Quick Look: Solo: The Novelist

That mustache is intense. Art style doesn't look half-bad, either.

this seems really interesting

Holy content batman!

I don't care how much you like pretentious art games, this just looks boring. And it doesn't help that it's a game all about empathizing with the characters that has super lame dialogue and voice acting.

Thanks I was hoping to check this out.

Please, stop saying that.

Stories like this frustrate me because on one hand they try to talk about real life issues, and on the other i hate that humans have to make everything so god damn complicated.

Linda likes painting, or does she like painting it's hard to tell, not getting what she wanted once put her into such a bad mood that she can't do the thing that she... likes, first world problems, nobody's happy being in a fantastic warm comfortable house anymore with time and money to entertain yourselves, gota have problems.

Quite frankly I don't use that term a lot but I think it seems applicable here. Although you're right, the "art" part may not be appropriate.

Do you know what pretentious means? Everything I'm seeing here doesn't scream "I am trying to be smart but actually I'm cliche and stupid."

why can't the characters be interesting? Make one an insufferable asshole, or a raging slut, drop Cujo in the backyard. something. anything. these people are so boring.

Yea this looks awful.

Finished this game, really loved it. It does a great examination in how hard it is to maintain a work/life balance. And is easily the best look into family matters in a videogame, no "Press X to Jason" here :P Cool to see you got different notes to read than me. I didn't choose the kite. My Dan wasn't as tip-top punctual with the novel, I helped the marriage more and neglected the son wholesale! XD I felt like an asshole by the end, but it still ended quite sweet for me.

I don't know why Patrick and Cara have an issue with being a ghost. It makes it easier for you to evaluate all the characters equally when you're this disembodied presence to make the moral decisions at the end of each chapter. Also, @patrickklepek your hopes that it doesn't go supernatural are met.

I'm up for a new playthrough now, this time to see what happens if you only focus working on the novel. Or just the wife and son.

Does Patrick have a cold? He sounds really nasally.

Edit- spoke to soon. Cold confirmed.

This game. :(

Looks interesting... might have to check it out!

What a novel Quick Look.

@tikicobra: I don't think you know what pretentious means. In fact the way you used that word was rather pretentious.

So this is the spiritual successor to Gone Home. I guess the MC just couldn't take it in the previous game.

The music and voice acting in this game reminds me a lot of the early naughts stuff.

Thanks for the content, Scoops!

After playing The Swapper last weekend, I'm definitely on a Klepek high. Gotta get on Tearaway next, though. But this does seem kinda neat... an interesting idea at least.

I want a game I can really relate to, about how hard it is to maintain both a home life and mustache life.

Seems kind of boring.

Ohhh, a new quick look! Just shoot it right into my veeeeeeins. I need my fix.

I was curious what this game was like after Cara was talking about it with Scoops on the morning show a couple episodes back. Time to see!

As someone who works as a novelist I cannot fathom how anyone can think my job is interesting enough to make a video game about it.

This strikes me as a game that thinks it has something very important to say. And maybe if it were done better it could, but the game and its characters are so "normal" that it's just dull.

Great quick look @patrickklepek. I have been looking forward to this, and after watching this QL I think I'll bite the bullet. I'm glad you shared your insights on how the game relates to you, as I was especially curious on your thoughts as writer. I'd hope you share your thoughts in some fashion when you are finished! I think it's great that this triggered you to reflect on your own life, that's the kind of thing I love about video games like these.

calling a game (or any sort of product) pretentious. Is a bit pretentious in itself...

I think it looks interesting, but clearly pretty marred by the production values of it all.

@sooty: I'm glad to see we are on the same page here. :)

Google Sketchup: The Game!

I try not to judge any game, especially smaller ones like this, too harshly on the graphics/presentation, but it was really bugging me throughout this QL. For a game that relies entirely on being invested in the emotions of the characters, the empty sterile environment and awkward robotic animations make me think that I just couldn't make that vital leap.

@tourgen: I think that is the point. It's a game about average people living their lives and how the minor choices they make on a day to day basis can have far reaching consequences. If a character was a slut or an asshole then you would have less incentive to make them happy.

I don't really think it has anything to say outside of the struggle of pursuing a career vs caring for a family. It's a shame that you find that such an abstract concept that the best way you can describe it is as pretentious.

And, I think the characters being normal is kind of the point.

You don't have to like it, but don't be a douche.

Not that the complaints aren't valid, but the game was developed by like, a singular dude.

I'm guessing Hudson didn't have the time or money to make environments as detailed as Gone Home, nor did he have the budget/contacts to have voice acting as good as Gone Home. Even if this game had absolutely phenomenal writing, it seems from the comments that you're still not going to impress a bunch of people who will get hung up on the minimal graphics/animation/voice acting. On the other hand, Papers, Please did quite well despite also having minimal graphics/animation/no voice acting, but it cheats by having stressful gameplay that is engaging as fuck, plus amusing/morally interesting writing.

So I feel for Kent, because people are going to compare this game to Gone Home, and the odds are stacked against him. But hey man, this is the game he wanted to make, and it's cool that he finished it and people get to check out this experience, even if some of you cats are not so hot on it.

Also, not to be a dick, but Patrick "empathy games" Klepek strikes again! I just don't like that label at all, because that's what the vast majority of literature and films are trying to do by default. You would not call Silver Linings Playbook an "empathy film". I don't know what else to call them, aside from maybe like "experiential games" since each one is trying to evoke a particular experience, but that's a shitty label as well.

I think my immediate hang up is less to do with the story or characters but the way interfacing with the house and characters seems clunky.

Curious to see the follow through on these characters, which to me is what will make or break this game and push me over the edge to check it out. If anything, another game based around a writer is bringing back memories of playing Alan Wake which is always appreciated.

Hmmm. That's an interesting one. On the one hand, I agree with you that in general, "evoking empathy" is not enough of a defining characteristic for an artistic experience to define a new genre by it. But is that true of games, specifically? I'm more on the fence about that.

Most games do not spend a lot of time worrying about empathy. Either they do not address it at all (I have never, in my 25+ years of gaming, felt anything resembling empathy for the characters of the Mario universe, and I wouldn't even consider empathy for a Tetris block), or it is primarily in the realm of the cutscenes, rather than the gameplay. I wouldn't characterize Dead Space 2 as an empathy game, certainly, despite all the time it spends on the main character's dead girlfriend yelling at him in spirit, because the gameplay contains nothing of that - it is a maximum no-empathy game, as it is mainly concerned with the stomping on of corpses for delicious health pickups and ammo for your mutilating sawblade gun.

But something like Spec Ops: the Line? Not so clear. That game's certainly not "the Novelist" - the gameplay is still mostly shooting guys with guns - but it's pretty clear the impact that game had on people was mostly story based and emotional. So does it belong in a category with Papers, Please? i think that's the trouble with the term "empathy game" that you're hitting on.

So I guess I'm with you, there. Honestly, if I had to suggest an alternative, I think I'd go with a tried-and-true classic: "simulation". At the core of pretty much every "empathy game" that I've played (Gone Home, Cart Life, Papers, Please, the Novelist, etc.) is a representation of some aspect of human life, which is the characteristic that produces the empathy. So maybe that's a better way to go? I dunno. Just was interested by your thought, and decided to muse for a while.

Dat stuffy nose.

Other than the voice acting (it's still fine), I find The Novelist better than Gone Home because of its design. Gone Home is a tourist attraction, but I prefer The Novelist for allowing me to make meaningful decisions and have an actual branching narrative much like Papers Please unlike other games that are just smoke-and-mirrors about that (Walking Dead, Mass Effect, Infamous, Deus Ex, etc). Allows for more real replayability. That's where most of the work has been done, and I feel that deserves more praise than superficial aspects like voice acting or graphics. While the love story in Gone Home is really well laid out, the family story in this game I feel will be more relevant to me in the future when I do have a family.

These solo quick looks are terrible.

What is the draw here? Life itself has enough compromises and questions of choice and potential crises. Why would I play a videogame that simulates that?

Yeah they should definitely label them so we can tell the difference. Oh wait...

Thanks Patrick. Cool quick look.

What was that other game, not geist, where you could posses objects and mess with people?

I don't see why the ghost thing is that big of a deal. Why else would you be jumping from objects and reliving these people's memories. The Novelist seems to use the conceit well. Also, how do we know Gone Home isn't a ghost story?

Came here to say exactly this is in predictably ruder terms. "Empathy games" is nonsense. Most of these are adventure games, in that the objectives are intuitive or exploratory as opposed to statistical as in RPGs or tests of dexterity as in action games. I was also going to make the "empathy film" "empathy sculpture" comparison.

I generally try to avoid things that I feel unduly flatter myself, and referring to the games I play as "empathy games" just seems like such an obvious pat on my own back. When I rescue 6 slaves from the monstrous Morglethropes of Fangoria and don't ask for a reward, I'm not playing an "altruism game" I'm playing an isometric turn based RPG.

@calculating_infinity: Was that really needed?

I do try my best not to post my more negative thoughts, but this game seems painfully dull.

The concept sounded interesting, though.