feeling that the song provokes when you hit the bottom for the first time. But you start, again, and you do it, again. And it rewards you, tenfold
My friend has been trying to talk me into playing Void Stranger for ages, and this video finally convinced me to pick it up for real! Great overview of the game and what makes it special, with just enough left out to leave me wanting more. Good job my man.
I laughed out loud when you asked "what do I have to lose?" and answered the question with my own thoughts. It really does consume your soul.
Subbed. My favorite part of the game is the one that happens when the bgm Void the Sky calls back to the Voided Song. Here's to hoping your background switches from Voided Song to Void the Sky soon!
In theory, Void Stranger should have been right up my alley. Secrets, sokobans, hardcore puzzles, interesting narrative, all things I love. But I found myself very frustrated and I just couldn't complete it. My biggest frustration was the rogue-like nature of it. If you just got to level 101 and there was a secret on 99 and you just realize how to complete it, then you have to go back to the beginning and do everything back up to then. I understand why this was done, the point was so that after you get power-ups, you suddenly feel a lot more powerful. But it doesn't didn't work for me. Having to redo the same puzzles with very precise solutions before you get to that point was extremely unfun and it killed my desire to play on.
If the game wants you to succeed it shouldn't let you plunge in one of those holes that oneshot you without explicit confirmation, simple as.
Hoping we get a 3hr long retrospective/story summary for this someday
I've only watched the intro and I've never seen a video from this channel before, but this is really well made!! :D
this showed on my reccomended, let's hope it does for others as well with a game like this
also good editing work! 👍
I agree heavily with the opening of this about spoilers. Some media I have only gone into knowing how it ended yet was still surprised or blown away at the ending. Some ending I can watch over and over and they fill like it's the first time with all the heavy emotion. Spoilers can't ruin something that's already really good.
However, we do have to acknowledge that not everything is "really good". Some things rely on a lack of information and while it's no exactly going to draw someone like me in as much, I can understand how lots of less media literate people might want to enjoy their media and be happy shocked by what is presented to them.
So many of us guess the endings of things due to "media literacy" and that has it's own downsides such is mysteries being a hard genre to really enjoy due to how obvious they have to be to keep the audience understanding the case.
I can agree with this. I think a lot of people aren't looking for something necessarily "good" but "surprising" or "novel." So, for them, that first experience may be the only experience they want to have and can feel it's spoiled it they know how it ends.
I'm always hungry for "good," though. If it's good, I find I enjoy it, knowing the ending or not.
I want to be clear, though, that I don't think people are *wrong* for wanting a spoiler free novel experience. Different folks, different strokes.
Wow. This was one of those very rare, well written, and really compelling videos that I'll definitely be thinking about later. The commentary and progressive reveal of what looks like a game with a lot of depth and interesting story itself, was really well done. Keep in mind, the numbers don't always tell the full story. Regardless how you might feel about algorithm strats and engagement metrics, this was a really well told story which is what really matters to me. Thank you!
Another example is Noita. While it isn't puzzle game (although it has some puzzles in it), it's definitely a knowledge based game. Without any knowledge you will die in 5 minutes. But With knowledge you can go far beyond just completing the game.
Leaving a message just for helping out with the youtube machine. This game and youtuber need more exposure for sure.
Thanks for the support, I appreciate it
Gaming channels that dig into gems like this game DESERVE THE BEST! I'm gonna try this game out just because of this video. Excellent work Gammelier!
‘Preciate cha!
I think it's wild that your experience on the first run with the lives system/being voided was so different than my own. like, I died almost immediately, met the little guy, said "no" to the fruit, got booted out of the game, and said "oh so I guess I have to take it." I started it up again, died on purpose, and took the fruit. I never even knew that the locusts functioned as extra lives until I had gotten to the end of gray's playthrough.
I think it’s great that the game allows for so many different types of experiences, leading to the same revelations but in very personalized ways
Aye bro, this video is really really good. I immediately bought the game and played it for 7 hrs. Then played the rest of the vid. The delivery, editing, description and jokes. Needless to say I liked and subscribed. Great vid my man. Cheers
Thanks for coming back after playing, I appreciate it
> I don't believe in story spoilers.
> I do believe in gameplay spoilers.
> Proceeds to explain how experiencing a games hidden mechanics for the first time is important to the experience.
> Doesn't see that, that is also a component of experiencing a story and what emotions and thoughts it can provoke in you, without having the experience diluted by having something forewarned.
I'm not gonna name call, but I certainly made a mental list.
Great video! I hope the game and this video blows up. Void Stranger certainly isn’t for everyone but I don’t regret my unhealthy obsession I had with it
I had to cut myself off from it to finish the video. Reset my hard mode progress to get more footage too...
Your intro convinced me to go play the game for myself. 3 months and 80 gameplay hours later, and now I have another game I'll never be able to convince my friends to play
I know your pain. Can’t get my friends to play Outer Wilds if I paid them
Aside for the fantastic game you talk about, i really want to say how well the video is presented and scripted. You clearly have a voice. It show that you draw inspiration from other youtubers, in the way sections are structured and expressed, but you impressed me. You got yourself a subscriber!
Thank you, I strive to improve with every video
Welp, I saw this game, bought it, and 60 hours later I have officially completed the entire game. I'm sure we can all relate to staring up into the sky, trying to find our mother's star. What an amazing experience.
Thank you for the recommendation.
Glad you liked it, thanks for sharing!
Honestly, for the longest time it felt like I and perhaps some other people were the only ones who knew of this game thanks to being familiar and old fans of the creator (the same ones behind ZeroRanger as well as a prominent creator within the Fraxy scene) so it is nice to see that it has gained more attention as time goes on.
Man watching other people's journey in this game is fucking wild to me. I already had the sword & wing thing spoiled to me, but despite doing a full voided run, I still have only the barest hint of where to even start looking for them, but I discovered the ability to walk over the bottom UI & enter the darkness super early on.
Thanks for letting me discover this game. I was obsessed by it for a good month, and for me is a record.
You're welcome! I hope to find more for you to try
@@thegammelier I'm looking forward for more content made by you, you are really amazing.
@@maraichux well you’re in luck, new video should drop tomorrow!
So I watched your video and immediately went and bought the game, so kudos on that. I finished a playthrough and have some thoughts.
To say this game is hard is misleading. Like you alluded to, the difficulty is really about the player being willing to press on after realizing how many times they'll need to "beat" the game in order to actually complete it. In the middle of my second run, I realized that I didn't want to play the game enough to see the rest of the story unfold. Definitely the kind of game most people would just want to see a summary video on.
Fear & Hunger is also that kind of game. I saw Zuldim's video, bought the game, realized I'd need to seriously dedicate a lot of time to see most of everything, and started looking for another RUclipsr who did the legwork.
Worm Girl has this great series called "What really happened in..." and she summarizes the story amazingly well.
So that's where I'm at. I've just seen Zuldim's vid on Void Stranger and I'm waiting for another Worm Girl to pop up. lorgon111 has a great recap video for anyone else in my boat.
Anyway, great video. Definitely gonna check out more of your stuff
I've yet to get back to the game since finishing the video, to be honest, so I've got a ton more to see myself.
I think I'm going to stream it, so people who don't want to push through the pain can follow along!
Woah. This looks incredibly deep. Gonna give this a shot
Oooooh you're in for a treat
4:38 sold. Very deep game game, must investigate further
I played 20 hours of this game (and more on paper when the game was closed) and it feels like i need to play 3 times that to see some satisfying conclusion, not to mention the hard puzzles are hard, redoing them is annoying and skipping them with wings feels cheap. If that was time spent actually doing new stuff, interesting stuff, then I would have loved this game, but so much of it was spent backtracking, and trying to just keep my mountains of notes organized. I love drawing diagrams and taking notes and games that make you do that, but not when it becomes tedious, and in this game it becomes tedious.
My first run was purely voided, I in fact did jump into the first pit in that first room, and that meant I discovered a lot in my first run, basically everything directly mentioned in this video (except the crystals, I did a dedicated run for that). So runs 2-5 weren't eventful for me, just tediously needing to do the things that I already figured out how to do in previous runs. And that tedium made me quit, and I suspect that tedium is the only thing stopping this game from getting bigger.
I want to like this game but it is just too hostile to the player experience. It is so clearly my type of game, but it also doesn't respect my time and I don't have a lot of that free these days.
Sorry, I don't want to sound like "that guy", but a thing that stood out to me in the beginning was saying that (verbatim) spoilers can't ruin the game. It's not really true; you can enjoy the media but that spoiler _does_ actually lower the overall enjoyment. It's that extra juicy part that can take something from a 9 to a perfect 10.
I understand wanting to convince others that something is great, but if you have to take some of the fun and mystery out of it, then you're doing something wrong.
Whenever I see someone trying to talk about void stranger and divulge it's greatness, it makes me happy. Thanks!
I love how at some point you're about to talk about intertextuality but decide to "cut the explanation from the video" since it's kinda nerdy stuff and might be a little boring for some people, yet the whole video is done with this undertone of actual intertextuality in it (that very moment being one prime example of it) in a kind of cheeky "if you know, you know" exposure. Very well played, that's masterful writing right there.
I originally had everything written out then realized it'd be much better if I got real weird with it
I gave the game a try and it went like this: fell on the very first floor, ate the fruit, and then played 50 levels of sokoban with empty chests and locusts that did nothing. After reaching the second tree and the game closing, I didn't bother to come back. Came here to find out what I had missed
This is the first of your videos I have watched. I really liked it, might pick up Void Stranger now, but not sure how I feel about the Eyepatch wolf style imitation, especially when you already brought attention to Eyepatch wolf.
That's so great, thank you for the recommendation! I'll save it and play it the next time I'll get a vacation) Because I know I'm very slow and a terrible overthinker, thus, the game would probably occupy my mind for a few weeks or even a month.
Another point to note is that games like this are the only environment where this approach works. Any other form of media cannot convey a secret hidden in plain sight or the feeling of hopelessness and unfairness because of your lack of agency, and control over what's happening. It makes all the revelations more satisfying, Telling you as a Dark Souls fan)
You made such a compelling argument in the first 2 mins, I didn't bother to finish. I'll go "fuck around and find out" in Void Stranger and then return here when I'm done, to finish the video.
It's the only real way to do it, have fun!
Your point about story spoilers is kinda crazy considering you don’t dismiss the impact of gameplay spoilers. What you said about gameplay spoilers fundamentally impacted your experience of a game and being something you can only experience once is just as valid for stories where the twist makes you see the story in a completely novel angle.
The same way you could say that you shouldn’t worry about spoiling Usual Suspects because the story should stand tall even when the surprise is gone, I could say the same about spoiling Witness. You lose an valuable part of the experience when that happens. In both case, it doesn’t make those pieces of media per se but they rob you of something.
I remember finishing Void Stranger, rushing to La-Mulana discord to tell lads there's a game they would probably enjoy only to find out they been playing it already. It's a game for that kind of person, and that kind of person will usually find out. I mean i did. Kind of puzzle game that even when frustrates you - you can't help yourself being obsessed over until you finish-finish it. I don't think it will ever be Fear & Hunger popular, but it does deserve more.
Also generally 1-3 Finnish indie teams makes strongest deep indie games for some reason. From Hempuli to Hakita, from Lakeview series to Fear & Hunger and Cruelty Squad.
This game is 1000% food for La-Mulana fans lol
I somewhat disagree with not believing in story spoilers. People absolutely watch things again and enjoy them, hell there was even a study showing spoilers can enhance one’s appreciation of a story. However what it does do is take away the “first experience” that is something you can only do once and people value that deeply (for example take the i wish I could watch it for the first time again). Spoilers essentially do the same thing as watching the move they make the time you watch after the “second experience” and I think loss of one’s “first experience” with something is a bad thing that shouldn’t happen
Think I have a pinned comment that addresses this. I should have said ‘I don’t mind when a story is spoiled for me.’ I don’t wish to spoil for others
Thanks for sharing this video.
I didn’t watch it so I can enjoy the game without spoilers
but I fast-forward your video to the end so you might get some credit.
Found this on my recommended. Really good explanation on a deep game like this!!
It's a game I'm going to think about for years down the line
I’m putting this vid on pause for now but I love what I’m seeing/hearing. Great video! I’m excited to play this game and I’m looking forward to coming back and watching this
I love fuck around and find out games. They are the only games where the player themselves grows, changes or learns. The best ones use this fact to give replays new meanings
They've been my favorite, lately. Outer Wilds, Obra Dinn and now Void Stranger live in my brain, rent free
i wish i could play this because it looks really interesting, but id get frustrated just failing the same level for a while, much less having to restart the entire game multiple times
I understand and, to be honest, that's partly why I made the video. There's plenty of games I'll never play but greatly enjoyed videos about (Pathologic, Tokemeki Memorial, etc) so I wanted to give that experience to others
update on this: I eventually decided to give it a try, and while it was frustrating, for once it was definitely worth it! I have completed all of the main story and am now working on uncovering deeper secrets, though I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface
I watched about 8 minutes of this video about a month ago and became super interested in this game. Bought it. Beat and saw all of the possible endings, including the "true" ending.
This is one of the best games ive ever played... And i dont play puzzle games at all... This game is incredible.
Thank you for making this video. I might have never learned about Void Stranger otherwise.
You're welcome! I hope to bring more gems to people's attention (whenever I have the time to make a video again...)
Of all the games I wish I could play again for the first time, it's this one. Just when you think it's ended, it has more secrets to reveal, and more stories to tell. One of the most beautiful, heartrending games I've played
If your other videos are only 20 percent of the quality of this one you are possibly the most under-rated and under-subscribed channel on RUclips.
Find out for yourself! I'm pretty partial to the Tetris video
spoilers do exist since some story plots are driven by mystery which doesn't make them any less well written I enjoy such stories a lot
And that’s cool! It’s more a personal thing for me, I’m not bothered by them but I totally get that others are
"I often wonder what kind of future awaits us. As our world grows older... Everything feels less and less stable. Despite being more connected than ever before... We can no longer reach each other, even when we desperately wish to be heard, to be understood. I've struggled a lot with this feeling. Feeling like my work is meaningless. Maybe, just maybe... The fact you made it this far means you feel the same longing as I do. Can you hear me now? I can hear you."
Granted. Given the fact that I was even able to see your video. I suppose that's sign enough, that the machine humans have constructed has allowed you to be heard. So. I can hear you.
May you reach enlightenment.
You have actually convinved me at 03:05 to buy this game, I've since bought it, will play it and come back here once I've finished it
The amount of time this weekend that I have dedicated to this game. The amount of people that I have turned on to playing this game by streaming it this weekend. And even watching this video did not spoil it for me because there is literally so much.
So i saw this video a while ago, maybe on the week you released it, no idea when and i had been searching for "knowledge based games" and found this video and thought: "wow this looks horrible, lets play it" like two or three minutes into the video, i didn't immediately play it but i did make sure to NOT watch the rest of the video, two or tree days later after. i finally played it and yeah i was right, it felt horrible to go through hundreds of levels with no real progress and i even ate the fruit on my first run... lets just say i got beyond stuck
So i quit playing because i couldn't reset the run and i went "might as well finish the video" just to see that you have items that let you fly and kill monsters in areas that i already went through hours ago, but the thing that got me back was seeing you interact with the hud, it just clicked, i was looking for secrets as if it was a zelda game or something, WRONG, you need to think outside the box so i unistalled the game, deleted the save files and installed again and i went through the game screenshoting everything that looked "important"
And over time i started to understand the real game...
I will stop here or i will go into spoiler territory, just know that this video has "just enough" spoilers to make the game do its thing and now i have 30 hours of a game that i should hate but now i will remember for my whole life as an incredible experience, not a game, an experience.
This makes me happy, I’m glad you gave it a second shot!
the algorythm got me here, so you must have done something right to pop up in the recommendations!
Took a few days, but the algorythm showed me this. This is great stuff. Sending it off to me peers, in hopes the good winds pick it up.
Good luck on the path
The game's hardmode ending made me cry.
Same. I was ultra invested into their relationship so the ending montage really hurt 😭
I don't know if this is going to blow up, but it ended up in my recommendations, so it must be getting picked up by the algorithm.
I hope I see this past 100k when I come back after finishing Void Stranger.
Until then, godspeed.
I remember a friend of mine told me he didn't believe in story spoilers once. Then I told him the ending of 1989, which he was reading at the time. It crushed him, and he never let me spoil another story for him again.
‘That was way harsh, Ty’
see the vid in my recommended and give it a whirl, get the "hey you should play this before you watch" think yeah why not you still got a day to kill one handed and this seams feasable. its only 13 bucks so why not" and then its 11 hours of playtime later, almost 2 am on the 2nd "Hard Mode" playthrough tearing up
10/10 good stuff my brain hurts and the VOIDed ending song was abolutely great
Thanks for the great video - Void Stranger is crazy and it's one of my absolute favorites of 2023. It absolutely deserves TONS more recognition!
As an aside, your channel deserves more as well and I'm glad I discovered it through Dominic Tarason's tweet about the video :)
Thanks for watching and the kind words, it means a lot
Crazy that your video about a game nobody has played, has become your most popular. Also how dare you inject this game into my life. I can't stop playing.
You’re welcome!
So I got the game after watching the begining of your video.
So, I heard this game was full of meta secrets and an endless rabbithole of stuff to discover. Sounds like my kind of game. So I bought it and started playing. I'm not a fan of Sokoban type stuff, but i pushed through hoping I would get that meta stuff. I am now 7-8 hours in, painstakingly solved all the floors, got what looked like an ending, then the game stopped and I restarted it. I got a special brand, started playing again, and it seems... The same. I figured out a few things, such as brand and locusts related stuff (trying not to spoil), as well as bottom menu related stuff (those who played will know what I'm talking about).
My problem is that : From watching a video about the game, I've been spoiled a discovery that is supposed to happen after around 2-3 hours of gameplay supposedly (regarding boulders, those who know know). The guy who made the video said it wasn't that big of a spoiler cause it was pretty early, and that there would be many more such surprises and mind bending discoveries.
Well, I'm 7.5 hours in, I've solved over 200 puzzles and I feel like the game has given me basically nothing of importance. I didn't find how to do the boulder thing, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, and I don't feel one step closer than before even lauching the game to uncovering anything. All I saw was a pretty regular boulder pushing puzzle game, without anything relevant or any hint as to where to start looking. I heard that the game expects me to finish all the floors without doing the thing they tell you to do when you fall (wink wink) which honestly seems like way too much to ask of me and not worth my time. Honestly at this point, I feel like the game isn't doing anything to keep me interested, and I just don't feel like pushing through. But I feel like I'm missing something amazing because I just... Don't get it. I turn to you people as a last resort, because I just feel sad about that.
Has anybody felt the same ? Without spoiling too much, could you help me somehow ? Maybe there's a specific mindset to be in ? Or maybe one clue that I missed ? Please give me just something, anything, so that I don't give up on this game right now. Thank you for reading :)
This here is the reason why this game didn't reach general public.
Either way, here's your reminder to try this game again if you have stopped playing it 5 months ago. My advise would be, whenever you stop having fun solving sokoban puzzles, using your current knowledge try to find light spoiler or two, this will relieve some of frustration and give you the ability to explore something new and interesting, maybe give you some ideas as to what other secrets there might be in the game.
When you discover enough secrets you will be able to easily traverse the game levels and hunting for secrets will be easy.
I played the hell out of this last year, Second Wind's team shared it and this video highlights so much that I missed never finishing this game. It's so in depth in its puzzles its incredible
I dig the video and the commentary, but I left it unfinished in order to go experience the game blind.
Thanks for shining some light on it! (I'll be back, beloved.)
Looks like a great, surreal game absolutely not made for me. The difficulty would piss me off tremendously, but I'm glad it exists and someone is talking about it! I hope more people will play it, love it and spread the word that video games are still art!
I’ve been following System Erasure ever since I played Zero Ranger, and I knew immediately that they were cooking with this game. Great video! I’m glad Void Stranger is slowly but surely getting the attention it deserves.
Void Stranger had been on my radar but this video being in my suggested is what finally convinced me to buy it and god damn I'm going insane.
I loved how you drew these deep connections to the rat race, the grind, the labyrinth.
Brilliant video and just purchased the game.
And subscribed ✊
"I mean, you can only experience a story for the first time only once, so why spoil it for yourself?" is my logic
No disrespect if you don't mind such things tho
I don’t mind- just like I don’t mind spoilers ;)
When someone described this game to me as "sokoban, but also La-Mulana", I knew I had to check it out. And that feeling of messing around with some unassuming element in the game and then falling into a massive rabbit hole that makes La-Mulana so special is definitely here. A very special game and I also hope it gains more popularity, it really deserves it.
I absolutely adore La-Mulana, though I've yet to play 2...
Thanks for watching!
@@thegammelier La Mulana 2 is also very good! Has a bit of a gentler difficulty curve (still very challenging, but doesn't go for your throat right from the start) and better controls than 1, and although IMO it doesn't reach the highest highs of 1, it's very worth playing!
Also thanks for the video, very well done!
It's made by the devs of ZeroRanger, another criminally underrated game. I still await the day that blows up too, System Erasure is just an awesome developer
Oh, I'll get to that one soon enough...
Interacting to make sure this stays in the algorithm. I would be interested in seeing someone do this game not really play it myself tho.
I'm thinking about streaming it in the near future
RUclips randomly recommended a song from the OST of Void Stranger to me when the game released. I figured it sounded nice, saw it's super cheap and figured a good OST while teasing my brain with a retro style sokoban game is worth a couple of bucks. Had a lazy weekend ahead of me, so it'd be great to just kill some time during that.
Boy howdy, was I wrong. In the best way I have and will ever be wrong.
The game sucked me into a rabbit hole that never seemed to end. A mixture of curiousity to find out more, frustration from beating my head against a wall when I was stumped with a puzzle only to take a break and be drawn back to the game because I just HAD to keep going and find out more, the eventual joy upon finding the solution. It was such a wild ride and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
So I agree with you saying this game deserves to stand amongst the great indie hits like Tunic, Undertale, Inscryption or Outer Wilds. It genuinely is amazing, though I do concede it is less approachable than the aforementioned games. The inital "hook" to draw players in isn't as strong and it's a slow buildup until you realise this goes deeper than one initially thought.
So thank you for making this vidoe and signal boosting the game. I've tried recommending the game to others as well and it's really hard to try and make a convincing argument on why someone should play this game or why it's great when you have to be super careful toa void spoilers. I feel like you navigated that pretty well in this video.
"Best Game You've Never Heard Of".
Okay, disclaimer, I'm not watching this video because I don't know if there's any spoilers, but I DEFINITELY have heard of this game and have been soooo excited for it since I saw it come out.
I played System Erasure's previous game, Zero Ranger a couple years ago on Stream and it was literally probably my favorite game I had ever played that year.
The moment I heard they released another game, it immediately went onto my steam wishlist and I fully intend to pick this up soon to play on stream as well!
Dear algorithm - please bless this game, this video, and those that prepared them.
There has been some research that suggest spoilers can make enjoyment better. Because you know something really cool is going to happen, you are constantly anticipating it and it puts you on the edge of your seat. You are not taken by surprise but will enjoy it all the same.
2:11
“Quiet, you, the gameplay is talking!!!”
No but seriously I’m stopping here to play the game and come back to this video!!!
You convinced me, I'm going to play this. I love games like this, ty for highlighting it, I don't know how i missed it!
I hope this video blows up and brings more people to this game!
"Fuck around and Find out" is the genre of games I'm starving for like an addict ever since I got Outer Wilds. Now I got new titles to try out, thanks!
Outer Wilds was an instant all time fav
Exactly, for a good story/movie i often wats 2-3 explanation videos before i watch the actually movie, and it makes it even better if its actually any good :]
I got the game after watching this video and I'm back to watch after getting to where it ends. Thanks for the discovery!
Phenomenal video. Can’t wait to see more from you and more people cover this game!