Sword & Sworcery EP Also Coming to PC, Mac

Just as nobody wants games designed with a controller or keyboard/mouse in mind on their cell phone, why would anyone want a game designed for the cell phone on their desktop?

Fingers crossed for a decent surround mix.

Loved this game on iphone, and I don't know how many times I've listened to the soundtrack. I'm also glad it's reaching a greater audience, and I might even re-buy it.

I really didn't like this 'game'/art thingy at all, but yes, it did have good music.

@Tangeu said:

Just as nobody wants games designed with a controller or keyboard/mouse in mind on their cell phone, why would anyone want a game designed for the cell phone on their desktop?

Might not be the optimal way to play, but I can imagine clicking a mouse being fairly equal to tapping on the screen. I don't recall a lot of gestures being key to the experience.

Hmm.. I am getting my iPad 1 back soon so the question is iPad or PC? Which do you think will be better?

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

As someone whose new iPad has yet to come in but worships Steam, I'm torn frankly. I was totally going to get this when I got my iPad but now I don't know. Oh well, it's single-player so it's not like Draw Something where there's a zeitgeist to attach to.

Cool for my fellow PC brothas. I got the game on my iPad 2 and it was absolutely breathtaking.

Totally underwhelmed me on iOS. I can see why Patrick likes it, but it's twee at best and boring at worst.

There are better "art" games on PC already.

Finally, I can see what all of this artsy fartsy fuss is about.

@ChrisTaran said:

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

How do ya figure?

Great! I'm in!

Excellent - I was considering getting this on iOS, but would far rather play it on PC/Mac.

Awesome. The game looks great, but I have no iPad. I've been hoping for a PC release sooner or later.

@BrockNRolla said:

@GrandHarrier said:

So not looking foreword to more of the lame twitter spam. Worst feature in a game ever.

I agree with that. No one should have been using that "feature."

I concur. The Twitter integration was pointless. I also didn't think anything was worth tweeting, because the writing is the weakest part of the game. I just didn't appreciate the tone; it felt like it was trying so incredibly hard to be aloof and clever. Nonetheless, I think the graphics, sound design, and music certainly make up for it.

Hurrah, now I can finally play this much-talked-about game! It'll be interesting to see how the touch-centric controls pan out with a mouse and/or keyboard.

alright, I'll at least look into it and see what's up. I hear there isn't much game to it though, so if that's true - pass.

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@EgoCheck616 said:

@MjHealy said:

To quote Bryan: YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

I got Fez on the 13th and Witcher on the 17th. Slow down, video games!

For the love of god I hope Fez comes to PC.

It won't, because he's afraid someone might dare play his video game with a keyboard.

Fez was just as fun when it was called Crush and nobody gave a shit about it.

It saddens me just how true this is, yet that doesn't make me want to play Fez any less.

I'll wait for Sword & Sworcery LP.

I'm all over it.

@BrockNRolla said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

I'll assume you haven't played it then. It might be unconventional, but between the fantastic story and great art style, I can't imagine how someone can call it "terrible."

Totally did play it, although I admit I didn't finish it. Story and art don't make a great game. Gameplay does. S&S has, in my opinion, terrible gameplay. It is extremely unpleasant to control and has poor pacing. I think the game is boring. I also don't actually like the art. The only thing going for the game is the soundtrack.

If all a game needed was an okay story and great art then Battlefield 3 would have been fantastic. But holy shit, that game's single player was terrible.

I guess I'm interested. I'll probably pick it up anyway since (I assume) it won't be very expensive.

One of my favourite games from last year. I'l definitely pay for it again.

@TheGorilla said:

@BrockNRolla said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

I'll assume you haven't played it then. It might be unconventional, but between the fantastic story and great art style, I can't imagine how someone can call it "terrible."

Totally did play it, although I admit I didn't finish it. Story and art don't make a great game. Gameplay does. S&S has, in my opinion, terrible gameplay. It is extremely unpleasant to control and has poor pacing. I think the game is boring. I also don't actually like the art. The only thing going for the game is the soundtrack.

If all a game needed was an okay story and great art then Battlefield 3 would have been fantastic. But holy shit, that game's single player was terrible.

Well, a lot of people would disagree with you about Battlefield, but I've got no interest at all in modern military shooters, so I won't go there.

But people play games for all kinds of different reasons, not just mechanics. Between the art, music, and story, S&S comes out to be a wonderful experience. People put up with lackluster mechanics all the time to experience great games. ME2 had only passable shooting mechanics, but people sure as hell still thought that was a great game.

@BrockNRolla said:

@PXAbstraction said:

My girlfriend recently bought a used iPad 2 and I've been trying out some of the big "gems" of iOS. I just don't get this. It has incredible music and sound design but there's barely any interaction besides walking and solving some puzzles that just have arbitrary trial-and-error solutions. And yes, the storytelling as I've seen it is pretentious. So was Braid but at least is had solid puzzle gameplay to back it up, this doesn't seem to. I've only done two "sessions" or whatever they're called so far. Can people tell me if things improve or pick up steam over time? I often share opinions of popular titles but I just don't get what the deal is with this.

A person writes a story that is strange and abstract, so instead of attempting to understand why and how it fits with the overall theme and feeling of the game you just write it off as "pretentious?" If you finish it, and don't like it, that's fine, but just because something tries something different doesn't mean it is "pretentious."

As the story progresses, you begin to understand it more and more, and maybe even begin to appreciate the weirdness. By the time you realize what's going on, if you're anything like me anyway, you'll be surprised at the emotional response you end up having. If you're not feeling it, and don't want to play it, that's your prerogative, but the "pretentious" claim is simply a way for people to talk mess about the game without actually engaging with it.

Well, I think "it's not pretentious just because you don't engage with it" is as reductive an argument as any you claim I'm making. Something being abstract and hard to understand doesn't make it artful and meaningful. I've played other products that have abstract narratives like this that I've enjoyed quite a bit. But so far, everything I've been reading in this game basically doesn't make any sense. Every description given is a confusing mix of abstraction mixed with modern language and all it does is confuse. I did another "session" today on the treadmill and I still have no idea what's going on or what emotional investment I'm supposed to have in it. Now that I know how short the game is, I probably will play it through to the end to see what happens and if it can hook me in. But if I have to wait until the end to get hooked in, there's something wrong. Something can be arty and outside the box without having to read like someone ran every third word through Thesaurus.com. This is supposed to be a game but there's barely and "game" to this.

The thing is, I use the term pretentious but I don't even think that's a bad thing in general sense. High-brow, intellectual stories are a great thing and I'm all for strong narrative in games that explore unique and different themes. I think games can and should be emotionally moving (my favourite game ever is The Longest Journey for that very reason and I'm buying Journey tonight) but when a game's story is so confusing as to be barely understandable, that can be pretentious because the designer expects you to "think like them" in order to make sense of it. That's the vibe I get from this game, despite liking games that try to push the narrative envelope. There's lots of games I don't like, particularly from a story point of view but I don't use the term pretentious to describe them all. Like I said, I think Braid was too, it was just a great game on top of that so it didn't matter.

It's a game. If the mechanics are bad they should have made some other form of entertainment instead. It's cool that you liked S&S so much. I wish I could say the same, but I just found it so unpleasant. We'll never agree.

I'd say ME2's unique class mechanics make that game's combat interesting.

I came here simply to say "hell yes."

@evanbower: Sorry, was being sarcastic :p

@PXAbstraction said:

I use the term pretentious but I don't even think that's a bad thing in general sense. High-brow, intellectual stories are a great thing and I'm all for strong narrative in games that explore unique and different themes.

Pretentious does not mean "high-brow, intellectual" at all, and people should not use it to describe those things.

"Pretentious" is used to describe a statement about something which is unfounded, assumes a lot, or contains pretense; pretense is an attempt to make something sound true which is not, or is presumed to be true without a supporting argument. Pretentious is always a "bad thing in general sense," because it usually comes out in the opinion of someone who doesn't understand what they are discussing. Just saying "professional sports sucks" is pretentious because it objectifies someone's opinion by defining an object with a subjective experience; saying that Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the world is pretentious for similar reasons; talking animal movies (or all anthropomorphic stories) are, by definition, pretentious because they presume that animals think and act like humans would if they had animal bodies. Racism is also pretentious.

(However, calling any work of "fiction" pretentious is usually not apt anyway because -- as it is called "fiction" -- never tries to pass itself off as truth. If we use "pretentious" in this way: Star Wars and Tom Sawyer are both equally pretentioius)

My idea of intellectualism is when people have concise and consistent arguments for things because they have thought about them, and therefore (true) intellectuals are not pretentious because they can support their arguments.

So, yes, pretense is a bad thing because it means someone is trying to sell you a line of misinformed crap as authentic. Anyone calling Swords & Sworcery "pretentious" is being vastly more pretentious than the game could ever be, as the game -- a work of fiction -- does not assert itself to be anything other than it is; the people calling it "pretentious" are actually being pretentious by making assumptions about the aim of the game based on the language, art, or whatever else.

The appropriate word for describing something you think is trying too hard to be smart -- which is also sometimes involves being pretentious -- is "haughty," which is generally what people think of posts like this.

@DriftSPace said:

@PXAbstraction said:

I use the term pretentious but I don't even think that's a bad thing in general sense. High-brow, intellectual stories are a great thing and I'm all for strong narrative in games that explore unique and different themes.

Pretentious does not mean "high-brow, intellectual" at all, and people should not use it to describe those things. "Pretentious" is used to describe a statement about something which is unfounded, assumes a lot, or contains pretense; pretense is an attempt to make something sound true which is not, or is presumed to be true without a supporting argument. Pretentious is always a "bad thing in general sense," because it usually comes out in the opinion of someone who doesn't understand what they are discussing. Just saying "professional sports sucks" is pretentious because it objectifies someone's opinion by defining an object with a subjective experience; saying that Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the world is pretentious for similar reasons; talking animal movies (or all anthropomorphic stories) are, by definition, pretentious because they presume that animals think and act like humans would if they had animal bodies.

(However, calling any work of "fiction" pretentious is usually not apt anyway because -- as it is called "fiction" -- never tries to pass itself off as truth. If we use "pretentious" in this way: Star Wars and Tom Sawyer are both equally pretentioius)

My idea of intellectualism is when people have concise and consistent arguments for things because they have thought about them, and therefore (true) intellectuals are not pretentious because they can support their arguments.

So, yes, pretense is a bad thing because it means someone is trying to sell you a line of misinformed crap as authentic. Anyone calling Swords & Sworcery "pretentious" is being vastly more pretentious than the game could ever be, as the game -- as a work of fiction -- does not assert itself to be anything other than it is; the people calling it "pretentious" are actually being pretentious by making assumptions about the aim of the game based on the language, art, or whatever else.

You are so pretentious.

@Snail said:

@burnquest said:

@Snail said:

"Before the summer solstice" has go to be the most pompous, pretentious way to announce a release date I've ever seen.

It's actually very funny and fits right in with the mood of the rest of the game, where gameplay is actually dependent upon what the current phase of the (real) moon is.

Ooooh, I didn't know that. That's kind of cute actually.

Yup, but you can't have fun with language guys. That'd be artsy and we wouldn't want that.

/sarcasm

@alternate said:

You are so pretentious.

By definition, the most pretentious statement yet; you don't know shit about me.

(Har har.)

Anyway, I really liked this game, but I also didn't really have any expectations when I started it. It's unique, which is a plus, and it engages the player in some non-traditional and creative problem solving. I don't really expect touch-screen games to have good play-control; I think that's ... pretentious.

It reminded me of when I used to play King's Quest as a kid, but with a smarmy and psychedelic twist.

@DriftSPace said:

@PXAbstraction said:

I use the term pretentious but I don't even think that's a bad thing in general sense. High-brow, intellectual stories are a great thing and I'm all for strong narrative in games that explore unique and different themes.

Pretentious does not mean "high-brow, intellectual" at all, and people should not use it to describe those things.

"Pretentious" is used to describe a statement about something which is unfounded, assumes a lot, or contains pretense; pretense is an attempt to make something sound true which is not, or is presumed to be true without a supporting argument. Pretentious is always a "bad thing in general sense," because it usually comes out in the opinion of someone who doesn't understand what they are discussing. Just saying "professional sports sucks" is pretentious because it objectifies someone's opinion by defining an object with a subjective experience; saying that Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the world is pretentious for similar reasons; talking animal movies (or all anthropomorphic stories) are, by definition, pretentious because they presume that animals think and act like humans would if they had animal bodies. Racism is also pretentious.

(However, calling any work of "fiction" pretentious is usually not apt anyway because -- as it is called "fiction" -- never tries to pass itself off as truth. If we use "pretentious" in this way: Star Wars and Tom Sawyer are both equally pretentioius)

My idea of intellectualism is when people have concise and consistent arguments for things because they have thought about them, and therefore (true) intellectuals are not pretentious because they can support their arguments.

So, yes, pretense is a bad thing because it means someone is trying to sell you a line of misinformed crap as authentic. Anyone calling Swords & Sworcery "pretentious" is being vastly more pretentious than the game could ever be, as the game -- a work of fiction -- does not assert itself to be anything other than it is; the people calling it "pretentious" are actually being pretentious by making assumptions about the aim of the game based on the language, art, or whatever else.

The appropriate word for describing something you think is trying too hard to be smart -- which is also sometimes involves being pretentious -- is "haughty," which is generally what people think of posts like this.

So if the word pretentious was being in appropriately used in my posts, what word would you say would have been more appropriate? I'm genuinely asking because I thought I was using the word correctly from the definition I looked up. The word doesn't matter to me so much as the meaning I was trying to convey with it.

Sigh, I really wish more of these games would come to Android. I'm sick of only being able to Angry Birds and Game Dev Story.

@DriftSPace said:

@alternate said:

You are so pretentious.

By definition, the most pretentious statement yet; you don't know shit about me.

Literally.

@evanbower said:

@ChrisTaran said:

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

How do ya figure?

Goodness. Relax a little and learn how to take a joke. Opinions by their very definition can't be objective, it's blatantly obvious I wasn't being serious. Get a sarcasm detector.

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@evanbower said:

@ChrisTaran said:

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

How do ya figure?

Goodness. Relax a little and learn how to take a joke. Opinions by their very definition can't be objective, it's blatantly obvious I wasn't being serious. Get a sarcasm detector.

Ah.

Well it wasn't funny. So maybe that's why no one got it.

@Dan_CiTi said:

I'll wait for Sword & Sworcery LP.

Sucker. I'll keep repping the first demo (before they sold out their aesthetic).

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@evanbower said:

@ChrisTaran said:

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

How do ya figure?

Goodness. Relax a little and learn how to take a joke. Opinions by their very definition can't be objective, it's blatantly obvious I wasn't being serious. Get a sarcasm detector.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Where do I get one?

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@evanbower said:

@ChrisTaran said:

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

How do ya figure?

Goodness. Relax a little and learn how to take a joke. Opinions by their very definition can't be objective, it's blatantly obvious I wasn't being serious. Get a sarcasm detector.

And, seriously dude, how much is this going to run me? Cause.. I've got money.. but.. well, we'll talk.

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@evanbower said:

@ChrisTaran said:

@depecheload said:

@Alex_Carrillo said:

@mbr2 said:

@TheGorilla said:

Great! So more ways to play a terrible game.

WOAH OPINIONS

It's not an opinion. It's an objective fact that I stand behind.

No, your personal taste and views on things are opinions. Get over yourself.

Nope, sorry. It's been scientifically proven. It's a hugely offensive game.

How do ya figure?

Goodness. Relax a little and learn how to take a joke. Opinions by their very definition can't be objective, it's blatantly obvious I wasn't being serious. Get a sarcasm detector.

Ah.

Well it wasn't funny. So maybe that's why no one got it.

Or perhaps you're really, really stupid. I mean, it's entirely possible!

@Robster said:

Cant wait to play this! haven't experienced it yet

This "game" is garbage, honestly. There's very little interaction at all, and what is there isn't very compelling outside of the general asthetics of it. I, non sarcastically and in all honestly, would have enjoyed it more on YouTube than I would have actually "playing" it.

The art is awesome.

The music is cool.

Some of the dialog is funny in a "heh. that's quirky" way.

The unorthodox "we're serious about not taking this seriously" way of naming characters and objects is funny.

None of those things take place in the context of a game.

I bought it because it was referred to as "hipster zelda". It's more honestly a "hipster speak and spell".

@DriftSPace said:

@PXAbstraction said:

I use the term pretentious but I don't even think that's a bad thing in general sense. High-brow, intellectual stories are a great thing and I'm all for strong narrative in games that explore unique and different themes.

Pretentious does not mean "high-brow, intellectual" at all, and people should not use it to describe those things.

"Pretentious" is used to describe a statement about something which is unfounded, assumes a lot, or contains pretense; pretense is an attempt to make something sound true which is not, or is presumed to be true without a supporting argument. Pretentious is always a "bad thing in general sense," because it usually comes out in the opinion of someone who doesn't understand what they are discussing. Just saying "professional sports sucks" is pretentious because it objectifies someone's opinion by defining an object with a subjective experience; saying that Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the world is pretentious for similar reasons; talking animal movies (or all anthropomorphic stories) are, by definition, pretentious because they presume that animals think and act like humans would if they had animal bodies. Racism is also pretentious.

(However, calling any work of "fiction" pretentious is usually not apt anyway because -- as it is called "fiction" -- never tries to pass itself off as truth. If we use "pretentious" in this way: Star Wars and Tom Sawyer are both equally pretentioius)

My idea of intellectualism is when people have concise and consistent arguments for things because they have thought about them, and therefore (true) intellectuals are not pretentious because they can support their arguments.

So, yes, pretense is a bad thing because it means someone is trying to sell you a line of misinformed crap as authentic. Anyone calling Swords & Sworcery "pretentious" is being vastly more pretentious than the game could ever be, as the game -- a work of fiction -- does not assert itself to be anything other than it is; the people calling it "pretentious" are actually being pretentious by making assumptions about the aim of the game based on the language, art, or whatever else.

The appropriate word for describing something you think is trying too hard to be smart -- which is also sometimes involves being pretentious -- is "haughty," which is generally what people think of posts like this.

I disagree. Something is pretentious when it is concerned with pretense. You are absolutely right when you say that it is something that pretends to have content but in reality lacks the content it portrays itself as having.

Sword and Sworcery is EVERY BIT of that.

As I said in my previous statement, it sells itself with the quote that it is "hipster zelda". It's not even a game. It features a number of game systems that are used once if they're fully fleshed out at all and ultimately fails to be a game in any common sense of the term. Is it an experience? Sure, one could say that. Is it art? One could say that. Is it a videogame? No. Attempting to sell it as such is disingenuous and pretentious.

@PXAbstraction said:

@DriftSPace said:

@PXAbstraction said:

I use the term pretentious but I don't even think that's a bad thing in general sense. High-brow, intellectual stories are a great thing and I'm all for strong narrative in games that explore unique and different themes.

Pretentious does not mean "high-brow, intellectual" at all, and people should not use it to describe those things.

"Pretentious" is used to describe a statement about something which is unfounded, assumes a lot, or contains pretense; pretense is an attempt to make something sound true which is not, or is presumed to be true without a supporting argument. Pretentious is always a "bad thing in general sense," because it usually comes out in the opinion of someone who doesn't understand what they are discussing. Just saying "professional sports sucks" is pretentious because it objectifies someone's opinion by defining an object with a subjective experience; saying that Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the world is pretentious for similar reasons; talking animal movies (or all anthropomorphic stories) are, by definition, pretentious because they presume that animals think and act like humans would if they had animal bodies. Racism is also pretentious.

(However, calling any work of "fiction" pretentious is usually not apt anyway because -- as it is called "fiction" -- never tries to pass itself off as truth. If we use "pretentious" in this way: Star Wars and Tom Sawyer are both equally pretentioius)

My idea of intellectualism is when people have concise and consistent arguments for things because they have thought about them, and therefore (true) intellectuals are not pretentious because they can support their arguments.

So, yes, pretense is a bad thing because it means someone is trying to sell you a line of misinformed crap as authentic. Anyone calling Swords & Sworcery "pretentious" is being vastly more pretentious than the game could ever be, as the game -- a work of fiction -- does not assert itself to be anything other than it is; the people calling it "pretentious" are actually being pretentious by making assumptions about the aim of the game based on the language, art, or whatever else.

The appropriate word for describing something you think is trying too hard to be smart -- which is also sometimes involves being pretentious -- is "haughty," which is generally what people think of posts like this.

So if the word pretentious was being in appropriately used in my posts, what word would you say would have been more appropriate? I'm genuinely asking because I thought I was using the word correctly from the definition I looked up. The word doesn't matter to me so much as the meaning I was trying to convey with it.

I think you said what you meant to say when you said "high brow intellectual stories". But the question is, and I can't answer this, whether that in and of itself is pretentious? Why do you feel the need to play "high brow intellectual stories"? I personally feel like a lot of people say they want to play games like that because they feel like that portrays them as being people of substance. Like they're smart, cultured, refined, individuals. But wanting people to see them as such is the definition of pretentious. Especially when they point to games that AREN'T any of these things as justification as to why they are. A guy in a previous thread today was making all kinds of deep, unfounded statements about the brilliant morality study that was Grand Theft Auto. That was pretension because anyone who has played GTA, and most people in the thread, pointed out how unfounded his comments were even if GTA is a fun game.

LOOKS GREAT CAN'T WAIT.

Oh, it's the game. I totally thought "EP" was the soundtrack. Makes sense, I guess.

@Dan_CiTi said:

I'll wait for Sword & Sworcery LP.

You mean the soundtrack?